Have your cake and eat it (Chicklit contest finalist)

Chapter eight

In the years to come when I look back at this particular half term, it will always stand out due to what shall henceforth be known as 'the day my children were possessed by devils'. To put it bluntly, the day was a nightmare from start to finish. It was literally as if Satan himself had descended upon them and set up camp. It started in the car on the way back from a nice family outing to a castle. Well, technically it started in the castle gift shop when Joshua and Jessica started fighting over the last Viking hat.

“Come on now,” I chide. “You don't really want that do you? What about this nice educational book?” I plead. “See, it tells you how the castle was built and how they used to bring the drawbridge up over the moat to protect themselves when the enemy was coming."

Joshua blinks uncomprehendingly at its colourful pages, while Jessica turns up her nose. Please don’t even ask me what Tamsin is doing as she is currently outside of my line of vision. I’m hoping she’s with her Dad looking at the toy horses.

“That book is for babies!” Jessica sneers, barely even glancing at it.

You see, the thing about books is they are age specific. Whereas Viking hats, on the other hand, are universal and appeal to all ages. Anyone can wear one and instantly transform into a marauding idiot.

It turns out that Joshua and Jessica don't need the Viking hat to do a stunningly accurate impression of feral children. It’s a mere prop. Although it’s not like they have any difficulty getting into character.

I’m secretly hoping that leaving the piece of headgear behind will result in a nice, quiet car journey home during which they both sit and sulk. However, these hopes are dashed as soon as we reverse out the large castle car park. Jessica is shouting at her brother to move over so she can fasten her seat belt and he is roaring back that he can’t because Tamsin’s car seat is in the way. Jessica gives him an almighty shove, which sends him flying into his little sister who, predictably, starts to cry. It’s like it’s her default setting or something. I find a radio station that’s playing music and turn the volume up loud, suddenly lacking the energy to even try and placate the three in the back seat. I glance at Steve but he is staring fixedly ahead at the road, gripping the steering wheel, his jaw set in a grim line.

Sometimes I don't know what I was thinking having the younger two so close together. It’s hard work with three kids under the age of eight. I’d been spoiled with having practically four years between Joshua and Jessica before Tamsin came along. Given the trouble we had conceiving the middle child I'm blaming it on the visit to a fertility stone during a trip to Ireland. At first I'd been pleased that we had completed our little family of three children sooner than anticipated, but once the constant feeding, changing, crying-in-the-night stage had segued into a yet another uncomfortable pregnancy before the whole cycle began again, I'd begun to question the wisdom of this philosophy.

To top it off, when we arrive home in the late afternoon, fractious, hungry and tired, Pom Pom decides to shoot out the front door in yet another bid for freedom. Thankfully, Steve pounces on him just in time. This must be the fifth escape attempt he has made since he got here yesterday.

“He’s a dogged little shit, for a cat,” says Steve, wrestling with him on the doormat. “Why don’t you just let him outside Bella? It would make all our lives easier, having one less willful creature to control.”

I shake my head adamantly. “He already escaped once and I spent fifteen minutes trying to coax him back in from the top of the driveway with a cocktail sausage. It was the worst quarter of an hour of my life. You know what Rose is like, she’d flip if anything happened to him. I’d rather not take that risk.”

Pom Pom gives me a malevolent stare as I lock the front door, sealing off his escape route. He starts to prowl around the living room meowing, pausing briefly to lick his tail and scratch his ear before continuing.

I get nervous when he meows. What is he trying to convey. Is he happy? Sad? Constipated?

“What, what's he saying?” I ask Steve, frustrated at this little performance that shows no sign of abating. I frantically flick through the file Rose left me, but there is no chapter on meows. There is one on grooming; personal and other. Actually, here is something. I jump on it. Meow. Let's see.

“He does not meow often, but just because he is not very vocal does not mean he is unable to express himself,” it reads. Oh for god's sake. I snap the file shut in disgust. Am I actually related to this woman?

I’m about to go and check on the older two – Tamsin is glued to her father – when they come downstairs, suddenly the best of friends again. They open the door to the back garden to go on the trampoline and despite me doing an impressive imitation of Usain Bolt, I don’t manage to get to it before Pom Pom. It’s as if he sensed the odds were stacked in his favour as it was a different exit to the one he usually tries and the sentries on door duty were smaller and slower. I got there just in time to see a white blur streak across the garden and follow the next door neighbour’s startled tabby up and over the fence.

“Oh god!” I wail as Steve comes to stand behind me.

”What am I going to do? What if he doesn't come back, Rose will absolutely kill me,” I babble hysterically. “It’s like if Joshua went to stay with her for a weekend and ran off down the garden path with the neighbour, never to be seen again.”

Now, instead of spending the next half hour sorting through the washing, or more likely, dusting yet more cat hair off the worktops, I'm going to have to spend it cooking a piece of organic chicken in the hope the smell will bring the furry little overlord home.

"Er OK, calm yourself Bella, its not quite like that is it?" asks Steve, clearly alarmed.

"Just leave him. He'll come back when he's hungry or when Tabitha gives him the brush off.” He looks at me closely.

“Bella darling, are you quite sure you are alright, you look a little stressed out.”

“I’m…fine” I say, breathing deeply and exhaling. “Honestly I am, don’t worry. Although I’m clearly not fine, am I? I don’t know what’s gotten into me.

"Its just, you know, hormones," I say randomly. “I think I’ll go and have a bath actually, if you can keep an eye on the kids.”

Steve shoots me a quizzical look but the arrival of Joshua and Jessica in from the garden – mercifully followed by Pom Pom -  prevents him from enquiring any further.