Relying On Ben and Jerry (Waltham #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Lookin' Like a Fool

Right.

“I’m hungry,” Alyssa whined less than a minute later. I looked away from staring at the black television screen and down at where she was staring up at me from the floor, pouting with her hands in her lap. “Go and make me something.”

“What do you want to eat?” I asked, sighing as I heaved myself up from the couch. She gave me a flat look.

“Food,” she said.

“I realize this,” I told her slowly, begging myself not to lose my patience. “What kind of food?”

She rolled her eyes. “Good food.”

My eye twitched.

“Macaroni and cheese?” I asked her, and her eyes lit up. She dashed to her feet and scrambled in front of me before diving into the kitchen, soon accompanied by the sound of a lot of things crashing. I growled under my breath and ran into the kitchen after her, hoping she didn’t knock over something that I would get in trouble for.

I pulled open the door and walked into the kitchen—or, at least, I tried to.

Just as I went to cross over the threshold I ran face-first into a wall of plastic wrap, tripping from the unexpected force and ripping it from the tape that secured it on the wall. I sprawled on the tile floor, wincing from the hit.

From above me, there was the sound of infinite giggling.

I looked up at Alyssa, gaping at her. She smiled down at me angelically before widening her eyes, folding her hands in front of her. “I thought you were going to make me mac and cheese?” she whined, making a pouty face. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

After I stared at her for a little bit, I pushed myself up onto my knees, groaning as I moved the parts of my body that had body-slammed the floor. I reached up and started to yank away the plastic wrap.

I froze.

“Alyssa?” I asked in a shockingly controlled voice. She smiled at me, silently telling me to continue. I didn’t have the words at first, but eventually I managed to demand, “Is this plastic wrap covered in syrup?”

She giggled, clapping her hands as she merrily nodded. It was all I could not to jump up and just throttle the little girl where she stood in her deceiving little nightie. I opened my mouth to scream at her, but all that came out was, “You didn’t.”

“Lena,” she said, “I’m hungry—mac and cheese, please?”

This little girl better hope I didn’t find the spices. Or the rat poison. This was war.

~*~

“I want to go to the park.”

“It’s six thirty at night.”

“I think Mandy from my art table smells.”

“What?”

“I thought we were naming facts, like we do in social studies.”

I had no doubt that the little brat didn’t think that this had anything to do with social studies, unless it was a lesson on all of the psychopaths of the modern world. Then the past might suddenly become relevant.

I have been leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for the water to boil and attempting to scrub the Miss Butterworth’s from my hair for the last ten minutes, and never had Alyssa stopped demanding to do things—the park, the mall, watching a rated R movie, calling one of her friends. I was barely able to tell her no when the horror struck that this little girl actually owned a cell phone, never mind when I realized it was better than mine.