The House of Bells: The Essences Saga - Book #1

House: Chapter 10

A few minutes later, Melissa came screaming down the stairs, "What the hell is this?!" She dragged the hand-woven quilt behind her. Mae followed, grinning, with her own gift.

"You don't like it?" I asked in a mockingly wounded voice.

"Where's my blanket," she demanded. I only shrugged and gave her a small, sardonic smile.

"Very clever," Mae muttered as her friend stomped away. Melissa spent the rest of the afternoon searching for any blanket she could find. None of the others would allow her to even touch theirs.

"I am not sleeping under toilet paper!"

Just before dinner, everyone else realized the whole ramifications of my retaliation. The only toilet paper in the house was woven together on top of the pranksters' beds.

Amber was the first to approach me, "Please tell me we have more toilet paper."

"I'm afraid not, Amber. You will have to take that up with Melissa and Mae."

Two days later, Melissa was still looking for her comforter, and Mae had lost half of her paper quilt to the other girl's bathroom needs. Mrs. Baker never commented on the extra items in her pantry. Eventually, Melissa resorted to threats. And I reminded her that she went to school five days a week, leaving me here alone for seven long hours to plan and scheme. That shut her up. On the third day, I returned their blankets and draped what was left of the home-made quilts on a towel rack in the girls' bathroom. It was not going to be wasted.

The majority of the pranks stopped after that. Occasionally, I would find a sprinkle of sand between my sheets or my alarm clock reset, but I didn't mind the harmless ones. And sometimes, the girls would discover that their pillow cases had been stuffed with pine cones, but how that happened was always a mystery to me.

The weeks after my employment weren't all full of laughter. There was plenty of shouting and fussing, arguing and crying. These were, after all, teenage girls. A lot of drama took place when they were together for too long.

One weekend in particular stood out in my memory. It was just before St. Valentine's Day. The House had been storming with bad moods all week. Jennie and Melissa were the only ones with boyfriends, and that reality was obvious to the others. Ashley was asked to the dance at her school for that Thursday night, and Amber gave some grief about who had asked her, saying the boy was too short for her. Ashley came home that night in a good mood, but one searching look from her older sister had her feeling indignant. She locked herself in the bathroom for an hour and wouldn't come out or answer any of my questions until I asked Jennie to keep Amber downstairs. Ashley did emerge then, but she went straight to bed.

On Friday, all hell broke loose. I was coming out of the shower when I heard a lot of banging from the laundry room. Melissa was in there, searching for a missing shirt. She snarled at me when I asked what she was looking for, or if I could help her. The shirt was accidentally hung up in Ashley's closet, so when Melissa found it there, she began to yell at the younger sister, which in turn had Amber yelling at Melissa. By the time I decided to step in, the name-calling, the cussing, and the low blows about "Momma's" had already commenced. I managed to break up that skirmish, but both Tia and Ashley left for school crying. Amber and Melissa were still whispering fiercely at each other as they walked out the door, with a smirking Mae trailing after. Jennie stayed in her room until the other girls were gone, and Mrs. Baker, practically whistling as she bustled around the kitchen, ignored it all.

"Those girls need the fear of God in 'em," she told me after Jennie finally hopped on her scooter and took off towards the coffee shop.

"I don't think even 'God' could help them," I replied wearily, rubbing my temples.