By the time Alex was off the phone, two young people were standing at her door.
One was a tall, redheaded lad—quite handsome except for the way that he slouched.
I despair of the posture of modern youth.
The other was a wee girl who looked to be no more than five or six. She was clutching a doll. Her long hair, also red, fell nearly to her waist.
“Alex, what the heck is wrong with you?” asked the boy.
“Look around!” she shouted in response.
“Hey, I can see your floor!”
“Very funny!”
“I think it looks nice,” said the little girl.
It was good to know there is one sensible person in this family! Alas, Alex’s response was to growl, “I liked it the way it was!”
“Then why did you clean it up?” asked the big brother. “Did Mom finally lower the boom?”
“I didn’t clean it up! Didn’t you hear what I just said to the police? Some creeper sneaked in here and cleaned my room while I wasn’t looking!”
The big brother smirked. “Okay, I got it. You cleaned it up but don’t want to admit it. Now you want us to forget it.”
With that rhyme, I felt my stomach clench. Was the curse I am supposedly doomed to carry with me taking effect? I felt sick at the thought.
“Maybe you have a magical friend, like Herbert,” said the little girl.
Big brother rolled his eyes at this, but it made me wonder if someone else from the Enchanted Realm is living in this house. Little as I like it here, lonely as I am, I’m not sure how I would feel about sharing the place with another magical being.
Just then we heard an unholy howling. A chill ran down my spine at the sound. Then I realized it was what they call a siren, as I’ve seen in the old movies I watched with Sarah.
Next came a knocking at the door.
All three children ran down the stairs. Oh, how I longed to run after them to see what was going on. I could not, of course, as I’m nae to be seen, except possibly by Alex, though right now I canna think of any reason I would want that to happen.
I learned soon enough what it was all about. That was because when Mrs. Carhart returned home, she came to Alex’s door and, with enough ice in her voice to freeze a small pond, said, “Did you really call the police today?”
The girl is made of sterner stuff than I thought, for she rose from her desk and said, “I certainly did!”
“Why?” asked the mother.
“Because you didn’t warn me that you hired someone to clean my room. I thought it had been done by some creepy prowler.”
Mrs. Carhart actually snorted, which was not very ladylike. Then she said, “The day we can afford a housekeeper, he or she takes on my work first!”
“Well, then who did…this?” sputtered the girl, waving her arm to indicate the beautiful tidiness I had imposed on the horrible clutter.
Mrs. Carhart rolled her eyes. “Look, Alex, I understand you take some perverse pride in having your room look like it’s inhabited by apes. I also assume that my threat to ground you for a million years has had some effect. But you can’t go calling the police just to create an excuse for having cleaned your room.”
“I did not clean my room!” cried Miss Alex, as if denying that she had just committed an ax murder.
Mrs. Carhart sighed. “You are the strangest child,” she said. Then she turned and walked away, muttering something about bigger problems in her life.
Alex returned to her desk. Growling savagely, she rammed a long metal tool through the chest of the clay man she had been working on.
I must admit, I flinched at that.
The girl seems infuriated by the idea of anyone thinking she cleaned the room herself and clearly takes an inexplicable delight in her messiness.
I fear she may consider it a mark of her “artistic temperament.”
My only hope is that when she begins to understand the joy of having a constantly clean room, she will change her mind.