Mr.
Barnstock refused to keep up with the Joneses. ‘Waste not want not. You don’t know. Another economic depression could
come any day now.’
When Mrs.
Barnstock suspected her little daughters, Lola and Rose, might ask her for
something they really really wanted, she would hide in the kitchen cutting up
the spuds or throwing extra spices into the minced meat.
‘Please, can I learn how to play the piano
accordion?’ or ‘Can I take tap dancing?’
She would
look up from her potato peels, ‘Just ask your father.’
From her
kitchen nook she could hear their father’s banal answer, ‘Do you think money
grows on trees. You’ve got another think coming. We are not going to keep up
with the Joneses like all the other families around here.’
One
afternoon Mr. Barnstock tasked with making space for the arrival of a new baby
went to the basement and hammered pieces of white particle board together. The
mock bedrooms rested on a wood platform to keep the hand me down beds off of
the concrete basement floor. ‘We now live in a four- bedroom home,’ he was
proud to say.
Lola
and Rose each chose a room which they called their cardboard bedrooms. For
fresh air, Rose’s room had a small window about twelve inches by eight inches
with a piece of glass that slid back and forth to open and close it. Later on,
it became handy for Rose who wriggled her tiny frame through the small opening
and escaped into the night for a bag of chips at the Burger King bought with
money stolen from her mother’s tithe coins.
When
Matthew, their little brother, came along, Lola and Rose overheard their
parents telling a member of the church congregation that he had been an accident.
They kept this bit of news secret since
they had no idea what sort of accident he could be and they were afraid to ask.
Matthew had a wall eye and when he turned four or five, it became apparent that
he was riddled with tics which ranged from flinging out his left arm to
scrunching up his nose. Lola and Rose had a theory about Matthew’s repetitious
movements. They decided that any favourite son mollycoddled in the second main
floor bedroom next to his mother and father was doomed to his suffer such
peculiarities.
One
day after Lola’s request for a sleeveless blue blouse was rejected, she climbed
down the ninety- degree ladder to her cardboard bedroom in the basement. She
reached under the bottom metal divider of her doll’s buggy to a secret
compartment where she stashed all the cheap cosmetics, bought fromthe occasional dimes she got
from the neighbour for clipping their front lawn along the sidewalks. The
Pond’s Angel Face powder and the rose rouge were her most treasured items. After she covered her face with the powder
and dabs of rouge, she lifted her head and stuck out her tongue in the
direction of the kitchen where her mother was busy with dinner.
A
resentment had grown in the hearts of Lola and Rose as they witnessed the
persistent pampering of Matthew while their every wish was denied. Such pent-
up emotions must be released and so after dark in their cardboard box bedrooms,
Lola and Rose vented their spleen.
That
night after lights out they let loose in their basement sanctuary. Of course, nothing
could be overheard by those above in the two official bedrooms. Everything was
kept secret by transmission through a black rubber laundry hose with sufficient
length to stretch from the Lola’s ear to Roses’ ear. Any words passing within
the length of the rubber hose were muffled.
‘Matthew’s
tics never stop.’
‘That’s
because mother and father have spoiled him rotten.’
‘Should
we kill them then?’ Lots of giggles coming from both ends of the hose.
‘Sure,
but how?’
‘We could
hit them over the head and cut them up into bits.’
‘Ugh too much
blood and clean up.’
‘Yeah,
but we could put all the bits into those big plastic bags.’
‘Then
what.’
‘We could
put everything into the trunk of a car and roll the car over the cliff. No one
would ever find them.’
Gales of
laughter and a loud thumping on the floor from above. ‘Go to sleep.’
Lola and
Rose lapse into a short period of silence.
‘Well
what other plans do you have then?’
‘Let’s
talk later. I am sleepy now. Goodnight.’ Rose drops the hose and pretty soon
Lola hears her purring like a kitten.
In
the morning, they climb the steep ladder upstairs for a bowl of stodgy porridge
as sustenance before their uphill walk to school. Their mother scowls and says,
‘if you two don’t pipe down at night your father will come and beat the can out
of you.’ Lola and Rose roll their eyes and concentrate on finishing their
gruel.
On
their walk to the Lampson Street elementary school, they unanimously decide
that both their mother and father will have to go.
‘But what
about Matthew?’ Rose wonders.
‘Oh him,
once mother and father are gone, he’ll go back to normal.’
Satisfied
with their plan, they start to whistle a merry tune and jump over the pavement
cracks not to break their mother’s back.
About the author
Faith is a committed writer. A member of the Sarah Selecky Writers Group, she writes daily in response to prompts and attends online events/courses to develop writing skills.
Last year, Shorts Magazine and Dreamer Creative Writing published her submissions.
She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (MSN)
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