“Hey, Jer. Where are the-” an audible slap could be heard from the halls before she could even make it through his doorway. “I mean Jeraud.” She corrected herself as she barged in, her forehead reddening at the center.
He rolled his eyes and sighed, getting back to his studying despite her presence, ignoring her stupid endless smile.
She shifted on her feet, forgetting what she walked to ask in his irritated grumbles. “Sorry, but do you know where the twins are?”
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” he murmured without looking up from his textbook.
She cocked a brow, her expression twisted in question. “I’m sorry?”
He swiveled around in his seat to watch the stupidity on her face in real time. “Isn’t it obvious where they are? They’re only in the same place every single second of their free time.”
She pouted rebelliously, parking her hip against his doorway, knowing her simple presence would irritate him. He groaned in defeat, waving his arm at her as he swiveled back around. “The game room downstairs, you freak! Where else?!”
“Thanks!” she stated with a perky smile, unaffected by his foulness as her lively skips could be heard bouncing down the hall.
“Wait, why?” His curiosity getting the best of him, and her lack of an explanation to her questioning, he swiveled back around in his chair toward his entryway.
Her skips could be heard trailing back, like a movie in reverse, before flipping on her heels and beaming at his as if she expected this question. “I was going to ask if they wanted to play some baseball with me. Since they always play videogames, I thought it’d be nice to go out for once.” She shrugged with a challenging smirk. “You’re invited to join, in case you get bored of being so unpleasant all of the time.” Her stare was daring as she turned back around and hopped away.
He ignored her challenge as he boldly stated that it wasn’t going to work. But his warning fell on muted ears as he could hear that she was already downstairs, asking the boys if they wanted to quit their game playing and have fun outside. He rolled his eyes, getting back to his studies, as he mumbled that it was a fruitless attempt to get the twins outside.
“Sure!”
“Okay!”
As soon as he heard their eager agreements, Jeraud jolted up in surprise and bolted to his bedroom window which overlooked the backyard. The three were out in the pale sunlight, grabbing the bats, mitts, and baseballs from the shed.
“She actually got them to stop playing videogames?!” he growled in heated loathing. “What the literally fuck!” Plopping back in his chair, he prodded his intellect for schemes. He had to get the mountain gorilla into undeniable trouble as soon as possible. She’s had a week’s worth of stealing his spotlight, and it was time for her to become the real monster that she was.
He shoved the textbooks from his desk, and they thudded to the floor like scrambling cattle. Focusing on the awful deeds he could frame on the troll, his mind wouldn’t fully fit into attention at the sound of their screaming and cheering from downstairs. And their constant laughing was annoying, yet tantalizing at the same time, wooing the reluctant boy to come out and play in this crisp fall weather.
The temptation getting the best of Jeraud, he dragged himself downstairs while promising that he’d only watch them play, not engage in their idiocy. He was a pro at baseball, not that it’s much of a surprise, but Jeraud didn’t want the freak to actually believe he would willingly spend time with her. He most certainly does not want to spend any more time with her than he was forced to.
He stood and glowered at the trio through the dining room window, watching as Benjamin ran around their makeshift bases with Rosalind playfully chasing after him, never tagging him despite being fully capable of doing so. Then it was Edward’s turn to hit. He took the bat quite timidly, and his stance over the home plate seemed a little bit terrified, shuffled forward like a toddler’s.
“You’re doing great, Ed,” Jeraud could taste the bile run up his throat at the stupid nicknames she gave his brothers. “Just loosen up a bit, and choke the bat a little higher.”
With a timid nod, Edward fixed his stance as the creature had directed and called out for the ball. With an unsure smile, the beast lightly tossed the ball his way. Edward shut his eyes as if the ball were coming at him at a hundred miles per hour, and swung with all his might.
Jeraud gasped as a dense thud echoed across the backyard, his heart swelling with pride for his mousy little brother. Then it filled with double shots of envy, realizing the first ball Edward had hit would be from the instruction of that witch. He scorned her even more for taking this precious moment from him, especially since he had spent countless patient hours trying to coach Edward.
Everyone turned to watch the ball which was tearing through the air. Jeraud was impressed by the velocity of it before realizing it was headed straight toward him!
With a gasped, he ducked to the left seconds before the crack of the glass window tore through the silenced crowd, and crashed against the wall beside his head.
A vase perched on a shelf on the wall was hit by the foul ball, yet remained whole as it teetered drunkenly on its post. The ball thud to the ground before the broken glass of the window could.
Jeraud first lunged to save the swaying vase before it hit him. This was the chance he had been waiting for. This was how he would make his first step at getting the mountain gorilla to leave. His fingers a hair’s breathe from saving the vase, Jeraud bit on his lip, assessing the pros and cons in what little time he had. Quickly, before his mother had a chance to ask what had happened, and before the three had a chance to run inside the house and assess the damage, Jeraud’s fingers traced the edge of the unstable vase, giving it the little nudge it needed to come crashing to the tiled floor.
It shattered to millions of tiny, fragile pieces as it collided with the floor, letting out its ashen contents to the merciless autumn winds that gusted through the cracked window…
ns 15.158.61.6da2
