Surprise

My children were all home for Spring Break.
I wasn’t.
I had to work.

Thursday, I had a meeting. It was near the house, so I stopped by on my way back to the office.
I parked my car out in front and walked up the driveway toward the house. I was smiling to myself, anticipating the big hug I would get from YS and the slouching “Waddup, Mummy?” I would get from YD, my wannabe homey. OS, recovering from oral surgery, would be holed up in the basement, a bit fogged in from the pain medications.
I climbed the front steps and marveled again at the fabulous job YS had done cleaning the porch for the Easter Bunny.

I reached for the knob and found the door locked. I made a mental note to give my children a pat on the back for remembering to lock the front door and I gave myself a gentle reprimand for leaving my house keys in the car.

As I reached up to knock, I peered through the front door glass. Peering back at me were four eyes belonging to two children that did not belong to me. The girl, with straight blond hair and blue eyes, became frantic, first reaching to unlock the door, then backing away, back and forth, back and forth. The boy, with short brown hair and root beer brown eyes stood stock still, frozen in the middle of the living room, staring at me.
I tried to direct the girl, “Turn the lock that way,” I yelled through the door, pointing toward the right.
The girl was a fistful of thumbs, unable to master the deadbolt.

I started knocking on the window again.
Finally, I saw the familiar face of YS round the corner into the living room. He was trailed by two of our neighbor boys, one of whom is his best friend. He face lit up when he saw me and he raced to the door to let me in.
“Mummy!” he smiled as he threw his arms around my hips in a big hug and lifted me off the floor.

This is one of his favorite “tricks”. He is proud of the fact that he has been strong enough to lift me off the ground since he was in the second grade. This year, he has learned to stagger walk with me in his arms, my toes dangling just inches off the ground and my head towering two feet over him.

YS put me down and, just as the chaos in the living room was subsiding, a new commotion was erupting in the kitchen. We moved as a unit toward the kitchen where we discovered someone trapped in the bathroom. The pocket door was rattling and a small voice was yelling, “HELP!”

“Just a minute, sweetie,” I yelled back, racing madly for the tool drawer to grab a screwdriver. I discovered a flashlight, matches, curtain rings and miscellaneous screws, hair bobs, a hammer, a pencil and three pens, clothespins, string and a broken candy cane, a box of keys that unlock nothing, a padlock, with no key and a whistle. What I could not find, is a screwdriver.

In my mind, I was flailing and cursing the person who “borrowed” my screwdriver, but my unflappable mama exterior held the frantic in check and I calmly yelled to the bathroom door, “Hold on, honey, I’m still looking!”

I went clattering down to the basement, thinking perhaps one of the people we have working on the “remodel” might have left behind a screwdriver. The room was dark and there was a movie playing on the TV screen. I could see OS’ head peeking up over the top of the couch on the other side of the room. He twisted his head slowly up and around so he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, hey Mummy,” he mumbled lazily. “I…”

“I’ll come talk to you in a minute,” I snapped, cutting him off. “I need to find screwdriver. Somebody is locked in the bathroom.”
“Isn’t there supposed to be one in the drawer in the kitchen?” he asked in the superior tone of a teenager who knows everything.
“Yes!” My exasperation threw the word at him with the force of a missile.

Shaking my head, I went back to my search. I found sawdust, nails, a compressor, lumber and electric wiring hanging from the ceiling, but no screwdriver.

Back upstairs.

YS was crouching by the bathroom door, the neighbors and two strangers huddled behind him, watching. With the skill of a surgeon, YS was wiggling a screwdriver the size of a matchstick between the door and the jamb.
“Got it!” he yelled with pride.

The door slid open.

Instead of the one child I expected, three children tumbled out into the kitchen. Freed from their bathroom prison and their panic at being trapped, the children began talking all at once, eager to be the first child who got to tell the story.
The largest girl, one whom I recognized at a classmate of YS’, won. The other children gathered around her as she recounted the tale of her imprisonment; the two who had been with her nodded vigorously, adding details as necessary.

YS detached himself from the crowd. “Mummy, did you see how I did that?” he asked, eyes round and glowing. “I jiggled it up, like this,” he explained, grasping the tiny screwdriver tightly between his thumb and fore finger, “and it pushed the latch up, like this.”
“I missed it, honey,” I said as I shook my head with honest regret. “It was clever of you to think of that. I was looking for the big screwdriver so I could turn the lock screw from the outside.”
“Yeah, well, I just thought I’d try this while you were looking…and it worked!” YS explained. YS has always been mindful of the feelings of others, and I could tell that he was trying to protect my feelings by downplaying his ingenuity. He turned to rejoin the crowd, and I looked for his sister.

YD was sitting calmly at the kitchen table, working on the Sudoku. I beckoned for her,

Rising, she slouched toward me.
“I thought you were only babysitting two people,” I began, in a tone that came out sounding slightly accusatory.
“I am!” she responded, Valley Girl accent and teenaged attitude meshing perfectly with the hand placed oh so emphatically on the hip.
“And…” I paused, gesturing at the eight fourth graders who were now dispersing toward the living room.
“Well, M called and YS invited her over to play and she brought all those other kids with her.” YD looked at me and I could see the wheels turning in her mind as she quickly calculated the effect her words were having. Realizing that, as the “responsible” party I had left in charge for the day, she was still in the hole, she added, …and he didn’t even ask me, and they all just showed up.”
“Does M’s mother know that there is no adult here?”
“Uh…no,” YD admitted. “But it’s actually easier with all of them than it was with just the three boys.”
Ignoring her rationalization, I continued, “Do you think that perhaps it would have been a good idea to let her know?’
“Well…I guess.”
“Do you think it would be a good idea to call her now?”
“Uh…yeah.”
I stepped back, raised my eyebrows and gestured toward the phone. YD didn’t move a muscle. “Yeah, but you’re here now,” she pouted.

YD hates the phone. Even when her friends call, she cuts the conversation short, trying to get rid of the phone more quickly than she would a burning piece of coal.

“You could just call when you leave,” she suggested, pursing her lips in a mock frown and working to perfect a look that is the perfect combination of pathetic yet beguiling.
She nailed it and I agreed to make he call.

As it turned out though, neither of us had to make the call as the game of hide-and-seek had ended and the mystery children banged out the front door and headed back down the street to the neighbor’s house.

YS and the boys YD was babysitting stayed behind.
I pulled YS aside and sternly reminded to him that he cannot invite people over without checking with me first.

Chaos cleared, I grabbed an apple and got ready to head back to work, when I heard a bump at the top of the basement stairs, OS appeared.
Oops. I had forgotten that he had wanted to tell me something earlier.

“Uh…Mummy?” he began, fumbling for words. “Uh…you like to know when someone is at the house…uh…so…uh…this is Elizabeth.”

A beautiful curly haired brunette with a Pepsodent white smile and a shy, “Hi,” rounded the corner.

Oy!! This parenting stuff is not for the faint of heart!