"Erica!" Giselle whined, "Come play princesses with me! You promised!"
"I'll be there in a minute, sweetie! Just let me finish the dishes from dinner."
"Erica," Ashton moaned. "Nick is stealing my action figures again!"
“Erica, hurry!" Giselle screeched. "I need to show you how pretty I look in my Ariel dress!"
"I'm almost done, honey!" I said. "Nick, give the action figures back to Ashton. If you want to play with them, you have to ask nicely, and share."
"Yeah, Nick, give it back!" Ashton said triumphantly.
"Erica! Come play princesses NOW!"
I sighed deeply, scrubbing the pizza sauce off the last plate. I dried it quickly, and put it back in the cabinet. "I'll be right there, Giselle!" I called.
I walked over to the playroom, and plastered a big, fake smile on my face. Giselle was standing there, hands on her hips, foot tapping impatiently. She had on a blue and purple sparkly dress with a picture of Ariel, the Little Mermaid, on the front, paired with cute little dress up heels, a plastic necklace, and fake clip-on earrings. "Oh my goodness, Giselle! You look so beautiful!" I gushed, putting extra enthusiasm in my voice.
"I know," she said haughtily. Man, she is one conceited little three-year old. This babysitting job just doesn't pay enough sometimes. She turned around and started rummaging through her dress up princess chest, and a few moments later, came back out holding up a Cinderella dress made for five year olds, and plastic shoes too small for even my tiny feet. "Put these on!" she ordered.
"I don't know if I can, Princess Giselle. They're so small! I'm pretty sure I'd burst the seams if I tried to fit it over my head," I shrugged, pretending to be sad that I couldn't fit.
Well you never know until you try, so try it on anyway!"
I sighed, resigned, and took the dress from her. I couldn't even fit my shoulders through the bottom of the dress. "Doesn't look like I'll be able to wear it. Sorry, Princess Giselle."
"Erica!" screamed Ashton.
"I'll be right back, sweetie," I said to Giselle. In response she stomped her foot and harrumphed, but I ran back to the living room anyways. I arrived to find Nick running around the room with an action figure, being chased by a very angry Ashton.
"Give it back, Nick!" he demanded, then stopped running, looked at me and tattled, "Nick asked like you said, but then he just took it without waiting for an answer! It's mine, and I want it back!"
"How about we put the action figures away for now and go outside? We can play football if you want," I persuaded, trying to get them away from the toys.
"Yeah!" They chorused. Nick dropped the forgotten action figure and they ran over to put their shoes on.
"I'll be out in a minute, I'm just going to grab your sister and clean up a bit!" I called after them, but they were already out the door. I hurried over to the playroom and cajoled Giselle out of her Ariel dress and heels. Then, I helped her get on her Dora the Explorer sandals, went outside and got her some chalk to draw with, and told her I'd be back in a minute. When I came inside the house and looked around, I realized I had a lot of work to do. There were baseball cards and action figures everywhere, and our abandoned Candy Land was still lying there, with the cards strewn across the floor. Walking over to the playroom, I almost tripped on a toy car, and when I got to the playroom, I realized Giselle had dumped out her dress up collection all over the floor, and knocked over the stack of piano books. I got to work, putting this and that away, fixing up everything and reassembling the house. I found a Wii remote lying around. I wonder why it's up here? I thought. Their Wii was down in the basement, and all the CD's and remotes were supposed to be in the game closet. Great, now I have to walk all the way downstairs, I thought.
I ran down the steps and over to the closet. I looked around and shuddered. I don't know why, but their basement always gave me the creeps. It never happened with anyone else's basement, and it's not like theirs was one of those dark, creepy ones with cobwebs and spiders everywhere. It was a fancy basement. Fluffy, white carpeting, a bar, a pool table, even a 42 inch flat screen. But whenever I went down there, I always got a creepy feeling.
I walked over to the game closet, and was blown away by an awful stench. It smelled like something rotting! I hurriedly put the Wii remote back. Right as I was about to shut the door, something caught my eye. A pale, white piece of what looks like…like flesh, behind the stack of games. Intrigued and curious, though thoroughly grossed out, I moved the stack, and stifled a shriek. What I saw was an elbow. I slowly raised my gaze. What I saw repulsed me. There was a long, sickly gash along the upper arm of a body, covered in dried blood and gangrene. I moved aside a small shelf of books to discover a whole body. Oh, my God. Oh, my God there's a dead body in the closet there's a dead body in the closet and oh my God oh my God what am I going to do oh my God oh my God oh my-
All of a sudden, a maggot crawled out of the gash in the arm. This time, I couldn't hold it in. I let out a blood-curdling scream, and turned around and ran. I dashed down the hall, up the stairs and then Oh my God I'm going to puke. I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna puke! I dashed into the bathroom and regurgitated my dinner. I sat there for three minutes, just barfing my guts up. Then I realized the kids were still outside. I slowly, cautiously walked out. If I had gone any faster, I would've passed out. I made it to the yard, then just collapsed. Laid down on the ground and stared up at the sky.
Ashton ran over. "Erica, what are you doing?" he asked. Good question. What am I doing? I should call the cops. I should call 911. Wordlessly, I pulled out my phone and punched in the three numbers. Immediately, someone, a female voice, answered.
"Hello, 911, what is your emergency?"
"Hello, I'd like to report a..a uh-uh--"and I couldn't finish the sentence. I couldn't bring myself to say ‘dead body’. Like saying it would make it all real. I felt a tug on my sleeve, and there was Ashton again.
"Erica, what's going on?" he asked, his eyes widening in fear.
'I'm not sure, hon," I replied honestly.
"Ma'am? Ma'am, are you there?" I heard from the other end of the line.
Taking a deep breath, I responded, "Yes, I would like to report a dead body."
There was a couple seconds of silence on the other end, and then, "And where is your location, ma'am?" I replied calmly, and answered all her other questions in the same collective tone. My name, did I find the body or did someone else, where was it found…it seemed to take an eternity, but I finally heard the woman say, 'Alright miss, we have people on the way, you just stay put," and then the dial tone after she hung up.
By now, Nick and Giselle had come over, and Giselle started crying. "Erica, I'm scared!" she sobbed.
"Where's mommy and daddy?" Nick cried. Ashton just buried his face into my shirt.
"Everything's going to be okay, guys. It's all going to be fine. Mommy and daddy will be here soon. Everything's okay." I gathered them close and hugged them all, and just kept repeating what I said, over and over, more for myself than for them.
