Care for me (L. S.)

23

Sunday the 27th of September | Harry

"I have six. One, two, three, four — oh! Won't you look at that! I landed on Fleet Street! Guess what I'm gonna buy..."

Harry banged his first on the table in frustration. "That's not fair!" he whined, looking at Gemma with indignation.

"I own all the other orange streets. Can't you buy another one? Any other street, please?"

Gemma chuckled while placing the fake money in the box and exchanging it for the Fleet Street card. "That's what we call playing fair." She saw Harry's pout. "It's literally the whole point of the game to buy the things the other wants to buy!"

"That's not fair at all! Can't we play nice and grant the other their streets?"

"No, that would be cheating. That's against the rules! This game is all about what you can buy and the other can't."

"Well, then I don't like this game!"

Gemma rolled her eyes. "You don't have to like Monopoly, you have to play me and stop being a baby."

"Says the one who's cheating," Harry mumbled under his breath.

"What?! I'm not cheating, Harold! I'm simply playing it like it should be played! Just because you are bad at this game, doesn't mean I'm supposed to go easy on you. Now throw those dice!"

"Fine. I knew we should've played Scrabble." Harry rolled the dice between his palms (it usually gives him more luck, but it wasn't doing a very good job at it today) and threw them on the table.

"Eight. Let's see." Harry moved his pawn over the board. "– seven, and – noooooo!"

Gemma giggled when he landed on the policeman. "Bad luck, Haz," she shrugged.

Harry snorted and moved the little metal hat back on the board, towards the prison.

"At least now, I can't land on your streets anymore. How will you even survive without me when you have no source of income, hmmmm?"

"Oh shut up."

"Can the two of you stop bickering?" Neither Harry nor Gemma noticed that their mum had joined them at the dining table. She was typing away on her laptop, doing stuff for work. "Let me share a piece of wisdom with both of you: If the game doesn't bring you joy, you shouldn't play it in the first place!"

Gemma and Harry both looked at each other, then at their mum and back. Half a silent second passed and then both of them were roaring in laughter.

Anne looked at them in confusion over her reading glasses. "That's not amusing, I was being terribly serious!"

"Oh, I'm sure you were mum," Harry giggled, seeing his sister die of laughter.

"No, really," Anne said, not understanding what was so funny. "I've read it somewhere."

"I know," Gemma hiccupped, face red like a beet. "You sound just like the tidying lady!"

Anne had an offended look on her face. "Excuse you! Marie Condo is a very capable woman who has made miracles happen with her books."

By this time the fun was a bit gone, but the siblings still carried mocking smiles on their faces.

"Laugh all you want," Anne warned, "but be careful... I could force you to read the chapter about keeping your room tidy at all costs! Both of you could learn a lot from that I imagine."

That's all it took for Harry and Gemma to stop smiling. They were more like gobsmacked at their mother dissing them in their faces.

"I was joking," she clarified, sighing as she went back to work, because neither of them got it.