Something Special

Chapter 8

"Good morning my dear." Alastor  said shaking Charlie awake the next morning.

"Huh? What?" She yawned.

"Come on sweetheart. Up and Adam, you've got a big day today."

"I do?"

"Yep. I have to go to work, kids gotta go to school, and you have got a lot of chores to do."

"I do housework?"

"Everyday, seven days a week."

"That can't be right. I don't do housework. I'm sure of that."

"Well you could always come help me drywall."

"No! I want to remember...Fine. What are these chores that I'm supposed to do?"

Alastor handed her a piece of paper, a list of household chores he had written up for her last night. She read the list with trepidation.

"Any questions?" Alastor asked her.

"Yes. Tell me the truth, are you real or just some hallucination I'm having because I've gone insane?"

"Oh I'm real as you are Darling."

As soon as Alastor and the kids left for work and school, Charlie re-read the list again. She found it extremely hard to believe that she had actually done any house work in her life. But then again, it wasn't like she had anything better to do. If she just spent the day sitting here, doing nothing, she'd think about how awful she thought her life to be. And if she did that, she probably snap.

"Alright Charlie, let's try to regain some sanity."

All day she worked her fingers to the bone, preforming every chore that Alastor had assigned to her on the list he left. She washed the dishes, wiped down the tables, swept and scrubbed the floors, dusted the furniture, picked up the toys, shoes, and dirty laundry left lying around by the children, cleaned the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the living room, washed all the clothes by hand, made the beds, and organized everything that was out of place, from books on the shelves to canned goods in the cabinet.

By the time she had finished doing everything on the list, the school bus arrived to drop off the kids and they put her through hours of endless screaming and bickering. Aaron kept trying to do target practice in the house with his bee-bee gun, Louis and Ella fought with each other non stop, and Carrie kept trying to create art by cutting up curtains and drawing on the walls. Charlie tried to get them to settle down but they wouldn't listen and were completely uncontrollable. It was a nightmare, one so horrible that she finally just dropped to the floor, stiff and dazed from shock.

"Is she dead?" Louis asked as the children hovered over apparently catatonic body.

"Of course not you idiot, she's still breathing." Aaron said.

"Does she need water?" Carrie asked.

"Let's throw some on her face." Ella suggested.

When Alastor came home to find her on the ground and the children at the scene, he feared that they had broken her. Just like they did to the last three babysitters he hired.