The Sweetest Baker

Chapter Five--Nine Mischievous Prankers

When I woke up in the morning and found out Mom's book was being published, I tried my best to act surprised. Lorraine had told me that night. What she didn't mention was that Mom and Dad were planning on calling Nora to babysit. We all responded well to that news, my younger siblings more so. I loved my sister but I knew it would take a lot of convincing to make her come and babysit. Despite my persistence I could, my parents shrugged that off telling me that I had a part-time job and that I didn't need to be putting that much stress on myself.

Sitting on the mantel next to Mark, an arm around him, I listened as Kim pleaded with our sister to come. I considered getting her to be the one to persist, a good idea. Really, asking any of my siblings to do something like this was a good idea. Whenever they really wanted me to do something, they would give me these puppy eyes that were better than Gunner's. Even if you couldn't see their eyes, just hearing them repeat please in their cute voices, would make any of us do what they wanted.

By the annoyed look on Kim's face, it was obvious to me that she wasn't getting much luck with convincing her. She was silent for a second before mumbling that she had been put on hold with a roll of her eyes. I smirked at this. Thanks, a lot Lorraine! Not only did you teach Sarah but you taught your seven-year-old twin sisters how to roll their eyes. We waited hoping she would give us an answer sooner rather than later.

"She's gonna use doorknob as an excuse again, isn't she?" Sarah scoffed from a nearby couch. I tried not to chuckle at her remark. At this point, even the older ones hated him. Our hatred was less obvious though.

"Oh, she totally is," I whispered back hoping Mom or Dad wouldn't hear. Luckily for me, Kim had handed Dad the phone and Mom was too busy listening to what our sister had to say. I wasn't listening though. Whatever they were talking about, it couldn't be good. A second later, Dad hung up and my sister piped up.

"Please do not tell me doorknob man is babysitting too," she pleaded.

"Yes, he very well might be, young lady," Mom said with a frown not pleased with her words.

"And do not set his pants on fire again," Dad reminded her pointing at her.

"Yes. No fires, no pranks," Mom announced.

Like my siblings were going to follow that rule.......They have practically broken every other rule in the house. Why would they not break this one? Even though the pants-on-fire prank was crazy extreme, I still found myself amused that my siblings could come up with something as crazy as that.

"Classic," Sarah whispered smiling. Yes, dear sister.........A Sarah Baker classic, indeed. With that, Mom and Dad walked away annoyed and tired of fighting with her.

"It was just his pants," Mom whispered. I nodded to myself standing up and turning to my sister.

"Get to work, my devious mastermind," I joked high-fiving her before heading to the steps.

"Is it just me or does happier and stronger secretly mean nastier and suckier?" I overheard from the steps causing me to feel empathy for my siblings, climbing up the steps and opening up my notebook when I got upstairs. Surely, my siblings would work on something that would amaze me, once again.

~~~~~

I barely saw my younger siblings causing havoc the next two days leading up to game time. Anyone who was stupid could tell that my siblings secretly were causing trouble. Sometimes, I would even walk past Sarah's room on the way to the bathroom seeing her writing stuff down on a notebook piece of paper with a smirk on her face.

Dad must've thought they've been good lately and made the decision to allow my siblings to play apple-schmear in the backyard. I, however, didn't feel like playing. I was journaling on the steps looking up every once and a while to hear my siblings cheer each other on. So far, only Sarah had gone. We all knew she shared Dad's love for sports. She only seemed to prove that by the sound of Dad's announcement. I found it funny that he was acting as a sports commentator despite being trained as a Football coach.