To shoot or not to shoot, that's the question

Bank Robbery

“What in the name of gunpowder were you thinking. You can’t seriously think I would approve of that?” I asked Jackie while she sulked in the door opening. Eve stood next to her, also sulking.

“But Evan...” she whined

“No Jackie, no matter how much I love you those can’t stay there. Why did you even do it? No don’t answer, I don’t even want to know.” I sighed and sat down on the couch.

“And how come they’re red?” I asked her when I turned around to face her. She looked at the ground and mumbled something. “What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”

She tilted her head up and looked at me.

“I painted them red,” she confessed with a small, proud smile. Eve nodded in confirmation.

I sighed again and ran my hand through my hair.

“Jackie, don’t you know how dangerous this is? You could have blown up the whole apartment, maybe even the whole hotel.”

She pouted and sat down next to me. She was just like a little kid that had done something wrong without noticing it.

“I just thought it was original,” she said with a shrug.

“You wanted it to be original? That’s why you painted hand grenades red and put them in the Christmas tree as baubles? Because you wanted to be original?”

She nodded and laid her head on my shoulder. “Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded with me and I sighed again.

“I’m not mad, but please get them out of that tree and replace them with real baubles.”

“Uhm, that could be a problem,” she said with a mischievous smile, I looked at her questioningly.

“What did you do Jackie?” I asked her and smiled, knowing that it was probably nothing good.

“I might or might have not used them for target practise and the last ten I might have thrown at that mean cat lady that lives a block away.”

I shook my head and laughed, that was so Jackie. I got up and walked to the Christmas tree. I carefully took out the grenades one by one and put them back in the crate where they belonged.

When I was done I closed the crate and put it away.

Jackie and Eve sat together on the couch staring sadly at the now bare tree. I shrugged and went to get my jacket, Eve looked up and I grinned.

“Are you girls coming or not? I want a Christmas tree and not some stupid bare pine tree in my living room.” Their gloomy faces immediately turned happy and they hurriedly got their coats.

When we were at the mall they got out of the car so fast that they almost tripped over their own feet, but they didn’t seem to mind and they just walked on as if nothing happened.

Everywhere you looked there were Christmas decorations. Lights, trees, elves, Christmas garlands and reindeer. Jackie and Eve ran into the first store they saw. I followed them at a much slower pace.

Jackie was jumping up and down, not knowing where she should look. Eve had her hands full with stuff and a garland around her neck like a shawl. Jackie had taken a pack of candles and a box of bright pink baubles from the shelf, I looked at them in horror and took them from her hands. She narrowed her eyes at me and took them from the shelf again, I put them back.

“I will not have those things in my house. They are almost as bad as the grenades.” Adam and Blair would laugh their heads off if I let her buy those things. Seriously, what sick person decided to make pink baubles?