Pernicious

|Chapter 14|

March 11, 1988

2:00 pm

St. Louis, Missouri

Naya's Perspective:

"Go fish!" Nadia exclaims over to Malik. Looking defeat, he grabs a red card from the pile sitting in the middle of where we were sitting.

"Hey, no fair! That's the second time in a row!" He argues back to Nadia.

Nadia doesn't bicker back but, instead sticks her tongue out towards her brother.

"Hey now, it's a game. Malik, your sister is actually playing fair. Nadia quit being so rude to your brother." I scolded each of them to prevent further disagreement from our card game.

"In fact," I begin. "Let's take a short break from our game, we've been playing for almost an hour and a half now." I bring up.

"Aww do we have to?" Nadia whined as she slapped down her deck of cards onto the carpet.

"Well, can you two actually get along while playing?" I asked in a serious tone.

Like they'll ever get along while playing a game.

"Yeah! We'll try! Please, Mommy?" Begged a noisy Malik.

While I pick myself up from the floor, I reluctantly decided to let them continue to play their game of Go Fish.

"Alright, Alright...You two can keep playing, but Mommy is going to take a break. If I hear even one ounce of arguing, the cards are going to be put away, you hear me?" I warned.

Their little heads began to nod up and down quickly. They knew that I wouldn't mess around when it came to punishment, so they carried forward with their game without any bickering.

As much as I loved to play games with the kids, I yearned to do more than just to be held up in a hotel room all day.

I let my body fall back onto the comfortable hotel room bed and I stretched out my limbs while taking a deep breath.

What to do, what to do...What can one do in St. Louis? Ugh...I'm so bored!

I became so disinterested at one point, that I began to examine the swirly designs that painted the ceiling. Deciding that even doing that was lame, I shut my eyes in an attempt to fall asleep.

Luckily, I was able to get a little bit of sleep and by little, I mean like a half an hour's worth.

Not to mention, I was woken up by two noisy and jumpy children.

Children that decided to jump on the bed that I was peacefully resting on.

Ahh! What's going on!

I shot up instantly and to my own surprise, saw the two jumping directly next to my body. Also, somehow they figured out how to work the hotel television and that was blaring as well.

To say I was a little bit angered was an understatement.

"What do you think you two are doing?! Stop it before either one of you or I get hurt!" I laid down the law. They took one last giant bounce and sat down on the bed next to me.

"Look Mommy! We wanted to wake you up to show you that you and Daddy are on T.V." Malik announces while pointing directly to the screen. The channel that they put on was a local news station one and they happened to be doing a special on Michael being in St. Louis for his upcoming shows. Unfortunately, not everything they said happened to be positive.

"Good afternoon everyone, I'm Sandra Burman reporting to you live. Our top story, none other than the biggest entertainer known as Michael Jackson, but his recent behavior has been really living up to his nickname of Wacko Jacko."