Push

"Oh my God, what are the little beasts doing up there?" Meagan asked, rolling her eyes up toward the ceiling, where she was fairly certain a herd of elephants was staging a flash mob. "Are you sure you're only watching three kids?"

            Her best friend Hailey sighed and slammed her chemistry book down on the coffee table. Studying was impossible with all the noise.

            "Think about college!" Meagan called as Hailey stormed off to deal with the demon spawn. "Murder will look really bad on your application!"

            It was a valid reminder. When she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up to see Bradlee and Bentlee sitting on a mattress balancing precariously at the top, with their older sister Sophia poised to push, Hailey almost lost her mind.

            "Seriously?" she screamed. "Not even!"

            Meagan was at her side in an instant. "Oh, wow," she grinned, surveying the scene. "Props, Soph. That's a classic."

            "Don't encourage them!" Hailey growled.

            "Dad lets us..." Bradlee began, but Bentlee, the older of the seven-year-old twins by a solid two minutes, saw the fire in her babysitter's eyes and slugged her brother.

"Get. Down. Here. Now." Hailey ordered.

            "Teacher voice," Meagan whispered. "Very nice."

            At the top of the stairs, Sophia shrugged and flashed a smile, her white-blond ponytail bobbing. "Okay!"

            And she pushed.

            The mattress jostled down the stairs. Bradlee and Bentlee shrieked.

            Hailey and Meagan jumped out of the way as the end of the mattress crashed to a stop. The twins rolled off and into a pile on the floor, giggling like little lunatics.

            Sophia darted off to her room and slammed the door.

           "Medical school...medical school...." Hailey chanted.

           The twins scampered into the kitchen, chattering about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

          "What time does their dad get home?" Meagan asked.

           Hailey just sighed and shook her head. It was gonna be a long night.

           After she lectured them about safety and rules for so long that she started to hear her own father, Hailey softened and made some ants on logs out of celery, peanut butter, and raisins to go along with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (sans crust for Bradlee and heart-shaped for Bentlee, of course).

           She fixed a plate for Sophia (just regular triangles, crust and all, grown-up style for the ten-going-on-sixteen-year-old) and carefully made her way over the mattress to climb the stairs to the world's pinkest, most sparkly bedroom while Meagan debated with the twins over which Harry Potter movie was the best.

          "Chamber of Secrets," Bradlee said, giving his sister a glance.

          Bentlee glared at him. "Ssh. Don't tell."

          "Good one," Meagan giggled as she launched a tickle attack on both twins at once. "You two are too much!"

           Sophia was stretched out on her furry pink bean bag chair, pink cat-ear headphones on, staring intently at her – you guessed it, pink - iPad.