When you leave the Menace at home with General Auntie

Chapter 4- A Menace+ A Bathroom= A Disaster

Dennis thundered on the door with tiny balled fists, screaming incoherently. He kept it up for about 30 seconds before he gave it up as hopeless, and he realised that he was trapped inside the bathroom for all of eternity by his wicked aunt. He screamed in rage, his fists clenched, his face bright red, his body stiff and tight, and he shook, screeching in rage, until his lungs couldn't take it, and sent a distress call to his saliva glands, who obeyed it by dispatching a horde of saliva towards the throat, and so choked the 5 year old, who stopped screaming at last and started coughing. The saliva troops, satisfied that their mission was complete, immediately withdrawed, and Dennis stood there gasping for breath, and trying desprately to pretend that he wasn't crying, but without much success, and he sobbed tightly for a minute, looking around, before his chocolate eyes caught the sink, and he clambered up his stepstool that his father had thoughtfully placed there for him, and he washed his face.

"I'm not crying, my face is just wet," he said firmly. But he was only trying to fool himself; his eyes were damp, and red, and his chest was heaving. "I'm not crying, I'm not softy, I'm a menace, and menaces don't cry. They menace people, they find a way out!"

Dennis wiped his eyes, cross at himself for being so soft, and looked at the door, frowning as he had seen Daddy do, when they had changed the locks. They had changed it, Dennis remembered, because the boy had locked the door, and wasn't able to unlock it. Dad had taken a hammer, and had smashed the lock in. When Dennis asked why he had only hit the lock, Dad had replied that it was because the door was stuck shut by the lock, and breaking the lock would open the door again.

"Breaking the lock? Will that work with any lock?" Dennis had asked. "Yep," Daddy had replied. "But if you break the lock, I just might ask Gran if she still has the slipper that I used to be whacked with." Dennis had laughed at his father's threat, and starting shaking his bottom at Dad, laughing. Dad had then chased him all over the house, pretending to spank him, until they knocked Mum over, who had threatened to lock both of them in the toilet. Dennis had replied cheekily, saying "So? Daddy will just break the lock and we'll be free!"

As Dennis glared at the lock right now, he realised his freedom was only one smash away. All he had to do was break the toilet lock, like Daddy had done, and then he'd be free! And then, he thought, and then it would be just as easy to break the front door lock, and then he could run to Daddy's work. He knew where it was; the garage. Dad had taken him when he got the job. He could remember the way.

So with the plan ready, Dennis grabbed the nearest thing to himself and began to smash the lock with it. But as this thing was just Mum's shampoo bottle, it did little except for sending its lid flying, and spreading shampoo everywhere. Some of the stinky white gloop landed in Dennis's mouth, and he wailed at the horrific taste, and began to spit wildy. He grabbed the nearest towel, and began to scrub his tongue violently, but only succeeded in hurting his tongue. He then grabbed his toothpaste and brush, and began to brush his tongue, and finally the poisonous taste went away.

But he wasn't about to give up. He had to break out of there, no matter the cost! Only now he learnt that using bottles with stinky softy liquid would only attack him back. He needed something harder. Something like a hammer. But even he knew that there was no hammer inside the toilet. So what could he use to get out?

Dennis looked around, surveying the scene for hard objects. His eyes rested on the lid of the toilet tank, and he walked towards it, examining closely. His memory whirred into action.

On one of the yesterdays, Mum had forced him into the bath, and put horribly flowery smelling shampoo in his hair, and so he smelt like a digusting softy, like- and how it horrified him to think of it!- Walter Brown! the softiest of all the kids, always simpering and sucking up to every grown-up, killing all the joy wherever he went! He was Dennis's worst enemy, and that just made him madder about his smell. So mad that he had grabbed the lid of the toilet tank, and had tried to throw it, but he had underestimated its weight, and ended up hurting his little toes when it had fallen on them. It was very, very, very heavy.