Babysitter Cougar [COMPLETE]

Chapter 2 page 1 - The Attic Attack

Sabina had outlined the house rules before leaving Hussaini under my care. They're pretty straightforwardly simple, nothing too complicated to oblige. I just need to ensure that the apartment is still an apartment when she comes back and to keep Hussaini occupied throughout the day. I'm allowed to use the guess room, watch TV or the radio and have whatever I want in the kitchen except for the boozes. Although I'm astonished to find stashes of boozes in a Muslim house, I gladly comply to that exception since I don't look forward for a sip due to my religious and age restriction.

"So, what do you want to do, kid?" I open for suggestions.

"Call me Master Vader!" Hussaini demands with his arms akimbo.

"Nope," I refuse. "I shall call you by the name given to you."

"I paid you to follow my orders," he bellows.

"No, you don't pay me, your mom does," I rectify. "I don't get paid to have you dictating me what to do."

"You, wrench!" he stomps on my right feet causing me to flinch in agony.

I giggle at his attempt to swear, calling me 'wrench' instead of 'wench' which I find it cute. As much as I wanted to correct his vocabulary, I decided to let this one slide. Feeling offended by my sinister remark, he charges at me for another thud on my left feet and storms away.

"Hussaini!" I follow him as he trudges around the hallway towards his attic/fort. He clambers up the staircase within seconds like a gibbon, hanging through slopes of railing. I caution him but he ignores my warning. As he flits into the opening hollow of the attic and disappears, I follow and ascent into the attic.

"You can't come up!" he exclaims through the opening. "Go away!"

"Try me," I challenge him, already halfway up the attic. Thinking to myself, he's defenceless. There's nothing that can stop me from entering his territory.

But I underestimated his defensive mechanism to combat intruders from coming into his fort. Before I take another step, nerf gun bullets fire from the attic on my head, sharp and swift that I flinch from the first wave of attack. I don't expect the second until a few more rapid shots raid on me like assailing missiles rattling my body.

"Hey!" I try to fend myself while balancing my body on the stairs encircling a pole in the middle.

I try to grasp for the pole when I begin to lose my stability, then a few more plastic rubber bullets strike me for 20 seconds straight. I take a step down to retreat but I accidentally trip on one of the bullets on the stair. I wave my arm around, trying to grab hold of something but everything around me becomes so fast that I plummet helplessly to the bottom of the stairs like a huge jackfruit falling from its tree.

The pain of falling from the stairs couple by the nerf gun attack weren't inflicting until seconds later. Hussaini cheers triumphantly at my defeat and I feel giddy. My muscles, my neck, my shoulders, and my lower body begin to ache terribly.

               🍀☘️🌺🌸🍀☘️🌺🌸

First half of the day had faltered my spirit to move forward with childminding this ruthless boy. Getting him to eat was arduous while making him to stay in one spot took too much of my youthful energy. Now, forcing him to do his math homework is another strenuous task. Either he doesn't understand simple subtraction and addition, or he just refuse to do it.

"You have 15 Hot Wheels while I have three Hot Wheels. I take two Hot Wheels from you, so how much you have now?" I lay down the die-cast toy cars in two straight lines facing each other, according to my narrative. Thinking that this method could attract him to participate, I give myself the shot.

"All of it," he looks at me deadpan.

"Why do you have all of it? I took two, remember?"

"Those Hot Wheels aren't yours," he answers frankly, folding his arms. "They're mine."

"Okay," I calm myself with a few deep breaths. "Just imagine that I borrow two of your Hot Wheels –"

"You can't have my Hot Wheels!" Hussaini rebels.

"Do you want to learn math or not?" Turns out teaching him math is harder than I thought.

"No, it's a stupid subject and I hate it," he's being defiant.

"Then, what do you like?" I ask impatiently.

"Metal Slug," he answers impassively. "They're cool."

I know that game. My brother Khairul (Kay) would spend his daytime at cyber cafes just to finish off a mission and he lied to Dad that he was attending extracurricular activities. I reckon that the game should be counted as an extracurricular activity, but I highly doubt it is suitable for Hussaini's age. I peer at the corner of his room and spot unattended boxes of board games stack among his pile of toys and figurines. One of them happens to be a Monopoly board game.

Photo by Pejvak Samadani on Unsplash