Three Ways (Wattys 2015)

2. Whipped Cream Starts and Ends it All.

2. Whipped Cream Starts and Ends it All.

Eli

After we had attended to the ‘porcelain Martian princess’ head, she had fallen asleep because of the antibiotics. During the span of time I was helping her, she seemed to find every reason to make a snarky remarks. It was a surprise I hadn’t strangled her by now. Even Lidia had been wildly giggling at some of the remarks made by Brooke.

“Hey Elliot?” Lidia asked when I was seated on the floor of Steven’s living room with Lidia watching some old movie. Mrs. Morley had a fetish for old romance movies and she always waited for me to come over to watch them with me. It wasn’t because I was some old sap but I just liked the black and white films, how they were completely different from the movies of today.

I even had movie days with Mr. Morley which consisted of black and white action films. Steven wasn’t as into old movies as me which is probably why he always ran up to his room to play multiplayer whenever his mother or father entered the room with a movie in their hands.

But due to the boring nature of this movie, Mrs. Morley had fallen asleep in her seat where Steven had strewn a blanket on her when he had come down to check up on us. I think he had some suspicious that one day he’ll find zombies when he comes downstairs and then he’ll have to live through a real ‘The Walking Dead.’ And I swear this was not just my overactive imagination, I had once heard him muttering about surviving a zombie apocalypse in his sleep. Though I would be lying if I said I never thought of it.

That show had that effect you on; Prepare or die.

“Elliot?”

“Huh?”  

“You are almost drooling.” In an automatic reflex, I wiped the sides of my mouth with the back of my hand and when I realized I was drool free, I looked at an amused Lidia. “I said almost.”

“Ha. Ha. Hilarious.” She gave me a weird look before smacking me on my head. “What the-“

“I was just checking if you got something in there or not. Oh and It’s fun.” She stated, a smirk forming on her face. Before I could utter anything else, stomping came from the stairs and Steven appeared in the doorway, his hair more raggedy than usual and the pattern of the keyboard keys visible on his cheek.

“Dude you have to stop sleeping on the keyboard.” I said, standing up and turning off the TV.

“Dude, shut the fudge up. We forgot to call Brooke’s parents to let her know she is here, they might think we kidnapped her and then they will make us go to jail. We will need to find a lawyer and then the lawyer will ditch us and then someone new will come and mysteriously one by one everyone will disappear until we are all dead at the back of a construction site!”The crazy look in his eyes suggested that the athletic nerd had just had a dream about ‘Pretty Little Liars.’

Last year, he had seen one season of it with his cousin and since then he has been paranoid about the most ridiculous stuff.

After calming him down and telling him how Brooke had messaged her parents herself while we were trying to help her, he went back upstairs a bit assured. For the calming session we had to leave the living room because even though Mrs. Morley was a heavy sleeper, Brooke had furrowed her eyebrows in her sleep and No, I was not noticing her so meticulously, I just happened to glance at her at that very moment.

So now we were seated in the kitchen, Lidia seemed lost in her own thoughts so I took out the can of whip cream from the fridge and sprayed a mouthful of it into my mouth. When the silence lasted for some while, agitation took over and I sprayed whipped cream on Lidia’s face who snapped out of her thoughts.