“No!” Meena, the eldest of the two daughters said with an indignant expression on her face when her parents proposed to go to the market fair.
Eve, the youngest, fell into an uncomfortable silence squeezing a plushie against her chest. She did not dare to go against her older sisters opinion, yet she feared her mother’s displeasure equally. She withdrew into the only direction she could: into herself.
“We never go to anything that we like. We always have to go to these boring things you like.” Meena continued waving her frail hand about, ”I am not going and that is final!”
Harry, the father, tried to reason with her, but she was not going to listen: hormones and peer pressure were much more important for the budding teen than whatever considered arguments parents brought to bear.
Jane, the mother, then played the power card. “We all go and that is final!”
Meena grabbed her hand-held, stomped upstairs and closed the door of her room with such an audible bang that even the neighbors heard it. Everyone got that message. Then she started to whatsap all her friends that parents were the worst creatures in the universe by far and her parents were the vilest of the bunch.
Jane then shouted up the stairs that Meena should come down this instance or she would be facing a week of extra chores. Eve started to pout her lips and Harry began to tell Jane that maybe they should reconsider this fair business.
“See, even father doesn’t want to go!” Meena shouted, she triumphantly rubbed the words into her mothers face.
“I didn’t mean that!” Harry said, hearing how his words were being twisted into arguments for the defence.
“What then do you mean?” Jane said. She felt slightly backstabbed by her husband but also knew that her eldest was twisting the knife on purpose. At the same time she saw her youngest discomfort and she grabbed Eve’s hand.
Harry smiled disarmingly at his wife. Meena had walked halfway down the stairs not wanting to give in to her mother, but also not wanting to face a week of extra chores. She looked down on the scene with her arms folded in front of her chest.
Purr the cat sat in front of the door that led to the garden. She mewed at it and glanced at them to see if they would notice. Purr was certain that door would open sooner or later, and if it didn’t she would lie down on her cushion on the couch. From that vantage point she would then stare at them with an expression that seemed to say: what on earth are you all doing?
