Maniac’s Mayhem

theft

noun: theft; plural noun: thefts

the action or crime of stealing.

–Definitions fromOxford Languages

(Calliope)

Today was another good day. I spent most of my time with Mom and my sister. We watched a bunch of animal shows and played with Daisy and Snowball. When I am starting to feel hungry again, someone walks inside. I peek over the edge of the pillows to see if the lady is back.

Instead of finding the blonde lady, the person who walks in has bright red skin, black hair and horns. I blink, trying to understand what I am seeing.

“Hey you got here. How have you been?” Mom asks the stranger as she gets up from the couch.

“I have been okay, I guess, been busy.” The woman answers, “How have you been?”

“Same, trying to figure out childcare mostly,” Mom says, gesturing at us with her hands.

“Wait, you have kids? How? Since when?” The woman asks Mom, looking surprised.

Mom shrugs. “Like, since three days ago.”

“How did you even get them” the woman asks, grabbing Mom’s shoulders

“I kind of just stole them,” Mom says with a smile.

Stolen? We are stolen. That means we were taken from the people we originally belonged to. That means we won’t go back unless Mom is forced to give us back. I turn to my sister, who is also looking at the red person. I slowly get up and start dragging my sister to my room, where we are safe.

I turn to my sister. “We’re stolen!”

Shinon looks at me with confusion. “What?”

“We’re stolen, so this place is not like the others because they don’t belong to the same people; this place is better,” I try to explain, but it is hard.

My sister slowly nods. “What does that mean?”

I frown. I had not thought of that. “Good food?” I try.

Shinon nods, “Yes, that is nice,” then she looks around the room, sits down, her eyes glazing over. “Is it over then?” She finally asks in a tiny voice.

I nod “Yes” I say, not really knowing what should be over.

Shinon’s entire body slumps like someone cut her strings as thick tears start to roll down her face. I stand there frozen, not sure what to do when the door opens and a little ball of fur walks in. The little fox walks up to Shinon and starts licking her face, making Shinon giggle slightly.

She picks up the little creature and hugs it close all the while Snowball is giving her little licks. I finally take a step forward, bending down and giving ShiNon a hug as well. We stay like this for a while until my stomach rumbles.

“Food?” I ask.

Shinon nods, wiping the last of her tears and standing up.

We both walk back into the main room hand in hand to find that there are now four people there. Green mom is sitting cross-legged on the counter talking to the woman with horns while Pink Mom is having a conversation with a big red furry animal.

I pause, looking in confusion at the new person. Pink Mom notices me and smiles.

“This is Maddie. She is my mom, so she is your grandma,” she would explain, pointing at the fluffy creature.

I look between the two of them again. “Where is your fur then?” I ask Pink Mom.

“Oh, I shaved it. Got stuck in everything you know,” Pink Mom explains. To which I nod along.

“Don’t lie to them.” Grandma says, looking angrily at Mom.

“Right, sorry,” Mom raises her hands in defence. “She is not my mom in the biological sense; she chose to be my mom, like how I chose to be yours.”

I smile up at Mom. Of course, she chose us. She stole us after all. She is a thief, but a good one that steals people from bad places. I slowly walk over to grandma and hug her, Burying myself in the soft fur. Mom walks up to Shinon putting her hand on top of my sister's head.

“Are you okay?” she asks Shinon.

“Hungry,” she says.

“Oh, that is perfect,” Green Mom says as she jumps in. “We were just about to test some snacks for the party. Want to help?”

I pull back from the furry creature to look at Mom properly. “Food?”

Mom laughs, making a tray appear in her hands with all kinds of food. “Yes, just tell me which you like and which you don’t.”

I look at the tray. On it are different chips and sauces scattered around. I grab one of the chips, put it into one of the sauces and put it into my mouth, releasing a flavour explosion.

I smile up at Green Mom. “Good” I nod, then I look around. “More?”

“Yeah, there will be lots more. Let's all go sit at the table and do some testing then.” She says, walking back to the red person.

We all go sit around the table as Mom brings out different kinds of food and drink that we all get to sample and rate how much we like them. Which is a lot harder of a mission than I first expected. All the food is so good, like so much more tasty than all the food I had before I got here.

My sister seems to have an equally hard time as she keeps taking a bite, then tries something else, then goes back, then pauses to think. The only people who don’t seem to find the task difficult are the adults who just grab food willy nilly and seem to be okay with it. As they talk about something called school.

As I am debating if a crunCY cheese thing with red sauce is better than the spicY crunchy thing, the lady walks in smiling at us. Shinon immediately gets off her chair and runs towards her, throwing her hands around the woman.

“Ooh, hey there, are they bullying you?” the woman asks, patting Shinon’s hair with a smile.

Shinon nods. “It’s hard.”

“What is hard honey?” She asks, looking at the rest of us.

“What food is best?” Shinon says, pointing at the table.

The woman smiles. “Then why don’t you choose a lot of them as the best? Nobody said you had to only pick one right.”

Shinon looks up at her in surprise at the same time I give Mom a betrayed look. “We can?”

“Yeah, lots of people are coming, so you should at least select about twenty different options.” Mom agrees.

That made it still hard but easier. The lady walks Shinon back to her seat, then leans down and kisses Mom.

“How was your day?” Mom asks.

“It was fine. We will probably catch all the bastards, soon,” the lady says sitting down on Mom's lap.

We keep eating different types of foods until we have a good collection of good foods. When the selection was made, Mom started making bigger plates of each food and spreading it around the room. Then she also starts putting out glasses and bottles of all kinds of drinks.

When Mom finished putting the food out while I was watching tv but mostly just observing her. She walks up to the two of us and sits down with us.

“Are you girls ready for tonight?” Mom asks, patting my head. “A lot of people will be here, but if you don’t like it, we can call it off.”

“No, it’s okay. Daisy will protect,” I say with a smile.

Mom nods. “That she will anyhow. There will be other children there as well so you might make a friend.”

I shrug, falling into Mom to get more of her warmth. “Don’t know,” I answer.

Mom throws her arm around me, allowing me to crawl even further into her. Mom always felt nice to be with. We stay cuddled up on the couch for a while until more of the new people come in, this time one being the wicked witch and the other a bouncy girl with a big smile.

The bouncy girl walks up to me. “Hello, I am Claire. It is nice to meet you. This is for you.” She puts her hand in the big bag she brought and takes out a soft orange toy with black stripes and hands it to me.

I grab the soft cat toy, giving it a squeeze, then I smile at her because the adults like that. “Thank you.”

Claire smiles back at me. “I hope you like it, and welcome to the family.”

I nod at her, not knowing what to do next. Luckily she moves on quickly, doing the same thing with Shinon but this time handing her a yellow cat with black spots. Shinon also takes her toy, looking at it confused but still holding it close. Things continue on like this for a while. More people keep showing up; some say hello, some just smile at us, and go to talk with some of the adults instead. That is until a little girl about half a head taller than Shinon walks up to us.

“Hello, I am Rose,” she says with a wide smile, showing off her missing teeth. “Want to play with me?”

“Play what?” Shinon asks, looking at the girl with curiosity.

“Maybe a board game. There's a new one I want to play, but it needs four players.” The girl looks around for a bit and then puts her hand to her mouth. “Tina, are you here?”

Suddenly, a little girl in an oversized green hoody appears. Her wild mane of light blue hair swishing around her as she does so. “You called?,” she says with a wide grin.

Rose nods. “Yes, want to play a game?”

Tina nods. “Sure, but where? It’s kind of getting full here?”

“My room is safe,” I say, looking at the two girls.

Rose looks between Tina and me. "Are you sure? You don’t have to”

“I am sure,” I say, standing up from the couch and leading the girls to my room.

When I get to my room, I throw the new plush toy I got onto the bed and start grabbing pillows for the floor. Rose then goes and sets up the game, explaining the rules to all of us. We play for a while, only stopping for a moment when Mom knocks on the door and gives us a plate of snacks and some drinks.

We keep playing the game as slowly I keep smiling more and more finely feeling real happiness.