Incongruous (adj.) – Lacking in harmony; incompatible
I sucked in a short, sharp breath as I saw what looked like blood staining my wrist. How the? I hadn’t felt a thing, more preoccupied with covering my head as I body-rolled across the ground to safety, shielding my vulnerable frame from yet more attacks. I swear it felt like they were growing in numbers. My heartbeat thrummed in my ears, my voice sounded strangled as I pleaded for them to let me go, to show some sort of compassion, to realise that I was at their mercy – only, my cries fell on deaf ears. I sniffed and tried to keep my emotions in check. This wouldn’t go on for ever, the end had to be in sight soon. Then again, what had I expected? It wasn’t like they were going to calmly sit down and discuss our issues over a nice cup of tea.
And then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. Only this time the silence was deafening. I wasn’t sure what was worse – the relentless barrage of flying missiles or not knowing what was coming next. What were they planning? I’d never heard it so quiet in here. Blood rushed to my head and I dared to peek out from my hiding place. They knew I was here, so why didn’t they advance and try to capture me to put me out of this nightmare?
Calm down, Georgia, you can’t let them win, I scolded myself, desperate to get some sort of control over this situation I’d found myself in. I needed to think straight and use my brain to try to come up with an escape plan. They would be getting tired soon, surely; that had to be to my advantage. I hadn’t exhausted myself the way they had. How had today led to this?
I rubbed at the dark, crimson mark on my wrist, which instantly slicked to my fingers, tensing my body and preparing to wince at the pain an open wound would bring. But there was nothing. My skin was perfectly intact under the thickened gloop of what looked like blood.
The smell of strawberry jam hit my nostrils at the exact moment the attack started again, with more force and vigour than before. But I wasn’t taking it any longer. I rolled to my feet and stood tall, emitting a roar that bellowed from the depths of my stomach. The movement shocked them into silence for a moment before a petrified wail filled the air. Oh balls.
‘Shush, it’s all right. Just Aunty Georgia being silly!’ I pleaded, as I leapt over the back of the sofa that had been my base camp. One of my captors was now crying, with the other on the verge of tears. Nice one, Georgia.
‘Don’t cry.’ I scooped up Lily, whose tiny face had crumpled in on itself. Her small shoulders juddered with heart-wrenching sobs.
‘You made Liwy cry! I’m telling Mummy of you!’ Cole pouted, then threw a stuffed elephant at my feet for good measure as I cradled his younger sister, feeling her warm soft skin touch my jam-stained arms.
‘No, no. Don’t tell Mummy. We were just playing a game, remember? You were protecting her from the monster. Remember?’ My voice was in that irritating sing-song style that people seem to use when speaking to small dogs, gurgling babies or bartering with sullen toddlers.
I knelt down to his height and awkwardly shifted his sister to one hip. She was still crying, but it was more of a grizzly moan than the full-on sobs from a few moments ago. Cole jutted out his tummy and put his hands on his hips. I realised that he had pen marks down one arm and something crusty clinging to his royal blue t-shirt that I swore wasn’t there when Marie left us in a whirl of nerves for her audition earlier.
‘You made Liwy cry,’ he repeated, his young face stern as he struggled to pronounce his sister’s name through gapped teeth. ‘Mummy says I’m in twouble when I make her cry so you are too.’
‘Well, actually if you think about it, you were invading my camp and I …’ I trailed off, realising that you can’t rationalise with a small person, especially over the game of monster warfare, as all my other efforts at entertaining them had failed spectacularly. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right,’ I admitted, getting to my feet and hoisting his sister into a more comfortable position. ‘Now then, who’s for a snack?’
Cole tilted his head to one side, working out if my promise of sweet treats was genuine or not. I’d already succumbed to opening one pack of rich tea biscuits and I wasn’t entirely sure if Lily was old enough to eat them, but she’d grabbed some in her chubby hand and stuffed them in her mouth before I could protest.
‘I want four biscuits ’cause I’m nearly four.’ He jutted his lower lip out and eyeballed me. This was clearly non-negotiable. I nodded with a deep sigh. ‘But I’m still telling Mummy of you!’ he shrieked, and raced off to the kitchen, knocking over a side table along with the plastic cup of juice that had been sitting on it.
‘Crap.’ I put Lily down on the rug and tended to the sticky orange juice puddling across the wooden floor.
‘Ommm! You said a bad word!’ Cole peeked his head back around the door frame. Was he holding a jar of Nutella?
‘No, I said, cr—’ I couldn’t think of a child-friendly substitute word as Lily had started wailing again. Spinning around, I saw that she had her fingers trapped in a set of chubby plastic keys. Lord knows how she’d managed to do that. ‘God damn it,’ I muttered and left one task for another.
‘You said a bad word. You said a bad word!’ Cole sang, running around and spreading garishly bright orange footprints across the messy room. He was still clutching the jar of chocolate spread that looked dangerously precarious in his skinny arms.
‘Cole, can you put that down, please. Lily, don’t cry, it’s okay!’ I didn’t know which child to attend to first. The orange juice was inching closer to my shoes but that mess just had to wait. I eased her fingers from the toy – I thought these things were made for children – and picked her up again, before running a tea towel over the worst of the fruity mess on the floor with my right foot, while simultaneously calling for Cole to stand still so I could wipe his feet. He ignored me and clambered onto the fort, sorry, sofa. Why in God’s name did Marie have a beige sofa with two young children and, more to the point, how had she managed to keep it so clean?
When she’d left for her audition, Lily had been fast asleep and Cole quietly sitting at the miniature-sized table patiently colouring in. The whole scene had been calm, serene, and a world away from the chaos I found myself embroiled in right now. I glanced down at my watch, trying to work out how much time I had to turn this situation around and get the house back to the same state it had been in when I’d arrived. But I had no idea what time it was as I’d left my watch in the bathroom when I’d tried to rinse felt tip pen from the strap without success. I felt exhausted. My voice was hoarse from pleading with the youngsters, my arms were stained in syrupy jam from a previous snack attack, my hair had frizzed up with the heat of racing around after them both and my stomach gurgled for something to eat, a cup of non-tepid tea or even a bottle of wine.
The muffled ringing of my mobile phone coming from somewhere unidentifiable began playing its tune.
Shit! In the chaos of controlling two small humans, the call from the bank had completely slipped my mind. I hurriedly scanned my eyes over the mess of the room, trying to locate where my sodding phone had been buried.
‘Cole, if you can find Aunty Georgia’s phone you can have five biscuits.’ His eyes lit up as he worked out that five was more than four, and he began flinging cushions off the messy sofa, following the chirping sound.
Oh God, where was it? I couldn’t miss this call.
‘Here! I win!’ he boasted, holding up my phone.
‘Excellent.’ I took it off him and pressed connect. ‘Hello, Georgia Green speaking.’
‘Ah, Miss Green, it’s Simon here, we met yesterday?’
‘Yes! Hello, thanks for calling me. It’s great to hear from you—’
Cole was tugging at my top. ‘Biscuits. You said more biscuits.’
‘Yes, yes, in a minute,’ I loudly whispered to Cole and turned my back on him. ‘Sorry, Simon, not you. Right, I’m all ears.’
‘Well, we all enjoyed your pitch and believe that Lonely Hearts Travels is a very unique and interesting opportunity, but we have a few, erm, let’s say concerns.’
My heart and stomach both dropped.
‘Concerns? Really?’ My voice had gone all high-pitched and funny.
‘Biscuits!’ Cole began stomping his feet.
‘Cole, just one moment – yep, sorry about this, Simon, I just need to—’ I snapped. What concerns could they possibly have?
‘BISCUITS NOW!’ Cole roared.
For the love of God. ‘Cole, please. I’m on the phone, just wait a minute,’ I barked, then plastered on a smile that Simon couldn’t see. ‘Simon, I am so sorry about this, things are a little hectic my end. What was it you were saying? Some concerns you have?’
Simon cleared his throat. ‘Well, one of them is that we’re worried we won’t receive your full attention, as you clearly have an awful lot going on and …’
Ah, balls. First my phone interrupts the pitch and now I’m engaged in biscuit bartering with an impatient toddler. I can see how bad this looks.
‘Well, I will stop you there as I can one hundred per cent promise that if we were to receive your generous investment we would be committed to ensuring that you have our utmost attention and …’
I clasped my hand over the receiver and loudly hissed at Cole to let go of my leg. He thought it was hilarious and gripped on tighter.
‘Miss Green?’
I tried to angle my body away from the excitable toddler currently using my thigh as a climbing frame and focus on what I was saying.
‘And … and we will make sure that you feel involved every step of the waaaaaaaaay!’ Cole had used all his weight to leverage his body onto my leg, causing shooting pains of cramp to seize up my thigh. Cole found this hilarious. Simon did not.
‘I think this call has only reinforced our concerns, so I am sorry to inform you that we will not be taking your application any further. I’ll let you get on to whatever it is that you are occupied with. Thank you for your time.’ He hung up.
We’d lost the pitch. That investment had slipped through our fingers. I felt numb. To top it off, Lily was now crying for some unknown reason, Cole was dancing on the crumpled cushions, my leg was in agony and, at the exact time when I realised he had somehow opened the jar of Nutella and had thrust a pudgy palm into the thick spread, the front door swung open.