(aka Bike) Part 2087 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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“When we go to Scotland, can Cindy come with us?” Trish asked again.
“I told you, I haven’t talked to your Dad about it yet.”
“I have,” she smirked, “an’ he said she could.”
“Just you three going is it?”
“No, you’ll be coming too.”
“Will I? Isn’t that for me to decide rather than you and Daddy? Has Cindy said she wants to go?” As far as I knew no one had actually asked her and she was out in the garden with Danny.
Their relationship puzzles me. He knows her history. He had a girlfriend, Peter’s sister, but they had a falling out over nothing in particular as teenagers do. Now he’s practically drooling over Cindy–did the experience in France change him more than I realised, or is he just being friendly–perhaps over friendly?
If we do go to Scotland, should I ask Danny if he wants to invite Peter? He did talk about it before his friend had his accident but I don’t know if they’ve seen each other for a bit. I suspect his embarrassment at Peter’s accident, was partly responsible for the bust up with his sister.
“Yes, she said she wanted to go,” Trish brought me back to the present.
“We’ll see.”
“You said that before.”
“Trish, I have more to worry about than taking you and a friend on holiday.”
“Like what?” she demanded and I had some difficulty maintaining control, in that my hands wanted to go round her neck and squeeze.
“How dare you speak to me like that, go to your room.”
“I will not.”
“Right, I’m confiscating your iPad, laptop and mobile phone for the rest of this week.”
“If you can find them.”
“Just who do you think you are?”
“I could say the same to you.”
“That does it. I’m going to lock you in the garden shed for the rest of the holiday.”
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t I might do something nasty to you–now get out of my sight and bring me your iPad and mobile.”
“Why should I?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll have them disconnected for the whole year.”
“I’ll reconnect them.”
“You won’t.”
“I will, I know more about it than you do.”
“I’ll send Sammi a text, she’ll do it for me, and the way you’re talking, you’re unlikely to get them back before you retire.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Go to your room this minute.”
“Make me.”
“Very well.” I grabbed her and she tried to wrestle her wrist from my grasp.
“Ow, you’re hurting me,” she squealed but I wasn’t going to let go.
She tried to bite me and I pulled her ponytail, she shrieked at me but I managed to manhandle her up to her bedroom and pushed her onto the bed. She lay there having a full tantrum while I walked away, determined not to reward any more bad behaviour.
She screamed at me as I descended the stairs, “I hate you, you’re not my real mother.”
“No, your real mother would have beaten you by now and made you wear boy’s clothes.” With that parting shot, I shut the kitchen door with a loud bang that caused the cat to jump about three feet in the air.
I’d found her mobile and iPad in the bedroom, her laptop was in the dining room and that went with the other bits into a box which I placed in the cellar. She never goes down there, she doesn’t like spiders. I made sure they were all switched off so she wouldn’t be able to track them. She’d do without them all for at least a few days if not weeks.
I heard her stamping about upstairs then there was a crash of something being broken. I flew up the stairs and she was standing holding a photo of all of us, including Billie, which she’d apparently smashed, Worse than that, her hand was bleeding and she was dripping blood on my bedroom carpet.
“Just what are you doing?”
She spun around in astonishment. “I’m sorry, Mummy, I didn’t mean to break it.”
I took the broken glass covered photo from her unresisting hand. Get in the bathroom and run your hand under the cold tap–well go on,” I urged.
“Oh, I’m bleeding,” she said and fainted crashing on the bedroom floor before I could catch her. So far the day was getting worse by the minute.
I placed the remains of the photo and frame on the bedside cupboard and ran to the bathroom where I grabbed the wet flannel and rushed back. I wiped her face then held it over the cut in the palm of her hand. She came round, wet herself and then was sick over both of us. At this point I felt like leaving home and never returning.
Stella appeared in response to my cries for help. I explained what had happened and she ran downstairs, sending Jacquie up to help me–well she’s a nurse specialist, doesn’t do vomit or urine.
Jacquie came back with a bandage and a sanitary towel. I wiped her hand clean, then bandaged the sannie towel tightly to her hand, by which time Jacquie had returned with a bucket of warm water. Between us we stripped Trish off, cleaned her off, shoved her nightdress back on her and took her to her bed. I stripped off and showered while Jacquie took the dirty clothes downstairs and placed them in the washing machine.
After drying and dressing, I cleaned up the carpet before any of it stained and went to check on Trish. She was awake, looking quite pale but fairly alert, Jacquie was sitting with her a bucket by her side–just in case.
“I’m sorry, Mummy.”
“I should think so. Whatever were you thinking of?”
“I was so angry, Mummy.”
“Why were you so angry?”
“You made me angry.”
“No, you made yourself angry, I just refused to be ordered about by someone less than a third of my age.”
“You wouldn’t listen,” she protested.
“I heard every word you said, Trish, it was you who were becoming more unreasonable. How did you cut your hand?”
“I knocked the photo down by mistake and it hit the bedside cupboard and smashed I tried to catch it and cut my hand.”
“What were you doing in my bedroom?”
She burst into tears.
“Tell me, please.”
She shook her head.
I sat by the side of her and held her. “Now tell me why you were in my bedroom?”
“I’m sorry, Mummy.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’ve killed Spike.”
“You’ve done what?” I was horrified, was she delirious?
“I found a picture of Spike and I sent the energy to kill her.”
Tom was feeding the dormice and I went to the bedroom and called him and asked him to check on her. He grumbled but went. She was alright, but one of the others had died, and that had been okay when he’d looked in earlier. Coincidence or what?
I went back to Trish. “What you did was very naughty. However, Spike is still alive.”
“Oh good,” she sighed.
“But one of my others is dead.”
“Oh.”
“Now, I have no idea what killed it, but it seems unlikely that you did it. However, if you ever use the energy for wicked things like that again, I’ll ask that it be taken away from us forever.”
“You can’t do that?”
“Trish, never tell me what I can or cannot do. I am telling you that if ever you use it for bad things, I will personally remove it from you, or you from it. I will not allow something sacred to be profaned by a nasty little girl. You will stay up here for the rest of the day, I might let you down for meals. If you so much as move from this room except to the bathroom or at my behest, I will destroy your iPad, laptop and phone and you won’t get another for at least a whole year. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
I walked out of the room as calmly as I could because inside I was so angry I could quite easily have beaten her. I went into my room, sat on the bed and wept.
Comments
Poor Cathy
I am afraid that Cathy went round the bend this time. Neither of my daughters ever got that willful to my face, that is. One never knows though. My perfect sweet little girl got into horrible trouble almost the day she graduated from High School; car theft, shoplifting, drugs and prostitution. I was hospitalized for several days because I was thinking of killing her. This would have been an honor killing.
She is alive and well and not speaking to me today.
Disciplining a child Is hard work
The child has to know the boundaries and the penalties for crossing them. Unfortunately, you can often hurt the ones you love, as Trish and Cathy have found.
Well observed and written as usual.
S.
Children need to learn limits
and Trish seems to have a long way to go. Wouldn't expect her to be able to kill with the energy but what do I know. Can't help but wonder if her pretty severe reaction to the cut was actually a reaction to trying to misuse her gift.
Poor Cathy... Poor Trish...
You have to set limits
Trish's precociousness is leading her into premature adolescence it seems
Kim
We knew this day would come...
And I think Cathy is handling it as well as she can. However, I think she should get Simon to back her up and they can lay down the law to Trish.
Kids...
They can get under your skin more than anyone else in the world.
Taking away the electronics was the perfect thing to do. The problem comes when there is nothing left to take away.
remembering
Personally I have to keep reminding myself that this is a story and isnt real,because this old grouch in Cathy's place would have spanked that little brat's butt for her.I know others wont agree with me ,but enough is enough from the mouth of a child.....That's why God made butts on children , to remind them to respect their elders
Won't argue with you
I know plenty of people who immediately elevate corporeal punishment to child abuse, but that gets into the zero tolerance area; you just can't draw a neat little box around things and set black & white rules, we are dealing with people. One size fits all rules can't deal with all the variety of human beings.
Trish needs rules about her behavior, and there needs to be consequences to breaking those rules. I'm not sure I'd have let her have all those electronic gadgets at eight years of age. A computer is alright given her IQ but it should be a desktop, not a laptop. The other stuff - no. Maybe a limited dumb phone that can only call a few numbers with a fail mode if she tries to jailbreak it. Nanny software on the computer. Some computers used to boot from ROM, you couldn't alter the software.
I do wonder though, what has brought this about? Is something going on at the school that even the school head isn't aware of? I just don't see this behavior as springing up out of nowhere. No clues yet, at least to me, but there is something wrong. I'm sure of it.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Good point...
Good point about this episode not coming out of nowhere. Trish's excessive bragging/"need" to visit the Castle is in the same boat.
Makes me wonder if she said something about the Castle in passing and was called a liar or if some of the other kids have been claiming their "superiority" based on their perception of their parent's position in society... That kinda thing can easily rub off on a person.
I recall, when a teen, hearing my mom talk about some of the officer's wives acting as if THEY had their husband's ranks, and using them to lord over the wives of less senior officers. (And how a General's wife slowed it down, but calling them on it and reminding them THEY weren't the officers any more than she was.)
Annette
Was reading someone
Was reading someone commenting on the anniversary of BIKE the other night, and switched back to Chapter One to check the date. . . course then got into reading chapter one again. Now I'm on chapters 2077 AND 71 and still smiling, especially at your comment preceding chapter 70, when you were co-authoring with Jane Austen: you said, and I quote, "part 70!!!!!!!!!!".
Bwah ha ha!!!!
God, I love your writing! Thanks, Ang!!!
Hugs,
M.
Marker
Third time through - Kilroy was here ;-)
As Bev says, still lovin' it!
Trish heading for trouble?
Most 8 year olds are quite cooperative and relatively nice. Such insubordination usually begins at pubescence. If Trish is this wilfull now, what will happen when she's 13? Perhaps she should have her 'powers' removed until she's mature enough to have developed some perspective. Generally that occurs around age 60, doesn't it? ;-}
Red MacDonald
Possibly Impossible to Learn
Most adults find it impossible or at least very hard to learn, that "with Power comes Responsibility". Look at all the politicians who pretend to be leading this world, if you doubt that. Kids do not learn that much through being punished, they learn far more through love. When that Russian animal behaviour researcher whose name escapes me (Alzheinmers lest gruessen - as my German ex tells me!) with his salivating dogs and bell ringing discovered the Conditioned Reflex, that comprises 90 % or more of human behaviour, he also discovered that a reward for desired response was 7 x more effective than a punishment for undesired behaviour in training. Parents who remember this get far better results than those who don't.
Briar
Hi Briar
Yes Trish is becoming a handful, which sorta worries me about the "Shek" (NOT "Shrek") who seems to arrange all these things to happen to her 'followers' (reluctant or otherwise). The power/responsibility thing is a subject after my heart and a lesson that my Father in particular was very keen to get me to adopt. It was only later that I truly understood the concept rather than just the words. We humans need to make our mistakes in order to learn. Some make their mistakes at the expense of others.
Cheers,
Julia.
P.S. The correct German would be (as you appear not to have the ability to type letters with umlauts over them): "Alzheimer laesst gruessen") and it was Pavlov of the dog-fame.
Thank You, Julia,
for correcting my now lousy German. I only get to use it once a week now, when my Ex rings me up.
I was just looking for my message to say that it was Pavlov, which I remembered suddenly at a Meeting of a Community Group I work for, pro tem, as it came to me suddenly in the middle of that and so I wrote it on my notes so I could remember it and tell everybody, but you already have. Deutsch is quite hard to learn, but quite easy to forget. Especially when one had learned and spoken only Swedish for most of 5 years before I was sent to Germany, and for about 18 months some time thereafter I was asked to work in The Netherlands, so learned Dutch... When I later still had to work in Denmark..... Well, they are all similar and I sometimes mixed them all up and created a new language !
Still, it was Hungarian (Magyarosh) that really proved hard. It does not relate to any other language at all, though a FEW words are the same in Japanese. That must take some explaining !
Anyway, thanks for helping my tired old brain out. I still feel like a teenager, but sometimes I have reluctantly to admit that this body and brain ARE WEARING OUT. A horrible thought. I am trying to get help via SENS, a group of researchers trying to "engineer the suspension of senescence" - if interested look them up.
Briar
Perspective?
Perspective arriving in adulthood?.
Nope.
I'm 67 and still lose track of perspective. (But then I am a crazy bitch.)
Brilliant chapter Ang. Well worth coming home to after the Sparkle weekend.
LOL
Bev.
Ouch...
A kid that escalates like that... Our younger did some things almost that bad once or twice, luckily, never quite as bad as Trish acted.. It's NOT a good time for anyone... Sadly, some treasured things have gotten broken. That said, she appears to have grown out of that phase!!!
To the point where Trish attempted to injure Spike. She DOES need to learn that with great power comes great responsibility... Cathy's very right in saying the power needs to be removed (if possible) if it's being misused!
Trish certainly is a "hand full"... I hope she's able to "grow up" in some ways more than she has.
I also hope she doesn't "hack" someone else's phone/computer to get around Cathy's punishment.
Thanks for this episode that shows some of the difficulties in parenting that can happen.
Annette
There is no easy
and correct way of keeping a child in check, Whatever works for you is generally the best advice to follow , And i should know having had four children all grow up to be good citizens, I feel like i have some experience ...
Cathy is faced with a problem that has become more common in recent times , Like many readers here i suspect, I have felt my fathers hand on my backside more than once, Cathy like many modern parents feels that smacking is not a path she wishes to follow and i can certainly understand that and indeed followed it myself...
The trouble is todays children are wise to the fact that smacking is a big nono and the more troublesome amongst them use that to good effect, Cathy has used pretty much the only tactic she could use in confiscating all Trish's electronic equipment , What worries me though is , What can she do if the resourceful Trish finds a way around the ban.... There are not many options left..
Kirri
Maybe Billie
can talk some sense into Trish. Cathy is being restrained, which is good. I suspect a few days without her favorite toys will get Trish's attention.