Aunt Maureen's Away

When you’re really happy, it’s hard to keep the celebration to yourselves. And that’s exactly what’s happening to Tamara, Pepper and me. We have successfully survived two months and three weeks of staying with Uncle Percy. Tyson, Millie, and Rebecca are too young to understand why we are happy or sad. They don’t care even if they are in Antarctica as long as they have each other, and someone to bug with their mischiefs. So, anyway, we were super happy, until uncle surprised us: one of my aunt’s school time friends was in town. She wanted to spend the entire day with an aunt. So that meant we had to eat lunch cooked by the uncle.

“Breakfast is in the fridge. Percy, there are vegetables in the pan. Sauté them, and add the noodles I kept on the stove for lunch. Rachel, there is some baby food on the microwave, feed it to the triplets before you have lunch. Oh, and Percy, if the veggies get overdone, do NOT add oil to the pan. It will just worsen the condition. PERCY! Are you even listening?” “Huh? Oh yes, add oil to the pan if overcooked veggies!” Uncle had just woken up and was talking gibberish again. Aunt slapped her head in disapproval. “Percy, no. Do not add oil to the pan if the veggies are overdone. All clear?” “Yes aunt,” we chorused. “Good. I’ll be back by seven.”

 After my aunt went, we had breakfast. It was fruit cups with some apple pie and waffles. I loved it. Aunt had already fed the triplets, so we put them back to sleep, and got with our work. At around eleven, the triplets got up. Tamara fed them some apple puree and we played games till one.

At one-thirty, uncle had still not thought about making lunch. “Well kids, I’m going to clean my bike. Don’t bug me.” “But uncle, what about lunch,” Pepper asked. “Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” So uncle went into the kitchen. He turned on the gas, and shouted, “How do you sauté veggies?” “Just add a LITTLE bit of oil to the pan, and keep moving the vegetables till they become golden brown,” Tamara shouted back. So he picked up the oil which he had kept down and added some into the pan. Then he said, “I’m going to clean my bike. Watch the veggies.” And out he went, without waiting for our reply. We got back too game, ignoring his instructions.

After half an hour, an uncle came to us and asked, “Do you smell something burning?” “No uncle,” we replied. He ran into the kitchen and there were the veggies, burning. “What did Maureen say, add oil to the veggies if they burn,” and he added the entire pot of oil in his hand, without realizing that it was motor oil. Then he took the noodles, ripped open the packet, and dumped the noodles into the pan, the noodles were suddenly coated with the acrylic smell of motor oil. To make matters worse, the blackened, and shriveled up, like they were alive, which made us all want to puke.

 “Where does Maureen keep her vegetables? I’ll try cooking them again.” “No! If you try cooking again, we will just waste more stuff and we will be late for lunch. I'll feed the triplets lunch. Pepper, you clean up the mess in the kitchen with Rachel. Uncle, you order takeout chicken for lunch.” “But who’ll tell Maureen?” “We won’t tell her. She’d flip,” I warned them. “Good point,” uncle replied.

But just as we were about to start the assigned tasks, the doorbell rang. It was Aunt Maureen! “Is lunch ready,” she asked. “Aunt! Why are you back so early,” I asked. “Oh, my friend slipped on some juice so we had to call off the fun. So anyway, is lunch ready?” “Uhm, about that…,” I began. “Percy messed it up and you’re gonna order takeout chicken now. Right?” “As always.” “Good, now let’s go scare your uncle,” she said. She pretended to be very angry and made a big show of stomping into the kitchen. “Percy, can you not do anything right? I did literally everything and you still messed up,” she said and broke down laughing. Well, you can say uncle got saved this time!