Playing the baby

Chapter 1
Chapter 1

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Chapter Description: Irma (10 years old) is a genius girl, and she likes to make her little sister Kimberley (6 years old) happy. But that will take her to confront her hateful cousins.

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This is the first story about Irma, the genius girl, and Kimberley, her little sister, and their hateful cousins, Ted and Michael.

Did we mention Irma is a genius? Well, she actually is; she’s daughter of a great scientist and she was always interested in science; Irma is only 10 years old, at her early age she has a great talent to create inventions.

But apart from science, what she most likes is playing with her little sister, Kimberley, who is only 6 years old, and has very different tastes than Irma; Kimberley loves playing with girl stuff, she’s curious, gentle, adorable, and a young fan of the female-power... and for Irma that’s enough for loving her; they spend much timgood nights babye together, playing all day.

Irma’s father divorced from her mother 3 years ago, and even she suffered much, she knows she has the mission of helping her sister in most she can. So, as her mother works all day, Irma often uses her scientific knowledge to solve Kimberley’s problems and help her whenever she can.

And now I’ll talk about Irma’s cousins... Irma’s mom has a brother, and he’s a nice guy. And Irma’s uncle has two sons: Theodore, who is 12 years old, and Michael, who is 7. Actually, there’s no great problem with Michael; the main problem is Ted. Ted is a lazy, immature, disrespectful boy; he doesn’t obey his dad, talks loud to everybody, and tends to complain about everything. Is not Michael’s fault to follow and imitate him, since Irma’s uncle works about all day long, and Ted is maybe Michael’s only friend. Well, even Michael is not rude with other people, he doesn’t disapproves Ted’s behavior; he actually admires it.

Irma, Kim and their cousins see every weekend, usually Irma’s uncle visits his sister, and they usually spend the Sunday more and less together. In fact, Irma’s uncle has to oblige his sons to watch over Irma and Kimberley, because they would never do that for their own will. However, Michael doesn’t have anything against the girls, but as Ted tends to walk away and go to play arcades or take a walk to the park, Michael can’t help following him.

And our story starts one of these weekends. That day Kimberley was wearing her regular Sunday school uniform: squared red dress with a white polo shirt underneath, a red ribbon and gloss black shoes. Irma smiled at her shiny blue eyes as she entered the room.

Irma knew Kimberley so excited because she learned at the Catholic kindergarten for first the differences between girls and boys, very roughly of course, but Kim had developed some interesting ideas for new games involving her cousins.

“It’ll be cool playing to the mommies and babies!” she said, coiling in joy, “We can be the mom and Ted and Michael would be the babies!”, finished, clapping her hands.

Irma giggled at her sister’s ingenuity; Michael was on the rug, playing with Kimberley, and she just thought it’d be rather odd, because Ted and he were older than the girls. But that didn’t stop her; Kimberley got up and ran joyfully across the hall, with Irma following her, worried for she could hurt herself. By the way, Irma was wearing her heavy-duty engineer outfit: denim jumper, a green blouse and her pink Converse; as her sister, she had a ponytail, but Irma’s hair was brown, her skin was tanner and she had green eyes.

Kimberley returned with some aprons, high-heel shoes and baby bottles, willing to start the game, but in that moment Ted came in the room. It was usual to find both brothers wearing similar outfits, and this time Ted was wearing a dark green sleeveless shirt, Cargo shorts and black sockless Converse. Ted was a thin, average height boy, with tan skin and short flattop black hair; and his expression always seem to be irritated. His little brother had different physic: Michael was white, blue eyes and blond hair, with an undercut hairdo.

“Mike, what the hell are you doing with the girls?”, Ted asked, in a loud and rude voice, that made Michael got up quickly. “Let’s go to the park”, then ordered.

But Kimberley was about sitting down on the rug to continue the game.

“Ted, we were going to play babies and mommies!”, Kimberley replied, deeply afflicted.

Ted made a disgusted face, like he was disgusted about his cousin, then asked to Michael: “Were you?”, in an aggressive tone.

Michael only opened his eyes wide and frowned, making a nod that was not an actual answer. And then, considering that problem solved, Ted walked to the door, calling his brother with a hand. Kimberley’s eyes start to overflow with tears because of the rude attitude of her cousin, and of course Irma didn’t like that.

Irma and Kim were able to meet their cousins as they were leaving the garage, carrying their skateboards and heading to the park.

“Hey!”, Irma called Ted, “what’s the problem?”.

Ted turned to her, angry and irritated. “The problem with what?”.

Irma was tired of his intimidating attitude, so she talked clearly.

“Why didn’t you play with Kimberley? She only wants to have a nice moment with you both”. Irma had put all her emotion and reason in that phrase, and she really wanted it to receive a good answer. But she didn’t.

“Playing mommies and babies and those girly stuff?!”, Ted answered, despising, “Oh, come on! You won’t have me to that... nor Michael!”

Kimberley rested her arms down and exhibited a face of pure sadness. Irma frowned again, and put her fists on her hips, waiting for something more.

“Heeey”, Ted finished. “I’m serious. I won’t play that crap with you even you managed to put me back in diapers, ha ha!” And then he and Michael continued their way to the park.

Irma was infuriated, but she knew she had the chance of having the upper hand. She crouched down and took Kimberley’s hand, took a look on her pretty sad face, and then she promised: “Don’t worry, Kimberley! We’ll play mommies and babies next week with the boys!”

Kimberley’s face enlightened in joy:

“Really?! You promise?”

Animated by her cheerful upheaval, Irma said again, smiling wide: “Oh, for sure! And It’ll be great! We’ll have very much fun”

Irma spent the week looking for the engineer materials in order to build what she needed. And then, she consulted some mechanics and robotics books, to gather the knowledge to create her new invention. Irma had a real busy time, and she worked on the garage all night, but she knew that giving her sister a good time will be perfect... and she expected to have the chance to give a right lesson to Ted and Michael in the process.

The next Saturday, Irma had finished the work, and she hided well the machine under some blankets in the garage. Before going to the bed, Irma and Kimberley kneeled down and said their prayers, and when Irma tucked her friend, she promised her next day would be the best of her life. Kimberley slept pleased, and Irma was really looking forward to make her best day.

Next day at noon, Ted and Michael came again, brought by his father. Ted was visibly not in agreement, as he had to spend the first one and a half talking with his aunt... and she didn’t care at all about her. Michael was a little more grateful to have the chance to share a good moment with his aunt.

After that, the whole family had dinner and then Irma and Kimberley’s mom announced she was going to go to the supermarket with her brother for a while.

“Watch for the girls”, Irma’s uncle said to Ted and Michael, especially Ted, “be nice to them and play with your cousins”.

Ted felt insulted for that.

“Bah!”, he answered, “they’re just silly girls!”

Fortunately, Ted’s dad couldn’t hear that last phrase, and he and Irma’s mom went away on the car.

That Sunday Kimberley was wearing casual: a little ponytail of her blond hair, pink t-shirt with a Rainbow design, denim shorts and sandals; Irma was wearing now denim shortalls with a light blue blouse and a pink tie on her hair. Michael and Ted were more or less wearing the same than last Sunday.

After having a prohibited snack from the refrigerator, Ted came back to the hall, where Michael and Kimberley were joking around while watching TV. And where the hell was Irma? Well, Ted didn’t really care about that.

“Hey, Mike, let’s go to the arcades”, Ted said, imperious.

Michael said Kimberley goodbye and followed his brother, leaving Kim sad again. But as they were going to go out of the garage, Irma blocked their exit.

“Where are you going, Ted?”, Irma asked, with her arms crossed.

“You don’t damn care”, Ted yelled, “We’re going to have fun and you are not invited”.

Irma moved away from the door and let the boys pass through, but when they were going to leave, she asked:

“Do you remember what you said last Sunday?”

Ted turned to her, visibly annoyed: “Uhm?”

“You said you were going to play with Kimberley”, Irma continued, self-confident.

“Oh, damn, I didn’t said that crap”, Ted said. “Forget about those silly games”.

But Irma was enjoying the moment.

“But you said that you were going to play mommies and babies with her”.

Michael and Ted chuckled, despising. “Oh, really?”, Ted said, slapping Michael’s chest lightly, like joking.

“Yes... you said you were willing to play if I put you back in diapers”.

Michael and Ted laughed again, despising.

“Ha ha, you think so? Well, why don’t you try to oblige us?” Ted finished, giggling and looking at her intimidating.

“Yeah, try to oblige us!” Michael said, imitating his brother.

“OK... you asked me...” Irma said, taking a remote control out of her pocket and pressing a button. A “beep” sounded on the background and soon, a hastily machine noise filled the garage. Ted and Michael looked each other, surprised. And soon, a pair of big animated hoses came from down of the blankets. Those thick flexible hoses had big cartoonish-looking hands covered with white gloves, and they were moving directly towards Ted and Michael. They opened their eyes, surprised, and ran away from the garage, but the hands tracked them and caught them in the garden. Kimberley was entering the garage when she looked at the big machine working, and Irma standing smiling with the remote in her hand.

The mechanic arms soon dragged Ted and Michael to the garage, while the two boys struggled and shouted loud, filled with fear.

“Welcome”, Irma said, with all the formalism it dictated to be needed, “to the Baby Diapering Machine!”

TO BE CONTINUED

 

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