Grown-Up Problems

The sun was almost fully hidden behind the hills on the west side of the house. What a busy day! One of many yet to come. Jessy was trying to figure out how to manage a groceries run in the nearest future as they were running out of the basic things like bread and milk. At 15 years of age she prided herself in the fact that her mother could delegate such important tasks to her. Like right now for instance - leaving Jessy caring for her younger sister and grandma in their old grandmother’s house while she was away on one of her work trips. Her mum would always say that she was like a full grown adult she could rely on and that always made Jessy feel very proud. Somehow that gave her a sense of stability and safety. Like she could fix anything. And this sort of realisation often comes in handy in a lot of life situations you come across. So there she was figuring out the little details of the big household placed in her care while watching her younger sister try to build a tower out of cards. “You do realise you are cleaning this up right after, Amy?” Jessy snapped at her sibling. Amy made a feeble sound of acknowledgement. “And you’re helping with Granny’s dinner.” That made Amy look up from her endeavour. Helping Granny eat and trying to communicate with her was no easy task. There were rare periods of time where you could talk to her like in the earlier stages when she would tell the most improbable stories from her youth. But at times she disappeared in some distant corners of her mind that no one could reach. When that happened she was more like a presence in the room that could not truly be interacted with. Right now she was inside one of those episodes, sitting still in the corner in her favourite chair with Charlie, her spaniel, curled up on her lap. She was so very quiet except for the slight clicking of the prayer beads she never seemed to let go of.

“And you could help out more you know,” Jessy kept on pushing, “When mum comes back she would certainly be happy to see you helping out with grown-up stuff.” Jessy was definitely at a stage of her young adult experience where she just had to try out things. Like talking down to people she could talk down to. Amy, despite her young age of 11, picked up on these sorts of nuances rather well. “You mean you are going to tell me what to do and if I don’t you’re just going to tell mum bad things about me!” Amy shoved her architectural efforts away and sent them flying across the floor. “You’re such a child!” exclaimed Jessy somewhat theatrically, “You know what, don’t bother, I’ll get Granny’s dinner myself!” Jessy stomped off to the kitchen with an elevated sense of self importance. 

As she entered the kitchen, she stopped short. It happened again, the third time this week. There they were, lying on top of the kitchen counter as if thrown there in a rush, little star shaped pieces of chocolate wrapped in sparkly foil. Jessy knew the exact location of the stash they came from, so both times she hid them away carefully. She didn’t want Amy to find out and bully her into eating it all. Somehow, in Jessy’s mind it was easier to just never tell her about their existence. 

But this time she decided to find out who took them out and since there was no way their grandma could have done that, the whole thing was much too mysterious to ignore. She marched back into the living room to find her sister stuck underneath an armchair in search of lost cards. “Amy, did you take out the candies from Granny’s secret stash?” she inquired.

“There is a secret stash?!” Amy exclaimed from her confines, “And you didn’t tell me?!”

This conversation started to feel increasingly more like a mistake on Jessy’s part. “That’s not the point!” she diverted, “The point is, that it’s the third time I’m finding them on the counter, and I can’t figure out how they got there.”

“Maybe there’s a ghost!” the excitement flared up in Amy’s eyes as she finally managed to free herself, “Like a good one! That brings chocolates. I knew this house was haunted!” Somehow this childishness made Jessy smile from some deep and forgotten place inside. “You know what, maybe you’re right!” she played along, “But how could a ghost bring those chocolates all the way from the cabinet upstairs?” 

“Maybe they had help,” supplied Amy, “We have to find out! We should set up a trap!” 

The two sisters were never really on the same side of something and now it felt strangely comforting. “You’re right! Let’s set up trip wires… oh, and maybe make some sort of alarm system.” Jessy continued in her grown-up analytical fashion. Amy was already so overly excited that she couldn’t stay still and kept pacing around the room with a piece of paper on hand trying to find a pen. “Yes, like a tin can alarm, and we can spill dye on the floor so we can trace its footprints…And! We can dig a hole to the basement and cover it up so the ghost falls into that.” Jessy realized that this was escalating rather rapidly. “Through the kitchen floor you mean?” she asked cautiously. Amy nodded back frantically. Jessy took a second to compose her face into a more matter-of-fact expression. “But don’t you think that the ghost might get just a tiny bit upset about that and never bring chocolates again?” That registered as a valid argument to Amy and she became a little more thoughtful. “Oh I know! We can strap a camera to Charlie’s neck and see if he witnesses anything. Because dogs can see ghosts!” Jessy decided to leave that last remark without a comment, considering how that dog always seemed to stare into empty spaces, but she liked the general change of their plan. “You know what, that’s a great idea!”

“You leave Charlie out of it!” a quiet but nonetheless noticeable voice full of indignation came from the corner of the room. The last bit of their conversation seemed to have summoned Granny back to earth and made her look more alive than ever. “Granny! The dinner is almost ready,” Jessy switched back to her serious mode. “Thank you dear, but I’m not hungry. I’d love a cup of tea though. And some chocolates!” With these words she clicked her praying beads twice and instantly Charlie leapt off Granny’s lap and ran up the stairs. Moments later he was already carrying back a handful of chocolates in his mouth.