The Result of Revenge

A little girl calmly stood in front of a clear, closet mirror. Her dark chocolate-coloured hair stretched down to her waist. She slowly balled her hands into two tiny fists and shouted, “I will get my revenge!” When kids are mad at their parents, most of them do either one of two things: one, they throw a temper tantrum. Or two, they get revenge but it’s something small like putting salt into their parent’s coffee. This primary school-aged kid was different though. She had a plan so grand that even Arsene Lupin wouldn’t be able to handle it.

This plot of revenge had all stemmed from her parent’s continuous indifference to her. She didn’t understand what could’ve been more important than listening to how she defeated countless participants in a ‘who could make the best sandcastle in the world competition.’ Her parents used to always listen to her battles at school. They even used to always excitedly smile and nod along as they listened. Now, the only thing she got from them was a curt “oh, ok.” Or even just an annoying “Julie, I’m busy right now, can we talk later?” Later never seemed to arrive.

Julie quickly ran over to her bed and used her short legs to scale the tall mountain. After getting on top, she crawled over to her pillow and slowly lifted it, to reveal a large pink sketchbook decorated with scented stickers. This was her top-secret mission book which outlined her course of action for tomorrow. So far, she had already jotted down her plans for steps one and two but was still short a step.

Julie frustratingly skimmed through her well-devised plan and analysed it for any errors. First, she was going to serve her parents soapy water disguised as water. Next, she was going to steal their current most prized possession: a stack of paper. She had no idea why her parents were so fixated on something so boring. She even had a peek to see what it was and only saw a bunch of insanely huge numbers next to some toys she’d never seen before. Her eyes followed her hands as she turned to a blank page. There was only one more step that she had to take to pull off the best revenge possible.

Julie sighed. She had no idea as to what that last step should be though.

“Julie, come downstairs to eat dinner, Aunt Anya’s here!”

Aunt Anya? Julie stood as she heard her mother’s shout. Finally, someone to talk to! She thought. Just like Julie, Aunt Anya also had many amazing tales to tell. Her favourite adventure of her aunt’s was the time she had to deliver messages between the fighting Mr Easter Bunny and Mr Santa Claus. Without her, Julie might’ve never had any chocolate or presents that year! Julie shivered as she remembered the ordeal. She energetically jumped off her bed with a perfect landing. Then tucked her precious sketchbook under her pillow and raced down the stairs to join her family, but the meal was nothing that she could’ve prepared herself for.

Silence. The only person who wasn’t talking was Julie. She watched as her mum and Aunt chatted with each other about something she didn’t understand. Julie silently turned her gaze away to look at her dad. He was staring intensely at his laptop screen. He didn’t spare even a second glance to look at the innocent girl who was sadly watching him. Julie angrily stabbed at her sausage with a fork, causing a clattering sound to briefly fill the room. No one looked up, not even Aunt Anya who had betrayed Julie.

Julie didn’t bother eating her favourite mashed potatoes and sadly left the dining table to go sit in the living room. She flopped down onto the couch. “Why is no one paying any attention to me?” She mumbled with her face pressed into the sofa. She slowly turned her head to the side and came face-to-face with a glowing white screen. Curious, she got up and inspected it. The screen belonged to her mother’s laptop which she must’ve left open. The page said, ‘proposal of new hazard-free children’s toys.’ The only thing Julie had comprehended from that title was ‘new toys.’ Her face lit up like the sun at this sudden realization. Had her parents been ignoring her all this time because they were trying to secretly buy her a new toy? Well, it was inevitable that such a secret would be discovered by her, Julie thought. She was a genius after all.

Julie sprinted for her room, she felt thrilled by this sudden revelation. As she ran, for some reason all the paintings in the house seemed prettier than usual and all the mini prickly thorns on her mother’s plant at her worktable didn’t seem scary at all.

Once she reached her room, she jumped and pulled down the handle, opened it and ran over to leap onto her bed. She rolled around and giggled at the idea of getting a new toy, she adored them so much and even her parents did. “Ouch!” She suddenly yelped. Something hard had poked her back. Julie rolled over and found her sketchbook laid out open on her bed. Julie scrunched up her face, “that’s strange, I thought I put it away?” Julie shrugged her shoulders, unbothered by this change and tucked her book under her pillow. She laid back on her bed and stared at the white ceiling. This time, she was unbothered by her parent’s sudden silent treatment of her. It was a small price to pay to receive a new joy.

After a while of quietly staring at the ceiling, an abrupt knocking sound came from her door. Startled, Julie instantly sat up. The handle quickly turned and Julie’s parents walked in. They were hesitant at first but then smiled. Had they finally come to tell Julie the great news? Her dad cleared his throat and stared at his daughter’s sparkling eyes.

“Julie, tomorrow is going to be a very important day for us.”

Important? Julie thought. Well, getting a new toy was incredibly important.

Her mother then spoke, “tomorrow a very important person from work is going to come over to our home to evaluate your father’s and my idea on a new type of toy.”

Julie stared back at her mother; confusion clear in her small hazelnut-coloured eyes.

Her dad continued, “we don’t want you to come down for that time and just stay up here. When we’re done, we’ll tell you to come down.” He hesitated for a bit and excitedly looked at Julie’s mum, before looking back to Julie. “If the president likes our idea, we’ll have the chance to collaborate on a project with his company. If that also goes well, we might even be given a permanent position at his company, which is one of the best toy companies in the world!”

Julie gaped at her parents, opening and closing her mouth several times. She barely followed anything they were saying and was sure they knew that too. She only had one question to ask about it all though, “so am I still getting a new toy?”

Her parents stared at her confusedly. Julie’s answer to her question was obvious, she wasn’t going to get a new toy. She hurriedly shooed her parents out of her room and slammed the door shut behind her. The small girl slowly sank to the ground, she felt devastated. It felt like a typhoon had hit her. She felt betrayed all over again and could feel a flame slowly ignite inside herself once again. “Change of plans, this revenge is going to happen,” Julie whispered; eyes now filled with tears. She ran over to her sketchbook, pulled it out and slowly felt the cogs in her brain begin to turn. After about an hour of plotting, her plan was complete. All she had to do now was execute it.

A warm, bright light woke the would-be criminal child from her slumber the next morning. Julie exhaustingly turned over and pulled the blanket to cover her soft face. A few minutes passed. She quickly remembered something and sprung up out of her bed. That was right, how could she have forgotten? Today was the day of her revenge! She cautiously tip-toed down the steps and heard the voices of her parents along with the voice of a stranger.

Julie decreased her movement as much as possible as she headed over to the kitchen, careful to not attract any attention. She then grabbed three coloured cups from a bottom cupboard, filled them with water, put in a pump of soap from the soap bottle and stirred her new concoction. She brought one of the cups to her nose and curiously sniffed at it, but quickly pulled it away from her. This wasn’t for her, it was for her parents. Julie confidently marched into the room, ignoring the ‘why are you not in your room looks’ which came from her parents and handed each of the adults a cup of ‘water’. She then hastily left the scene.

After finding a safe spot to watch from behind the staircase, Julie watched her masterpiece unfold. Two shouts immediately occurred straight after she left. One from the shocked stranger who had sipped her mixture and one from her panicking dad who leafed through pages of papers on a desk. Julie smiled, slightly satisfied by the reactions. The stranger had immediately spat the drink out and her mother had quickly taken a sip too when she saw this. She looked around for her daughter, anger clear on her face but Julie had already successfully made her escape. As for the missing pages, the girl stifled a giggle. She had gifted those papers to her pet dog Ray. Phases one and two of the plan had been a success and now it was time for phase three.

The girl’s parents awkwardly laughed as they quickly reorganised themselves after the sudden predicament. Then they continued to present their idea. A giant messy sketch of a toy appeared on the next slide. Julie’s mother’s face went pale, the stranger stared confused and the father turned around noticing the reactions and his mouth seemed to drop to the floor. From that point on, all the slides were filled with the rough sketches of toys which were expertly drawn by Julie last night. As her parents frantically sorted through the slides. The stranger quickly stopped them and started gently talking to them about something Julie wasn’t able to hear. Julie strained her ears to listen but heard nothing from that point on. Either way, her revenge had been successful.

After the man had left, the oblivious girl dashed into the room. She confidently put her small hands on her hips, puffed out her chest and shouted with a strong voice, “that’s what you get for ignoring me!” There was no response. Julie curiously glanced back and forth between her parents who quietly hung their heads and tightly clasped their hands together. Julie was confused. She thought her parents would’ve learnt their lesson and that would’ve been the end of it. She went over to her mum and shook her legs. No response. Then she walked over to her dad. Again, no response. Slowly, tears welled up in her doll-like eyes until they burst like a fountain. She cried. She didn’t know exactly what she had done but she knew that she’d made a mistake.

More minutes passed. Gradually, the voices of laughter filled the room. Julie’s tears slowed down and she looked up at her parents feeling surprised. Why were they laughing now? Suddenly she was lifted into the air by her dad.

“We did it! We got the job! Thank you so much, my baby girl!” Her dad exclaimed.

What? Didn’t she mess everything up? Julie thought.

“That’s our Julie, a true genius.” Julie’s mum said, as she affectionately gazed at her daughter.

Julie struggled in the air, forcing her father to carefully set her down. An array of emotions was displayed on Julie’s face. She sighed, hummed, pointed at her parents and did it all over again as she contemplated on how to simplify her thousands of questions. Sensing Julie’s confusion, her parents laughed again and slowly explained the situation.

“Julie, I saw your little plan and know what you did. So, I want you to know that no matter what happened, what you did today was wrong.” Julie’s mother said sternly.

Julie shamefully hung her head.

“But-but what you did was amazing!” Her father quickly added.

Julie quickly raised her head. From what her parents were telling her, Julie’s sketches of toys over her parent’s business proposal hadn’t ruined the presentation but had instead caught the eyes of the president. Julie felt stunned. Were her drawings really all that great?

“B-but I even gave away your papers with the big numbers! How could my drawings be that great?” Julie protested.

Julie’s mother smiled warmly at her, “you may not realise it dear, but you’re gifted in drawing. Also drawing is-wait…big num-you were the one responsible for that!?” Her mother’s face froze and she looked at Julie astonished.

“It’s alright dear,” Julie’s dad said in between more laughs.

Her father held out his hand to Julie, and so did her mother. Julie held onto both of them, unsure as to what was happening.

“From now on, me and your mother won’t ignore you like that even when we’re deep in work. We’re sorry about that,” her father kindly said apologising. He cleared his throat, “from now on, our family is going to work on projects for toys together. This is going to be great, it’s everything we’ve ever dreamed of!”

Julie watched her parent’s expressions, they seemed to glow.

“Will you join us, Julie?” Her mother softly asked.

Julie turned to her. She wasn’t exactly sure what this decision was going to bring. Honestly, she was just glad that she hadn’t ruined everything for her parents. This result from her revenge was unanticipated. Julie smiled and nodded. Putting all of this aside, Julie loved drawing and she loved toys just as much, or even more so than her parents. Plus, she was only in primary school. So, it wouldn’t hurt to try it. Julie happily gazed at her parent’s loving expressions. This opportunity which had originated from revenge was surely going to be an unforgettable experience for her and she was sure that she was going to absolutely love it.