Chapter Forty-Five Piper
Chapter Forty-Five
Piper
Piper rounded the corner of the stairs. Bella screamed again. Then she giggled.
Relief flooded Piper’s body, followed by confusion as her eyes took in the strange tableaux spread before her in the Cleaver basement.
“What the hell is going on here?”
All eight kids stared back at her, guilt and surprise etched across their faces.
They knelt on the floor, huddled around the small fire safe Kiersten kept in the nook beneath the staircase that she and her husband used as an office.
A stethoscope protruded from Matthew’s ears. Beside him, Caitlin pressed the round part of the stethoscope against the door of the safe.
“Are you . . .” Kiersten frowned. “Are you trying to crack our safe?”
The kids were clad in various shades of black, plus what appeared to be attempted disguises. Guinevere wore a Darth Vader mask. Olivia wore a Harry Potter cape, Bella an Elsa wig, and Luke sported a purple balaclava normally used for snowmobiling.
What the hell?
“Upstairs,” Piper bellowed. “Now.”
The kids scrambled up the stairs, followed by their mothers. Kiersten called Rosamund, who arrived moments later to find all eight kids sitting in uncharacteristic silence on the couch.
Piper pointed to her youngest. Always start an interrogation with the person most likely to rat out her partners in crime. Bella was notorious for giving “hints” that revealed the contents of every Christmas present under the tree.
“You. Spill it.”
“We just wanted our iPads back,” Bella said plaintively.
“I can’t take this anymore.” Luke pulled off the balaclava. His hair stood on end, giving him the strung-out look of an addict in need of a fix. “I need Fortnite. I need it now.”
Caitlin removed her black Incredibles mask. “People are, like, texting things about me. Saying I left school because I had some kind of mental health episode. And I can’t set the record straight, because I can only text one hour a week. This is ruining my life.”
“We used your iPad,” Johnny confessed. He removed his goalie mask and looked up at his mother with a guilty expression. “We went on YouTube. We found a video about how to crack open safes. They said to use a sethascope. So we got the one you use when you’re a nurse.”
“We had no choice.” Matthew removed the catcher’s mask he’d been wearing. “The current screen time policy is draconian.”
Rosamund shot him a small smile. Draconian was one of the vocabulary words they’d discussed this week.
“We want to negotiate a better deal,” Matthew continued.
Piper’s mouth dropped open. “Negotiate?”
“That’s right.” Guinevere removed her Darth Vader mask. “We pay attention. We behave. And you let us have screens for three hours every day. And two movies on Saturday nights.”
Caitlin moved to stand beside Guinevere and Matthew with crossed arms. “These are our demands.”
“And if we don’t meet your demands?” Kiersten asked, eyebrows raised so high they disappeared into her hairline.
“Then we go on strike,” James said. “We won’t learn things.”
Piper exchanged a glance with Rosamund and Kiersten. “Management needs to discuss this.”
Matthew picked up the remote. “Great. We’ll watch the Minecraft movie while you talk.”
He turned on the TV, and the kids immediately sank into a tranquilized silence.
The mothers retreated to the dining room / classroom.
“I can’t believe this,” Kiersten spluttered.
Piper threw her hands in the air. “Completely outrageous. This is—”
“Smart,” Rosamund said.
They turned to stare at her. “Smart?”
“We discussed this in history last week,” Rosamund said with a bemused expression.
“The Industrial Revolution. The Luddite movement. The newsboys’ strike of 1899.
The rise of labor unions. Believe it or not, I think they’re actually learning things.
And I think they’re right. One hour of screen time once a week is draconian, by modern child-technology standards. I say we rethink our policy.”
Piper put her hands on her hips. “Seriously?”
“Yes. Seriously,” Rosamund said. “And it might actually be easier if we do it their way. If they expect screen time every day, we have a carrot we can use when their attention starts to wander.”
Piper chewed on her lower lip and considered this. “I guess if we want them to have friends to go back to next year, they need time to text and play video games with those kids while we homeschool.”
“I can get on board with a little screen time every day,” Kiersten finally conceded. “I guess it’s sort of like methadone for a heroin addict. But three hours is too much. Luke would turn into a Minecraft zombie.”
“So we lowball them,” Rosamund said. “We offer half an hour a day. They counter with two hours. We settle at screen time for one hour each day, plus a movie on Friday and Saturday nights.”
Piper nodded. “I’m prepared to go as high as ninety minutes of screen time a day. But that’s our final offer.”
Kiersten nodded. “Agreed.”
They returned to the family room, paused the movie, and began their negotiation. It took ten minutes, but the children finally agreed to an hour of screen time each day, plus a movie on Friday and Saturday nights. They ratified this agreement with handshakes.
The mothers made popcorn as a peace offering and let the kids stay up past their bedtime to finish watching the Minecraft movie as a demonstration of good faith.
As the kids snuggled on the couch with their movie, the moms retreated to the kitchen, where Kiersten made everyone a cup of chamomile tea.
“We are either the best moms in the world or the worst moms in the world,” Piper said. “I’m not sure which.”
“My parents never, ever negotiated with me about anything,” Kiersten said, shaking her head.
Rosamund wrapped her hands around her steaming mug of tea. “I know, but it’s a new era. I like to call it ‘Parenting with Pragmatism.’”
“Speaking of eras,” Kiersten said, “can I read you guys a couple more entries from Dottie’s diary?”
“Sure,” Rosamund said. “Are they interesting?”
Kiersten swallowed her tea. “They’re heartbreaking.”