Lesson

Flash Fiction

Lesson

“What are we going to do? Look at this place!!”

“Well…”

“There’s crap everywhere!”

“Well…”

How did this get so out of hand?!”

“Well…”

“What happened??”

“You invited your friends in to get something to eat…”

“Why did I do that?”

“Because you’re a boy, so you don’t know how much of a mess boys make.”

“Mom is going to go crazy!”

“I have an idea…”

“What?”

“I have an idea… get the boys back in here.”

In they came, all three of them.

Janet looked at them, then said very seriously, “I’m afraid of the mice! Please help me get all this cleaned up so the mice won’t come and scare me!!!”

The boys all looked at each other, and at Janet, who looked like she was about to cry. Then they whirled through the kitchen picking up plates, and putting food back in the cabinets, and clearing away all the crumbs as Janet sat at the table, still looking as if she was about to cry. Finally, the kitchen was back to clean, actually cleaner than it had been before they came in!

“Oh, thank you so much!” Janet said, smiling as the boys walked out, smiling too.

“How did you do that?” Henry asked, somewhat shocked.

“It’s easy… I’m a girl and they’re boys!” Janet said.

Henry never forgot that moment. And he never fell for any sneaky girls trying to get work out of him because they didn’t want to do it. Until he met Sandra that is…

And Sandra never found out that he knew when she was being sneaky just to get some help. He thought it was sweet, and he married her anyway.