Just another day
"I mean ehm -- Meow, go home now? My mom is waiting," Khadija very poorly tried to cover up the perfect crispy meow.
It was so poor that it was laughable. In fact, Isra slipped and laughed, worsening the already delicate situation. On this, the furious fire-breathing mother turned back and stared at her, diminishing the giggle from existance.
"Isra, you do know how I hate cats, don't you?" Ms.Amna straightened her posture, swiping imaginary dust off her apron and trying to be as composed and cool-headed as she could be. Contrastingly to Isra's stoic personality, her mother had a thing for being comically overdramatic in situations.
"Yes, Ammi1."
"So where did the meow come from, Isra?"
"What meow?" Isra nonchalantly denied that there had been any such sound.
The situation was getting hotter and the slow ticking of wall clock complimented the tension, birds had long stopped chirping and the chains were slowly breaking, at this pace, inevitably the cat was going to be out of the box very soon. Well, quite literally.
But before anything could happen, A sharp hiss resounded in the tense air, coming from the kitchen, apparently the milk had over boiled and was pouring over the stove. Ms.Amna looked at both of them with a strong gaze, and ran towards the kitchen.
"This isn't over! Stay there!" she commanded,
The girls ignored, and made a run for it, instead, Isra knew that any second now, the idea of checking Khadija's bag would occur to her mother spelling inevitable doom for both of them so they moved on her command. They reached the room and closed the door as silently as they can and then like well trained professional burglars, the work started. Their chemistry was so perfect it looked unnatural.
Khadija unzipped the large bag and took out the vaccum cleaner.
Pressed the eject button, and the cloud lazily formed out of the nozzle, taking shape of a chubby cat.
Khadija then stuffed the bag back again.
"Please, I have a family," and before the poor cloud could finish the sentence, it went into a big plastic box, and the lid tightened on top of it. It wasn't seal-tight, so practically if the cloud decided to sabotage everything, it could have. But not today. Today Isra sat in front of it. Calmly. And just by looking at her face, the cloud got intimidated and cowered to a corner.
She didn't say anything. She simply raised her finger to her lips and shushed it. So it shushed.
And a second later, the door opened. Her mother, silent as a stone, moments before spewing lava, started looking around the room. She knew for a fact now that Isra had sneaked in another cat,
Just two weeks ago she had brought home a stray kitten and kept it hidden for a whole day, until Ms.Amna and kittens mother, finally found it behind the tv cupboard, spoiled with treats and milk. She just knew. But where. Where is it? WAIT.
She asked Khadija nicely for her bag, which she gave her. She patted her gently on her head. Then opened her bag with extreme respect and love, and there was nothing but a vacuum cleaner inside.
She frowned but wondered, there was absolutely no limit the girls wouldn't cross, she looked briefly at both of them. Then hesitantly took out the vacuum cleaner and sighed tiredly.
*Clack!.*
The lid opened, and a huge cloud of dust and dirt shot her face, blackening it completely.
"Mom, please, there is no cat. You will not find any cat because there is none. It was Khadija really, just let it go. I'm hungry."
Ms.Amna resignedly looked up, she couldnt really say anything to the girls, afterall who goes around opening vaccum cleaners to find cats in them, she felt embarassed, but not too much, deep down she knew doing something like this wasn't a far fetched thing for the girls.
She sighed and stood up, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt,
"I want you both at the table in two minutes," she said sternly and left.
And so the game ended, as it stood, Isra sweeped a clean win from her fire breathing mother with sheer genius and brilliance. She was slowly becoming undefeatable in her own house.