Lucas

Blond-hair
Blue-eyes
Six-years-old
Small-for-his-age
This is Lucas
We glare at each other from across the room. We both hold our breath. We are unflinching, time stands still as we both wait for the other one to make the first move.
This is a classic scene from movies. You don’t have to be some pale, film student wearing a black turtle next, and spending all your time at an art house to have seen a scene like this. It is the final meeting between good and evil, right and wrong, outlaw and sheriff. It can take places anywhere: a sandy lane in Arizona, a gritty street in New York, or even a roof top in Tokyo.
My scene takes place in the Blue Room of Rinia State(the house where I live, errrr live behind, is a national monument) in front of the toy cabinet.
He makes the elusive first move grabbing the fire truck. I make a sharp and quick second move pointing to the blocks, alligators, and cars on the floor.
“Lucas I swear…”
I trail off knowing if I say it in English he can pretend not to understand. I try in a mumbling clutter of Dutch words to tell him if he wants to play with new toys he needs to put the other ones away. It came out less coherent to him than if I had just said it in English. He looks at me, he looks at the red fire truck, and then to the other toys on the floor. He knows… he always knows. This isn’t new anymore.
Lucas is going through a few phases at once and they aren’t making him the most pleasant child to work with. He is going through a “know-it-all” phase, “I-hate-Carol” phase, and a “get-attention-all-costs” phase.
Little does he know, I have gone through all those phases. Hell I know I’m still in the first one and the last one I have been reluctantly growing out of for about seven years. So, lets just say I know the rules to these phases. Hell I may not have written very many of the rules, but I did come up with a bunch of amendments and some fabulous clauses.
Lucas isn’t a bad kid. A bit weird, maybe.. Okay…yes. But essentially he isn’t a bad kid. He is just going through some unpleasant phases for me. At least I hope they are phases. He has a hard time maintaining friends and he is in love with an eleven-year-old. He had several kids come over to play and they said they didn’t like playing with him because he didn’t have tractors. We got him tractors, yet I have not seen him and any other children play with them. He is small. He spends half of the week at one parents and half at the other. He has a speech impediment.
I just realized what I’m doing- making excuses for him. For his need to take his anger out on me. For why I clean up his mess after the fit. But come on! It’s not like I can say anything, I’m just the hired help.