Straying out of Sanity

I woke up to the sound of people's voices. I lifted my head up to look over my sleeping sister to see that Jay and Mitch were both motionless.

I laid back down and turned over and saw two of The Joker's clowns lugging huge garbage bags into the room.

"What's all this?" I asked sleepily and yawned.

"Your new clothes," one of the clowns said and set the three bags he was carrying down by the two bags the other clown was carrying.

"What'd you do? Rob a whole department store?" I asked and sat up.

"Pretty much. We didn't know what you liked or your sizes so we just grabbed as much as we could in the ten minutes we were there."

"Why?" I asked after a moment of speechlessness.

"Joker told us to so we did," he said plainly and they left.

I got up to look inside the bags and, like the clowns said, they were full of clothes. The first looked like woman's clothes, the second and third were both men's clothes so I drug them over by Mitch and Jay's bed, the fourth was kid's clothes so I put that on the bed I shared with Laurel, and the fifth was shoes, makeup, razors, hair stuff, and anything else we could need.

I went back and dug through my garbage bag, looking for clothes that looked like they'd fit and pulled out a light brown short tube dress with small yellow flowers, some medium blue dark washed denim jeans, and nude mesh boy shorts with little black roses. I gave up looking for a strapless bra and went into the bathroom to change.

"What the hell is all this?" I heard Mitch ask a minute later and I quickly finished pulling my jeans on before heading back to the bedroom.

"A couple of Joker's clowns brought them a few minutes ago," I told him.

"Did they have to get all this shit?" he asked.

"They didn't know what sizes or anything," I told him and he dug in one of the bags before pulling out a three pack of large Hanes wife beaters. He ripped it open and replaced his shirt with a grey tank top.

I glanced at the clock and went to wake Laurel up. I grabbed her bag of clothes and dumped it out on her. "I'm being attacked by clothes!" she yelled, waking up and fighting the clothes away so she could sit up.

The bag emptied and I said, "Pick out something that looks like it'll fit and change in the bathroom after Mitch," leaning over to kiss her cheek as she started looking through the mound of clothes on her.

"Jay," I said in a singsong voice, crawling onto his bed that he shared with Mitch last night. "It's time wake up!" I said a bit louder in the same singsong voice.

"Is there a set time to wake up in this house?" the eighteen year old mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

"… No..." I said.

"Then I'm going back to sleep," he said and pulled Mitch's pillow over his face.

"Jay!" I scolded, trying not to laugh and sat down on him, straddling his ribcage.

"Broken rib! Broken rib!" he screamed suddenly and I hurriedly stood up so I was off his said 'broken rib'.

"You don't have a broken rib, it's just bruised," Mitch came out of the bathroom wearing his gray tank top and some baggy black Dickies shorts.

"Bruised my ass, it feels fucking broken," Jay said holding his right side.

"I told you yesterday it's just bruised. I told you before, my parents were doctors," Mitch said and sat on the edge of the bed looking through the trash bags in front of him.

"Doesn't mean you're one," he muttered and I sat next to him on the bed. "What the hell are those?" Jay asked him as he struggled with sitting up. I helped him a bit by holding him up and propping pillows up behind him.

"Presents from The Joker," Mitch said.

"What? You know his presents are usually fucking bombs or some shit?" Jay asked trying to look past Mitch and into the garbage bags.

"Does that look like fucking bombs to you?" Mitch asked and pointed to the kid's clothing scattered on my bed and on the floor where I dumped it. "That's what's in the bags. Clothes. Now tell me your sizes so I can pick out what you're gonna wear."

"Why do you get to pick what I wear?" Jay asked in his rebellious teenager voice.

"Fine. Do if yourself," Mitch said and threw the bag at Jay. I caught the bottom of it so it wouldn't hurt Jay's chest when he caught it and half the clothes ended up on the floor.

"Nice catch," Jay said and I smacked the side of his head. He whined and looked inside the bag. He pulled out whatever clothes he wanted that were still in there. "Help me to the bathroom," Jay said and I rolled my eyes before crawling over him so I could help him up and to the bathroom. It was a struggle but I managed to do it.

I sat him down on the toilet seat and left, closing the door behind me. Mitch looked amused by watching me half carry Jay to the bathroom.

"Thank you for helping," I told Mitch and he smiled and laid back on one of the beds, my sister sitting next to him in a purple floral tee shirt and khaki capris.

"Guys..." Jay called as I just decided to sit on the other side of Mitch.

"What now?" I asked him, not bothering to get back up and instead used Mitch's stomach as a pillow.

"I can't get my pants on..." he said and I looked up at Mitch.

"You're turn," I told him.

"Fuck no, I ain't doin' that shit," Mitch protested and pushed me off of him.

"I can't pick him up again, you have to help," I told him.

"What happened?" Laurel asked.

"Jay's a cripple," I said and Mitch got up. She giggled and I followed him into the bathroom where Jay was sitting with his shirt on and his pants halfway up.

"Help," he smiled and I smacked the side of his head again. He was just like the little brother I should've never had. Mitch picked Jay up, holding his torso so I could pull his jeans up for him.

"I fuckin' hate you man," Mitch said and set him back on the toilet seat when I was done.
Jay smiled and laughed in return then looked over at me. "Okay Miss Cook, when is breakfast?" he asked.

"Whenever you guys are hungry," I answered.

"What? Why?" he asked a bit confused, like I just spoke French or something.

"Because I cook dinner for everyone, not breakfast and lunch too. He explained it all to me last night... sorta."

"Who explained it?" Jay asked. Jesus he was really stupid.

"Santa Clause. Who do you fucking think?" I asked them, crossing my arms.

"Joker told you that exactly?" Mitch asked.

"Yes, pretty much."

"That's not exactly what he said then, tell me what he said."

"He said something like cooking breakfast for my friends only because nobody's ever here for breakfast or lunch or some shit!" I said, frustrated with all their questions.

"You sure?" Jay asked and I turned around, leaving the bathroom to meet up with my baby sister.

"Are you hungry?" I asked her.

"Yeah," she replied as she nodded.

"Okay, let's go make you some food," I told her then turned to Mitch, who was helping Jay out of the bathroom. "Feel free to join," I said to them and left the room. I walked behind my sister until the book room and then I led her the way The Joker brought me back last night.

"Where are we going? You passed the elevator," she said.

"Were going a different way," I said, remembering as much as I could from following him last night.

"Oh," she said and a minute later I successfully found the stairs after three wrong turns. I was then able to lead her to the kitchen without problems.

"Okay, so what do you want to eat?" I asked her, walking over to the giant recipe book on the counter where I left it.

"Umm... can you make waffles?" she asked and I flipped through the first of the five sections in the book, breakfast, looking for waffles.

"What kind?" I asked her.

"What kind can you make?" she asked, looking at the book too as I stopped on the only waffle recipe.

"It says I can put blueberries, strawberries, apples, cinnamon sugar, chocolate, nuts and a whole bunch of stuff in them," I told her.

"Who wants apple waffles?" she asked and we laughed. "Do you have chocolate to put in them?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, help me look in the pantry when we find all the ingredients," I said and led her into the giant pantry. We came out with all the things we needed (besides the things needed to be kept cold) plus a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips.

"You know what would be amazing?" Laurel asked when I came back out of the walk-in fridge/freezer.

"What?" I asked.

"Chocolate waffles with strawberries," she said and I suddenly felt myself become slightly hungry.

"There's no chocolate syrup though," I said disappointing her and my stomach.

"You could melt the chocolate..." she said full of hope.

"Look in the deserts section and see if it tells you how," I said setting the things on the counter and going back to look for strawberries. I found a big package of them in the fridge and brought them back with me.

"It tells you how to melt chocolate for fruit and stuff," she said, "We need a double boiler or something."

"A what?" I asked.

"It shows a picture of a pot on top of another pot," she added.

"Okay?" I asked, "Help me find one and a bowl to mix this in."

"Okay," she said and we started hunting for a 'double boiler', two bowls, and a waffle maker and returned to the recipe book. I let Laurel start to melt the chocolate as I mixed all the dry ingredients and searched for two more bowls so I could figure out how to separate egg yolks from egg whites. Oh how fun that was. The chocolate was done before I could separate enough eggs. I ended up just pouring the egg out onto my hand and letting the egg white run through my fingers and then putting the yolk in the other bowl.

Then I had to figure out what 'fold in egg whites' meant, which wasn't much fun either. By the time we got to actually cooking the waffles the kitchen door opened and in came Mitch and Jay.

"What did we do?" Mitch asked, questioning the hateful glare I was giving them.

"I have to cook more now," I said in a deadly voice and handed the bag of chocolate chips to Laurel so she could melt more.

"Like waffles are really that hard to make," Jay said and I desperately wanted to beat his face in. Instead I took my anger out on the poor little egg shells as I cracked them violently against the bowl's rim so I could separate them again.