Negative Teapot

{This is a response to a prompt from Tuesday Scribes, run by Michael Jackson.  The challenge this week is to write a 200-word story inspired by the picture.  Thanks for the prompt, and thanks, as always, for reading!}

Elena and Eddie, large and small, sat at the kitchen table, scissors on the ready.

“Show me how to cut snowflakes!” the five-year-old demanded.

Elena, his nanny for the past four interminable months, took a deep breath.

“Fold it like this,” she began, in her ever-soft voice.  She waited for Eddie to follow suit.

Eddie crumpled the paper.  “Do it for me!” he sputtered.

Elena checked her phone.  Three more hours.

She folded another paper rectangle into a triangle and trimmed the excess.  “Here.”

“I like yours better.”  Eddie’s eyes were lumps of burning coal, his furrowed brow, a mountain range of manipulation.

“I like yours.”  Elena picked up the crumpled piece and smoothed it out.

“It’s torn,” she said.  “Tisk, tisk.” She pointed to the tear.  “Look, a teapot!”

Eddie frowned.  “No.  When you cut a snowflake, the paper you have left is a snowflake.  Here, the hole makes the shape.”

Elena considered the argument.  “A negative teapot, then?”

Eddie’s face brightened with pride and realization.

“That must be why Mommy’s always saying that.”

“Saying what, Eddie?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, amazed that his tutor did not grasp his logic.

“You know.  That I need to curb my negative-a-tea.”

For another flash into the world of an older brother minding a younger one with difficulties, read Bright Horizons.