Mimi's Demons

Chapter 33: Demons in a Kitty Folder

It was Saturday morning and there was a boy in her doorway.

The huge bearded bulk of Omen didn't move to throw him out, so Mimi tried going with the flow.

"What's that?" she asked.

Juli, said boy, grinned and lifted the box he held.

"An Xbox!" he said.

Of course she knew what an Xbox was. Doesn't mean she'd ever had the fortune to play with one. She'd watched her uncle play on his Playstation, but pigs would fly when he'd let her touch it.

"Why?"

"Because I'm," he puffed up his chest. "You're official playmate and lackey!"

She scowled. "Don't I get a choice in the matter?"

He made an exaggerated expression of sadness. "You don't like me?"

"It's not really a matter of like or dislike." Besides, she couldn't look away from the Xbox. "Do you have games for that?"

"Only the best! What do you like?"

"I don't know. I've never played one."

"Ho ho ho! Blank slate. Yus."

"Don't walk into my room with a creepy grin like that."

Omen came in after Juli and stood next to the door, making the room instantly smaller with his mass.

Juli jabbered about his dad almost dying on some job as he set up the Xbox to a flat screen TV that had magically appeared one morning with a short entertainment center and two large bean bags. It didn't take as long as Mimi thought it would and next thing she knew she was being eaten by a bean bag with a controller in her hands.

Three hours later, Serena was shaking them out of their videogame stupor for lunch. Mimi thought she might have found something just as fun as gory photos of car accidents and skin diseases.

"You're pretty good for someone who's never played," said Juli, who made to follow after her.

Omen stopped him with a hand. "You aren't invited."

Juli pouted, which shortened his chin and made his already big ears look bigger.

"Stingy much?"

"It's the boss."

"Meh."

Mimi looked back and forth between Juli and Omen. "Can't he come?"

"Only those who are expressly invited can come into the boss's presence."

Juli rolled his eyes. "You make him sound like some kind of god. It's okay, squirt, he'd probably make me too nervous to eat anyway. Oh!" he pulled out a smart phone from his hoodie pocket. "What's your number?"

"Uh, I don't have a phone."

He gave her a blank stare. "Do you want one?"

"That isn't something for you to decide," said Serena stiffly. "Get going before I kick you."

"Okay, okay! Jeeze louise."

Mimi just remembered to grab the kitten patterned folder from under her pillow before leaving with Serena at one side and Omen following from behind.

In the dining room, Duke waited before a plate of something exotic and Mediterranean. It mirrored her plate, though she also had sides of strawberries cut as flowers again. Merriot, the cook, must have heard how much she had liked them, though how anyone had been able to tell was beyond her. At least she never saw a trace of oranges or orange juice again.