“Why would I?”
He scrunched his face into a ball, clearly confused. Then, another wicked shadow passed behind his eyes, an idea coming to mind. Octavia braced herself, no idea what he was going to do, just as she knew it would be troublesome.
“Stop me then!” He ran down the path to a flowerbed of red roses. “You better stop me!”
“Stop you from what?” she asked simply.
He pumped his eyebrows at her, then dove into the flowerbed, where he proceeded to start tearing the roses from the earth.
Octavia grimaced as she watched him. He laughed and shouted as he tore each rose up, tossing them across the garden, delighted by the anarchy he caused. Oh, how she wanted to stop him. Better, she wanted to punish him.
What good will that do? This child needs discipline, but that will only encourage him further to act out. What I need to do… he must be shown that such wanton acts of foolery do not affect me.
Another idea came to mind, and Octavia could not help but smile.
Silently, she stood and walked across the garden to where Aaron was still tearing up the roses. He saw her coming, grinning eagerly as he braced himself for retribution.
“Make room for me,” she said as she stepped into the flowerbed.
“What?” he balked.
“You heard me.” Octavia bent over, took hold of a gorgeous rose, and yanked it from the earth. Then, she did it again. “Once we finish destroying this flowerbed, we can move on to another. We have all day to completely deface this garden.” She pulled out another rose.
“You can’t do that!” Aaron cried.
She looked at him with confusion. “But you just did.”
“I…” He hesitated, bewilderment crossing his features. He looked from Octavia to the torn-out rose, utterly lost for words.
“What’s the matter?” she tore out another rose. “I thought you wanted to do this?”
“You… you’ll get in trouble!”
“From whom?”
“My father!” Aaron put his hands on his hips. “I’ll tell.”
She scoffed. “I thought you said he did not care? Besides, he put me in charge, remember? I can do as I like.” She put her hands on her hips and looked down at him. “Now, are we going to finish this or not?”
“I… the other governesses… they were different.”
“You mean boring,” she countered.
He laughed. “Yes. Boring.”
Slowly, Octavia noticed Aaron starting to relax. The initial urge to cause chaos, all that energy, left him, so what remained was a confused little boy who had no idea how to behave.
“How about this…” Octavia saw her moment and seized it. “Let us take a small break? We can play my game for five minutes, and then we can get back to tearing this garden apart.” She grinned wickedly. “Maybe the kitchen has some eggs we can toss at the house?”
“Really?” He brightened.
She shrugged. “Only if you beat me at my game. But I should warn you, I am a very good liar.”
“So am I!”
“Prove it…” She raised an eyebrow at him.
It was no surprise that Aaron took this challenge to heart. He hurried from the garden and rushed to the grassy patch where Octavia had just been sitting. Then he plonked himself down and looked eagerly at Octavia to join him.
