Mrs Goody Two Shoes XVIII

Pry, pry again

When your friend entrusts you with the job of mending the ways of her pesky son, all you can expect in return is trouble

One evening, as I was returning from office, I heard Sonia shrieking in her shrill, almost ultrasonic, voice. Like the shameless and prying neighbour, who grows curiouser and curiouser as she grows older, I tried peeking through the windows of Sonia and Mahesh's apartment. I saw their mollycoddled 11-year-old son, fat spilling out of every inch of his body, sulking in a corner, with his face streaked black from dry tear stains.
I chuckled. Sonia still cradled her "poochie-koo", feeding him, tying his shoelaces, carrying his bag, making him sit on her lap and the fatso just about squeezed every ounce out of Mahesh and Sonia. If Mahesh dared say no to one demand, he threw a well-rehearsed tantrum and Sonia would glare at her husband for making her "chweet little chubby-wubby" cry. When she came to visit us with her son, he would just open our fridge and stuff his pockets with the chocolates and cheese I store while Sonia would look adoringly, like Yashoda smiling at the makhan-chor Krishna. So I chuckled to see Sonia in a fit over something Minti (that's what they call their precious pest) had done.
The wind made a the curtains flutter so that Minti caught me staring. I gave him an evil smile and, as he started howling again, slunk away.
Later that night, the doorbell sounded and I found Sonia and Mahesh standing there grabbing Minti by the scruff. My first reaction was intense fear, like when I used to feel at Minti's age when the neighbour auntie came complaining to mum. The little devil must have told on me.
But Sonia started sniffing as she plopped herself on the sofa. "Didi!" she wailed. Mahesh sat with a grave expression.
"What? What happened?"
"Didi, this girl in Minti's class has trapped my boy." That was something indeed! I was already loving it. The over-possessive mother was jealous and out to protect her cub. And hurt because Minti had dared to worship another female form. Sonia was the iconic saas in the making.
I wanted to hear the whole story. "Minti went and wrote love letter to her. In bad, bad English. (More on the bad English part later). He also has taken my brand new (I have never understood the use of 'brand', I mean, if it's new, it's new) Yves Saint Laurent perfume that Mahesh has been gifting to me to give to this girl." I could figure out from where Minti got his talent for English.
I was quite relishing this juicy gossip about the prodigal son, but good things don't last forever. Sonia had come to make a request -- that I take Minti under my wings. I had to teach him English, for one, and take his mind off 'distractions' (that's Mahesh's word) by 'giving him good education'.
It was a tele-serial moment. You know, how the camera pans from one face to another which have fixed expressions for five minutes, and no one speaks, the action does not move forward till the next episode. Minti and I stared at each other with frozen, icy looks. He was still cowering, and yet, he managed to give me a sly smile that clearly conveyed that by the coming week, he'd make sure that I'd be the one in trouble.