050 Little Beavers

"Wuwoo wu wu wu..." Doodu stopped me at the door.

"We can ask him later. First, we need to solve this ice cream issue." Anu didn't translate. She was still blocking mom at the gate.

She had both her arms extended and blocked mom with all her strength. I ditched mom and sneaked in when Anu was distracted.

Our securities watched standoff while laughing. They were already used to this scene.

I spent a good portion of the last three years with Doodu. So I could somewhat guess what his question was.

"It was a good day. But all the kids are disgusting. You are still my best friend." I replied to Doodu.

"Woowu..." Doodu was happy and satisfied.

"Ohh... Meera was also there."

"Wuuwu..."

Doodu liked Meera a lot. He was her biggest fan. He probably got the most number of hugs from Meera. I cannot blame her. After all, Doodu's fur was soft and fluffy. He grew up pretty good. He was so strong that even dad couldn't win against him if they wrestle. His barks would rattle the windows. So he was not allowed to bark indoors.

Pripri were pretty happy to see me. They ran to me and demanded some petting. I hugged them tightly and gave them kisses.

I don't know how the standoff between mom and Anu ended. I'm pretty sure that mom had to make some kind of deal.

Once that was over, Anu came to question me.

"How was your first day?"

"Boring. It's better at home."

"Don't worry. It will get better." Anu talked as if she had some great life experience.

"So... You had ice cream without me?"

"It wasn't my fault. Mom forced me to go with her." I decided to betray mom. Handling an angry mom was far easier than handling angry Anu. Of all the people in the world, Anu was the last one I wanted to make an enemy of.

If you are Anu's enemy, then everything will go against you. You might choke on air when breathing or drown in a spoon of water. You might slip and fall when you are underwater diving. You might get divorced even though you were never married. You might get food poisoning even if you hadn't eaten anything for days.

A very few people dared to mess with Anu. Jeemma was first on the list. If she gets angry, then she would simply spank Anu. So Anu behaved well around Jeemma.

"Alex, if you lie, I am going to punish you." Mom threatened me.

"I wanted the ice cream too..." I corrected myself right away.

Lying was the one crime that was the most strictly banned at our home. I didn't want to anger Anu. But if I lie, all of us kids would get punished, including Anu. That would make her angrier.

"Amma, Piya slapped Pichu." Prince ran to mom complaining.

"No no no... Pichu bit Piya." Priya also started complaining.

Pichu and Piya were the names they call each other. Now we also call them like that. They both bicker a lot. It's really cute to see them like that. Fortunately, mom was distracted by the babies and let me go.

"Amma is sooo tired. Who's going to give amma an ummaa..." Mom conveniently ignored their complaints and asked them for kisses.

"Piya... Piya..."

"Pichuuu..."

Both the kids called out their own names and competed to kiss mom. Mom smiled and accepted kisses from both of them. She also picked them both up.

In mom's arms, the kids competed to give her more kisses. In no time, mom's face was smeared with the saliva of the kids. I know how it feels. Because I too regularly ask the kids for kisses and I get the same treatment. (Just to be clear, it's not disgusting when it's my little siblings. I still think other kids are disgusting.)

Mom spent a few minutes cuddling the kids before going to take care of something.

"All of you, come here." Anu summoned us.

The four of us huddled around our big sister.

"I have an idea"

"What?"

"Let's make a dam." Anu introduced her new idea.

"Boww?" Doodu asked.

"I saw a thing on the TV. In that, some small animals use sticks and mud to make dams. Then they make a house inside the dam. It was pretty good. So I let's make a dam." She was inspired by beaver dams.

"Where?"

"It's raining. So we can make it in the front yard."

"But we don't have enough sticks and mud."

"I know. Do you think I haven't thought enough about it? First, we will use plastic sheets like Jijo uncle's fish pond to block water flow. After that, we will add sticks and mud to make a house. I already got permission from mom. We just need permission from dad." Anu explained her idea.

Jijo uncle is Jeema's husband. After selling all their business abroad, he declared his retirement and became lazy. Dad tried to force him into multiple jobs. None of that worked. Recently, he started a small fish farm. The ponds are made by digging large pits and then spreading large plastic sheets in them. Dad got some sheets from him for making a pond near our house. But mom vetoed the idea because of us kids.

Anu explained her plan.  She was planning to block all the pipes that were for letting the water out of our courtyard. Then she would use the plastic sheet to block the gate. After that, we will wait for the rain to fill our courtyard and then we will have our own dam.

It sounded like a great idea. But I knew it will fail. I liked planning and the process of making it with Anuchi. So I agreed with her. As for Pripri, they would join for any idea brought up by Anuchi.

I wanted to punish dad. But by the time he returned, I forgot that.

Every day, when dad return's from his work, we five kids would block him at the door. He was not allowed to come inside without paying a toll. The toll was sweets. But he had no intention of getting us sweets every day. So most of the days, it's a packet of peanuts. Anu was the one with the responsibility of dividing it and she loved that responsibility.

When dad came home, we blocked him as usual. Unexpectedly, he brought cake. That too, a lot of it.

"Your mom had one job of making a cake. She ditched that duty and went somewhere. So we are left with a lot of cake that the customers didn't want to eat." Dad complained.

"She went to eat ice cream with Achu." Anu sold us out without any hesitation.

"Couldn't you finish the cake before that? Do you know how much I was embarrassed in front of everyone?" dad was angry.

"I don't care. I had important matters." Mom replied slightly rudely. She didn't want to admit that she came to pick me up after seeing the kiss.

They continued bickering.

I slowly understood what had happened.

Mom was making the new cake by combing smaller cakes. When she saw my kiss she passed the duty of making the cake to her assistant and came to pick me up. The assistant did his best. But still, they ended up with an ugly-looking cake and he even made a spelling mistake in the names on the cake. Also, dad was somehow involved with the marriage. He was boasting about his wife and her baking. Unfortunately for him, they got an ugly cake.

Anyway, they fought a bit and didn't talk to each other for an hour.

We ate some of the cake and saved the rest for later.

Getting permission from dad was easy. He also seemed excited about the dam. We got permission to build the dam the following Sunday.

In the next few days, I went to school again. Nothing special happened there. Anu's school also reopened.

The following Sunday afternoon, we built the dam.

It was raining non-stop. We played in the rain. There were many holes on the compound wall to let the water flow. The first step was blocking all those holes. We used random garbage to block them. In no time, water started accumulating at the edges of the front yard. But that was not enough.

Water started flowing through where the gate was. The gate was made of cast iron and it was wide enough for our car to pass through. To block it, we got the plastic sheet. It was wider than the gate.  We spread it on the gate and floor to make sure that no water would seep out.

It wasn't perfect. But it was better than nothing. With that, we blocked all the ways for water to flow out of our house.

We waited for an hour eagerly.

But nothing happened.

Even by the evening, the water was barely two inches deep. So we gave up and went to sleep.

I think I have mentioned this before. We live in a village. Our village is in a slightly hilly area. If you want to know what it looks like, you can look for villages near Poonjar. Our house is at the bottom of a small hill. There is a small road sloping down from our house to the public road in front of our house. On the other side of the road, a small river flows. I think it would be more accurate to call it a stream.

We accounted for the water from the rain. But we forgot to consider the water that comes flowing down the hill.

In the morning, Doodu woke us up. I was sleeping with Anuchi. As I grew up, I was finally allowed to sleep with her. Mom and dad were no longer afraid of her hugging me too tightly. Doodu was excited and dragged us out.

When I reached the veranda, I was confused for a moment.

Our front yard had disappeared!

Instead, there was water!

There was water everywhere. It was almost two feet deep. The water level almost reached our veranda. Our car and bike were partially submerged. Doodu's dog house was floating in the water.

Doodu jumped into the water and started playing. He was pretty excited.

"Dam... My dam is full..." Anu was excited. She wanted to jump into the water right away.

"Don't. Stay inside." Dad shouted.

"Why? I made it. How can you play in it without my permission?" Anu wasn't happy.

Dad ignored her. He grabbed an umbrella and went to the gate. Water was above his knees.

That umbrella actually had a history. A few months ago, we went to meet our grandfather. Well... He is not really our grandfather. He was the neighbour who took care of dad and Jeemma after their parents passed away. So by life, he is our grandfather. I will tell you that story another time.

The grandfather's house was in the highrange. The journey there was hours long and most of it was through the hills. On the way, Anu got motion sickness and she wanted to vomit. At that moment, she could neither reach the car window nor find anything to vomit into. So she grabbed an umbrella, opened it partially and vomited into it. After that, that umbrella got the pet name puke-umbrella.

"You two go and make sure no one is in the road. I will fold the plastic and let the water out slowly." He told the securities.

One security went to the road and made sure there was no one. Dad grabbed the edge of the plastic and tried to make a small pathway for water to flow.

Then, something unexpected happened.

There was a dull sound of something breaking. Then the hinges that were holding the gate came off. The gate fell down creating a pathway for the water to flow.

The water flowed out through the opening like a dam break.

Dad lost his footing and fell down. Fortunately, he managed to grab the edge of the compound wall and didn't flow out with the water. Doodu was swimming in the water when it happened. He almost got swept away before he managed to bite onto dad's shirt. Dad grabbed Doodu with one hand and saved him.

"Runn..." The security cried out. But before he could run, the water reached him. The water swept him away and he disappeared from our vision.

I was truly scared for a moment. There was a public road in front of our house. On the other side of the road, a small river flowed. It was the rainy season and there was a strong current in the river. Although it is not too dangerous, it can still hurt them. But then I remembered what happened in the previous life and no longer felt bad for the security.

It took a few minutes for the water to flow out. Once the water was gone, dad and the securities came home.

Dad was shivering. I don't know whether he was shivering because of anger or cold. As for the securities, they looked angry and scared at the same time. There were some scratched on the bodies of the securities.

Over the past year, they had witnessed multiple disasters caused by Anu. But this one was the largest till now.

Fortunately, they had blocked the road. Else it would have caused some major trouble.

At the same time, Arjun's dad came running.

"What happened? Is everyone alright?" He was panting.

"It's Anu." Mom explained the situation in simple words.

Compared to the other disasters she caused, this was on a completely different level. Fixing the gate, removing the mud on the road, fixing the car and bike were all going to cost us some good money. Also, we lost many pieces of footwear that were left outside. Doodu's dog house and the puke-umbrella also disappeared. Mom's garden was crippled.

"But I had permission. So you cannot punish me." Anu announced loudly. She was scared and hiding behind a chair.

That's right. We had permission. We didn't break any rules either. So we won't be punished. This is a rule our parents followed. They didn't want to restrict our ideas or imaginations. So whatever we did, they never punished us as long as we didn't break any rules.

Dad, the securities and Arjun's dad worked hard for the next half an hour to clear the road and retrieve some items that flowed out of our front yard.

In the meantime, mom cooked something warm for them as they were working in the rain.

Once Anu was sure that she won't be punished, she started thinking again. "Next time, we should..."

"There is no next time." Mom rejected the idea right away.

Anu was disappointed. She was still a child. In her eyes, the dam was a success. It was the fault of the person who made the gate that the dam broke.

"Don't worry.  We can make a small dam next time." Dad consoled Anu.

I liked the idea.

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Thank you.