I looked at my watch. I'd been on duty for three minutes and I'd lost control. This was going to be a long night.
“Everyone into the kitchen,” I said. “I'm going to make dinner.”
“What are you going to make?” Ralph wanted to know.
“Peanut butter sandwiches.”
“I don't like peanut butter,” Ralph said.
“Yeah, and that's not dinner. That's lunch,” Ernie said. “We need to have meat and vegetables for dinner.”
I took my phone out and dialed Pino's Pizza. “I need three large pies with peppers, olives, onions, and pepper-oni,” I told them. “And I need it fast.” I gave them the address and turned back to the kids. “Vegetables and meat, coming up.”
“I'm going upstairs,” Russell said.
Ernie followed. “Me, too.”
Junior ran off to the back of the house and disappeared.
“You have to feed Kitty and Blackie and Fluffy and Tom and Fritz and Melvin. And you can't give Blackie any pizza because he's lactose internet.”
“Do you mean lactose intolerant?”
“Yeah. He gets the squirts. He squirts all over everything.”
I went to the kitchen, and I put some cat crunchies in a bowl for Kitty and some dog crunchies in a bowl for Blackie and some rabbit pellets in a bowl for Fluffy.
“Tom and Fritz and Melvin are the outside cats,” Ralph said. “Mom can't catch them, so she just feeds 'em.”
I fed the outside cats and realized I hadn't seen Junior in a while.
“Where's Junior?” I asked Ralph.
Ralph shrugged. “Junior runs away a lot,” he said.
I yelled for Junior, but Junior didn't show. Ralph and I went upstairs to look for Junior and found Russell and Ernie surfing porn sites.
“They do this all day long,” Ralph said. “It's why Russell gets bones.”
“It's boner,” Ernie said. “Bone-errrr!”
“Doesn't your mom have parental controls on this computer?” I asked Russell.
“They're broken,” Russell said.
“Russell's a geek,” Ralph said. “He can break anything. He broke the television so we can watch naked people.”
“Anyway, my mother doesn't care what I do,” Russell said. “It's not like I'm a kid.”
“Of course you're a kid,” I said to him. “Shut that off.”
“I don't have to,” Russell said. “You're not my mother. You can't tell me what to do.”
I punched Diesel's number into my phone.
“Help,” I said when he answered.
“What's up?”