The governess (open to all)

[XiaolinLilith]

Esme gave a small frown as she surveyed the crumb trail leading to her bedroom but thought nothing of it when she finally saw her plush surroundings. "Thank you, Anthony...but in a minute you need to get all those crumbs out of the carpet and pick up all those toys...Maybe that's why your last governess quit, she fell down the stairs..." She sounded a little disgusted on the last part, and adjusted her high-button shoes. I wish I could just go run a warm bath and wallow in it for hours...but I don't know if my little client will tear up the house...Esmeralda decided to chance it. "Anthony, do you promise you won't get into any trouble if I let you be alone for a little while?"

Thinking about this thoraghly, face impassive Anthony concluded that giving his word was somewhat irrelevant, it meaned little.
"But of course," he said, confident that he had nothing to lose, after all, he hadn't got any particular mischief planned for little Esme just yet, although she was emminently prankable. "I promise to be on my best true-blue behavior."

I wonder where she's going anyway? he pondered. First she arrives, breezes up into these pokey rooms and announces she's going to leave me alone...?
He brightened up. This would give him a perfect opertunity to riffle through those bags, his little imagination had been running into overdrive as to their contents already.

[XiaolinLilith]

"Good," Esmeralda said, giving Anthony a little pat on the head. "And don't go running off until I get back..." She pulled a stack of clothes from one of the bags (a beige floral-patterned dress) and went off to the bathroom, leaving a little box containing a gift for Anthony on the bed. The bathrooms certainly weren't modest--all the fixtures looked to be gold, and chubby little cherubs danced across French perfume adverts in frames on the walls, next to the claw-footed tub. Esme ran her bath, a small pile of her clothes accumulating on the floor, and stepped in, leaving her crafty little client alone by himself for a while...

Anthony screwed up his face in Juvenile distaste.
Proper grooming was important, it was a trait of good breeding - but to go have a bath in the morning? - Pah.

He wasn't sure why she'd locked the door either, girls were the enemy! It wasn't like he was going to peek. Looking about the furnished room, expensive floral-green wallpaper and sculpted coving to regard what had apparenly been described as a mess.
Well I'll show her how neat and tidy I can be, he thought to himself. Then lets see her making more of those snide observations.
Darting out down the long corridors it didn't take Anthony long to find one of his usually tormented victims, the bulter Mr. Twelvetrees, resplendant in his japanger tailored uniform and started haranging him. Long inured and exposed to his young masters attentions the butler gave in almost at once, fetching a scullary maid and a broom to the chambers in question under the bullying demands.
"And do it quietly, you idiots." Was Anthonys last, rather hissed words on the subject as he returned to oversee the expensive quilted rug was picked clean of its toys and other accoutriments while the presumable governess remained retired within the principle bathroom.

Anthonys gaze returned to the last of the items in this room he was not ordering tidyed. The gift-box that sat invitingly. He toyed with the notion of ordering removed with the trash, but such a thing was not fitting, he wanted her to be present when he opened it so she could see his look of disinterest. Something sure to upset this naive and good-natured young girl and to aid in her driving off.
Anthony added a kick to the rear of Mr. Twelvetrees well-tailored trousers as an encouragement to work faster when the middle-aged man stooped to obtain a few discared items from the thick flooring.
The good life beckoned and cleaning this room as he had been asked was just the encouragement to undermine this nominal governess.

[XiaolinLilith]

A while later Esmeralda emerged from the bathroom, corset laces tightened to the hilt and all her clothing on, looking rather pretty. "Alright, Anthony, I brought you a little gift...I can't believe you haven't opened it yet!" she said, an authentic hint of surprise in her voice as she removed a large and rather ugly (well, by any small boy's standards) hat from one of her boxes.It was covered in flower sprays, feathers, maybe a few taxidermied birds (Oh, how the Audubon Society would have shrieked at that!), netting, a bit of seal fur and other odd things. "It's a new plaything for you, go on, open it!"The package in question contained a little frog on a hose connected to a bulb that, when squeezed, made the frog croak and jump. Esmeralda had saved all her pennies from paltry jobs and ordered the frog direct from the Sears-Roebuck book at home--she had to admit it was a little modest, but most of her clients were very grateful. She'd just have to see how this one went...presumably not very well.

"Hmm," Anthony looked the toy over curiously. He'd seen ones like it in the windows of the great department stores in the city when he had visited but never up close, nor had he gotten the chance to play with one. Certainly it was cheap, but he found it interesting!
Turning it over several times Anthony gave the bulb a few squeezes watching the frog jump with an almost rapturous joy lighting his face. The room had faded around him, the strange girl with odd delusions of importance and a poor choice in clothes had faded away to shades of grey as he slowly lowered himself towards the carpeted floor and sat amongst the broken and discarded toys.

Crooaak, Croak, Crooaaaak. Playing with bulb at different strengths and squeezes produced different lengths of leap and noise...
His small tongue came out slightly as Anthony turned the toy around several times and continued to inspect it before, with total curiosity began to fiddle with fleet and fastigious fingers at the connections of the hose and the bulb, within seconds he had several parts of the complicated device in his hands, joints and metal pars from the mechanism joining their bretheren on the carpeted floor as he turned the toy aorund several times, removing the pertinent parts in an attitude of total fanscination with his new toy. Putting them back however, proved harder, work for complicated tools was near impossible with fingers but Anthony will skill replaced them, the mechanism and placing of the parts locked within his mind, still oblivious to the rest of the world he had reassembled the frogs parts and reattached the hose carefully in a time marked as less than one minute by the ticking edwardian clock, it's slightly pitted mahogny finish reflecting many failed attempts by the young master to get amongst its constituent parts.

Squeeze. Nothing.

Despite his every efforts and a look of pain and agony crossing his faces like flashes of lightning the frog would not jump.

BUT! I put it together fine! It... it doesn't work, but I was so carefull, it can't be like others... It just can't!

Tears almost welled, distress and a sense of loss gnawed Anthony hollow as realisation gripped him harder. This emotion, however, did not last. The stormclouds gathered behind the lightning flashes of sorrow and sadness, anger welled in its wake and dark looks and frustration replaced them.
Stupid Cheap Rubbish! Anthony thought, unable as always in his life to handle his negative emotions. I put it back together right, stupid thing, it's not my fault, it's just rubbish, cheap, nasty poor mans trash!

The frog bounced slightly as it hit the floor, Anthonys one, unguided, stamping foot missing it by scant inches as his Masons & Co tailored slippered foot bounced from the floor itself. Piles of disassembled and broken toys littered the playroom and bedchambers and the frog now joined them, every one of them a beloved toy heartily dissasembled and broken. Sadness turned to rage, sad frustration boiled away in a fit of anger.

Anthony stamped his foot again, scowling. For only a moment, maybe, he had loved and been fascinated by that frog and now - because it was stupid - it was gone. The maid by the door has retreated quickly knowing well the masters moods as he looked about for something to vent his wordless frustration on. He had no other outlets for the emotions he could not control except the darlingly watching governess.
He glared at her in silence, fight or flight given over to shout or cry surrounded by his failed toys and discarded memories. The clock ticked on, it's case resistant to attempts to open it and less than ninety seconds had transpired since the gift was given but such changes had been brought in that time...