Chapter 11 - Mildred

"Mummy's here", Mildred cooed to her sister Penny every morning when she got up. Formerly Moonlight, she had petitioned the town hall to change her name to something more respectable. Tamsin, disturbed by her oldest daughter's puritanical behaviour, had relinquished power in the house to a great degree. Now she spent her days inventing in her room, staying out of her daughters' lives for the most part. There were days when she could barely get near Penny for Moonli... ...sorry... ...Mildred's hysterics. Penny grew into an eager toddler, unaware of the turmoil surrounding her.

Penny becomes a Toddler

Mildred was totally consumed by her role as the "lady of the house". She imagined her old friend Leafie must quite miss her company sometimes, she imagined he was getting lonely. There wasn't much that she imagined she could do about that. She had duties.

- "This house is such a mess!"

She cleaned obsessively. When she imagined she had found Leafie slacking off she would go postal, beating him with cushions until he had polished every surface.

- "Nobody does anything to help me around this house!", she would trill loud enough for her mother to hear through the walls. She knew her cowardly mother listened to her, but she stayed in her room making widgets. "Nonsense!", Mildred would say to herself in shrill disapproval, "It's just nonsense!"

Sometimes she would stop her cleaning up. Glance around herself, and mutter:

- "I'm the only one. The only one who realises..."

Early one night, Mildred took Tamsin's bike. She wasn't certain why. She was going stir crazy in that house. A mother's life couldn't be all housework, after all! She wanted to be out in the world.

Nothing pleased her very much. The fish in the gym were a mess, and the language they used was just filthy! "If my Penny ever utters such words", said Mildred to herself, "I shall wash her mouth out with detergent."

She rode around the countryside until morning. Every few kilometres she stopped, got off her bike, pulled out a wash cloth, and scrubbed angrily at a tree trunk.

- "Nobody does anything to help me around this town!", she would say just loud enough for any nearby pedestrians to hear.

Eventually she ran into Cory, who was one of the few people now who could talk any sense to her. Mildred loved Cory. Mildred listened, and Cory led her home.

Cory considered herself a very patient woman, but she could see the Knox family was nearing collapse. She needed to visit more often, get to know little Penny, and maybe even help Tamsin cope with Mildred. Cory had secretly tried to have Mildred committed, but there were no support services that offered full time care for the mentally ill in Riverblossom Hills. Another casualty of the government's austerity package. She cuddled Penny thoughtfully.

Mildred had gone right back to her cleaning.

Cory gave Penny a nice bunny suit, and left an old doll for her to play with, then went to spend some quality time with Tamsin. She would stay the night with her friends, and help with breakfast in the morning.

Tamsin had been struggling to think of interesting inventions. She'd been awarded by the city for inventing a time machine, but it languished upstairs untested.

"The thing is", she told Cory, "time travel could have a very detrimental effect on the environment!"

"To say the least!" said Cory with mock horror, suppressing a giggle.

The next morning, an idea struck Tamsin. She would reverse engineer that brilliant old drilling machine from the quarry! She set her mind to the task.

With Tamsin engrossed in her project, Mildred's reign over the household continued unabated. She was not popular at school, but her mother was so absent that the other teens happily exploited Mildred to hold parties without parental supervision. These events were odd, as the popular kids mingled uncomfortably with the unattractive and socially awkward.

Tamsin worked quickly. She had not only reverse engineered the drilling machine, she had considerably improved it. Now, instead of running on diesel, it utilised used disposable nappies - of which the household had a steady supply - for fuel. Tamsin ran the drill without a shred of guilt, oblivious to the number of womrat burrows she unintentionally destroyed.

Sometimes she would drill her way into underground adventures.

And sometimes, too rarely, the house had its quiet moments, when everyone could settle back and imagine they were just a normal, happy family. Even Mildred was calm.

"Shucks", she would say under her breath, "Horrible as their curse words are, the fish aren't wrong."

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Challenge Notes

So upon aging up to Teen, Mildred developed the Brave trait. That seemed to offer some interesting story possibilities, but mainly it has made her domineering. Penny, on the other hand, is Friendly and Artistic, purely by chance. Friendly should hopefully help with the Political career later on.

It has been really weird having an insane sim with an imaginary friend straight off the bat. I had this rule that - at least to begin with - I wasn't allowed to have imaginary friends unless the sim was crazy. Well... ...Moonlight might be a little crazy. It's hard to tell.

Also, that creepy looking teen? The son of Margo Tumeke and Prof Von Threadneedle. He inherited the Prof's nose! I didn't not know lesbian couples could pass down their genetics using Twallan's SP, but apparently they can!

Chapter Two - Getting Unlucky

The week was passing quietly. Tamsin had spent her mornings dabbling, trying to come up with interesting new eco-friendy widgets. The evenings were filled with nerves. She hoped more and more to get a call from Perseus Griffin, the cute man she had met in the Inventorium. There was something about him that had taken her fancy. They had only talked a while, but he had seemed so carefree. He seemed not to mind what people thought of him. He seemed willing to take risks. She liked that. "A free spirit", she'd said to herself for the millionth time. This morning was no different from the previous ones. She tried to lose herself in the act of invention.

She had noticed the mailman, whose name she hadn't caught yet, was giving her sidelong glances each morning. She was fairly certain he fancied her. He wasn't awful looking, and he had ear piercings that sung to her of, maybe, a bohemian attitude. "Either that, or he's gay." Tamsin decided to make a move.

She put on a seductive grin, sidled up to him, and murmured:

"Was your dad a retard?

...because you're special."

She liked a man with a nasty sense of humour. The mailman was not, apparently, one of these men. "That is, hands down, the stupidest and most offensive pick up line I've ever heard", he said dryly, "Besides, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Kimi. I'd never look at another woman." He said it more to convince himself, than to Tamsin.

She apologised. Not sincerely, but she did. He wasn't anything on Perseus, anyway, she told herself. Perseus, she was sure, would Woohoo with her somewhere crazy at the mere suggestion. He wouldn't tie her down. He'd be spontaneous and uninhibited. He filled her fantasies more and more. Still, the mailman's rejection stung. Adding insult to injury, the only thing he'd brought her was a stack of bills.

Realising that she was starting to smell, had no shower installed, and was running out of money, Tamsin ventured into town. Her first stop was to consign all her inventions, barring her very first one, to the local consignment store. Then she moved on to the gym, pleased to learn they had free membership for residents, as well as a gold coin donation snack fridge.

At the gym she got a call, finally, from Perseus. He wanted to drop by and visit. She showered in a mad rush in the gym, then took a cab back to her would-be house. Perseus was already there. Her heart was pounding a bit. She was embarrassed to have such a big crush on somebody she did not really know. Mid-conversation, oblivious to her drooling over him, Perseus started rambling about the amazing night he'd had with some woman named Pauline. Tamsin tried not to be the jealous type, but the shock was too sudden. She was relieved when Perseus left for his work.

Later that afternoon, Perseus called her from his work for another chat. She was immediately smitten again. "A free spirit", she whispered to herself, feeling more trapped by her crush than ever. She told him she was having some issues with finances, asked him for a loan. He turned it down, but pointed her towards a nearby quarry, "There's an amazing amount of scrap just lying around for a cute inventor like yourself to use!"

Following Perseus's directions was easy, the quarry was, in fact, nearly right beside her house. It hadn't been marked on any of the maps she'd seen so far. There, against a clay bank, was a rusty, rusty old ride-on drill. It was such a contraption! No inventor could resist it! Before she knew it she was onboard, fiddling with the controls.

The machine gave a howl and rattled violently into life. All Tamsin could do was cling on as the drill began to drill...

...and it drilled...

...and it drilled...

...and it drilled long into the night, as Tamsin clung to it with a sour expression, waiting for the fuel to run out.

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Challenge Notes

Tamsin managed to raise herself to level 4 in inventing, and level 2 in handiness, so she's beginning to make a little money. The drill gave her a gigantic space rock worth $3000, so that will provide her with a shower and some other essentials. She's also now self-employed as an inventor. I was annoyed to see that story prog had thrown Perseus together with Pauline Wan, but oh well. Tamsin lacks scruples when it comes to relationships anyway. :P