A place to belong

Chapter five: Cleaning to do

Once everything seemed to be back at order in his living room Paul was able to finally sit down and just take a deep breath, turning his head a little to see how Tord struggled to try and get out of the improvised baby jail the older made, it was somehow amusing to see him so frustrated trying to climb up one of the four walls of stuffed cardboar boxes, tall enough for the crawling disaster to not get over them and heavy enough to not be pushed away.

"That's what you get for being bad" mumbled the boy as he then leaned forward to pick his pack of  tobacco, taking a cigarette out bringing it then to his lips, but as soon as he held the lighter he remembered how perjudicial was the smoke for the kid, so with a frustrated noise he got up and walked towards the window, opening it as the sound of rain filled the room followed by the cold from outside making him shiver slightly while lightning the end of the tube on his lips,  then he took a long drag.

In that moment he took a peek outside to caught some people walking outside under their umbrellas, others running under the rain like if they were in a hurry, he didn't dwell on it too much, Paul didn't care one bit about what was those people business, what it was of his incumbency was the faint crying of the small boy trapped between boxes. One more drag later he left the cigarette resting in the border of the window and walked inside towards the boxes, watching Tord crying loud until he saw Paul walk towards him, in that moment he stopped the noises, tears still recent on the corner of his eyes.

"You are not tricking me, I fed you and changed you, you are fine" said the boy leaning a bit to see him better.

As an answer Tord cried louder and moved his fist around in frustration, it was obvious he wanted to get out of there, so he moved his hands up opening and closing them, hoping that worked and Paul picked him up.

"No, you are grounded, I'm not getting you out of there yet"

The baby stopped his crying, eyebrows furrowing more and then a very loud cry came out of his mouth, at which Paul just reacted covering his ears. How it was possible for a baby to be this noisy and ear piercing was above his understanding.

"The louder you get the longer you'll stay!" Paul then realized he was trying to reason with a baby, baby's are not capable of that, or at least... wait, how old was Tord anyway? By his size he could pass as a few months old, but what if he was already one year old? Did that matter that much for reasoning with him? No, but it was a big curiosity.

It was right at that moment that the phone ringed and both turned his heads towards the sound, funny how other things would make the baby to get quickly interested on them and with effort he tried to get over one of the boxes to find the source of the sound, making little noises.

"Stay there, don't do anything weird" The male said raising his finger at the small kid who stopped and stared at him
and blinked a few times in silence, then Paul walked towards the wired phone, picking it up and making the sound stop.

"Yes?"

"Hello? I'm calling for the newspaper announce? The one for small jobs?" Another voice sounded at the end of the line and then Paul's eyes got bright, making him answer quickly.

"Yes, yes! That's me"

"Good, I was wondering if you could do some cleaning at my place? Also get rid of some stuff"

"Of course, I have no problem with that, but I would like to know in advance how much will I get from this" asked the boy feeling slightly nervous, it's been some time since he left the announcement on the newspaper and only two people called for his services, so getting another call has been like some kind of salvation. He just hoped they payed well.