Never Again, by Mary Marland
"Where are you going?" Anthony took the cigarette from his mouth.
"Out!" Lydia spat out the word.
"No, you're not!" he said determinedly, rustling the newspaper. He stuck the cigarette to his lower lip.
"Yes I am!" she snarled. "I'm sick of sitting here watching you ogle women's boobs in the 'Sun'!"
"You can growl," Anthony said serenely, "but you are not going out, and that's final!"
She stood up and put on her coat with a flourish.
"So stop me!"
He reached over and gripped her arm, a fierce glint in his eye.
"Lydia, don't defy me...."
She struck his arm away.
"Why, what will you do?"
His face became suffused with colour as cigarette smoke curled up his nostrils and into his eye. He squinted and coughed.
"You go out of that door and you'll see what I'll do!"
"You don't frighten me, Anthony, big as you are." Her eyes were defiant. "I'll go out if I want to and that's that."
She opened the door. "Besides," she said as she stepped over the threshold. "Whatever you do to me, I can do much worse to you, just you see if I can't!"
"Like what?" he asked, his eyes mocking.
Lydia slammed the door behind her, shouting as she went: "Like telling our dad you were smoking and reading his newspaper! That's like what!"
Anthony sighed and switched on the television.
Never, he vowed to himself, never — would hebaby-sit again.