She wanted her movies. She wanted her big screen. She wanted her blankie and her bed.
She wanted a nap.
She pounded again, and Mommy opened the door.
“Honey, you’re supposed to be looking at the pretty pictures.”
She was leaning in and her cheeks was pink. If her hands wasn’t grabbing the door, they’d be twirling her hair, and she might even be chewing on it.
“I don’t like the pictures,” Carol said.
“Honey-”
“I wanna go home.”
“Tonight, honey.”
“Now,” Carol said.
“Honey, we’re here to work for Lord Kafir.”
“Don’t like him.” Carol crossed her arms.
“You’re not supposed to like him.”
“He’s s’posed to play with me.”
“No, honey, you’re supposed to play with his toys.”
“A computer’s not a toy.” Carol was just repeating what Mommy had told her over and over.
“No, dear, but the programs are. You’re supposed to look at them and-”
“The bad guy always wins,” Carol said. She hated it here. She wanted to see Simba or Belle or her friends on the TV. Or maybe go back to that kindergarten that Mommy hated because they said Carol was average. She didn’t know what average was ’cept Mommy didn’t like it. Mommy made it sound bad.
Until that day when she was looking at the want ads like she did (Honey, don’t mess with the paper. Mommy needs to read the want ads) and then she looked up at Carol with that goofy frowny look and whispered, ‘’Average five-year-old…”
“What?” Mommy asked.
“In the games,” Carol said. “The bad guy always wins.”
Mommy slid into the room and closed the door. “The bad guy’s supposed to win, honey.”
“No, he’s not!” Carol shouted. “He gets blowed up or his parrot leaves him or the other lions eat him or he gets runned over by a big truck or his spaceship crashes. The good guys win.”
Mommy shushed her and made up-and-down quiet motions with her hands. “Lord Kafir’s a good guy.”
“I’m not talkin ’bout him!” Carol was still shouting. Shouting felt good when you couldn’t have a nap. “On the computer. The bad guys always win. It’s a stupid game. I hate that game.”
“Maybe you could do the numbers for a while, then, honey.”
“The numbers, you hit the right button and they make stupid words. Nobody thinks I know letters but I do.” Carol learned her ABCs a long time ago. “What’s D-E-A-T-H-R-A-Y?”
“Candy,” Mommy said. Her voice sounded funny.
Carol frowned. That didn’t sound right.
“What’s I-R-A-Q?”
Mommy grabbed her hair and twirled it. “Chocolate.”
“What’s W-H-I-T-E-H-O-U-S-E?” Carol asked.
“That’s in there?” Mommy’s face got all red.
“What’s W-O-R-L-D-D-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N?” Carol asked.
“D… D… O…” Mommy was frowning now too. “Oh. Oh!”
“See?” Carol said. “Stupid words. I hate stupid words and dumb numbers. And games where the bad guy wins. I want to go home, Mommy.”
“Um, sure,” Mommy said. She looked at the door, then at Carol. “Later. We’ll go later.”
“Now,” Carol said.
Mommy shook her head. “Carol, honey, you know we can’t leave until five.”
“I wanna nap!” Carol shouted, then felt her own cheeks get hot. She never asked for a nap before. “And a cookie. And my cuddly dog and my pillow. I wanna go away. I hate it here, Mommy. I hate it.”
“We have to keep coming, honey. We promised.”
“No.” Carol said and swung her chair around so she was looking at the computer.
It was blinking bright red. It never did that before.
“Mommy, look.” Carol pointed at the big red word.
Mommy looked behind her like she thought somebody might come in the room. “Honey, I’m not supposed to see this-”
“What’s that say?”
Mommy looked. Then Mommy grabbed Carol real tight, and ran for the door. She got it open, but all those mittens with guns and helmets were outside, with guns pointed.
Mommy stopped. “Please let us go. Please.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the man with the biggest gun said. “You have to wait for Ms. Hanaday.”
“We can’t wait for Ms. Hanaday,” Mommy said. “My daughter punched the computer. Now it’s counting down to a self-destruct.”
Carol squirmed. She watched Star Trek. She knew what a self-destruct was. “We gots to go,” she whispered.
Mommy just squeezed her tighter.
“We gots to go!” Carol shouted.
Mommy nodded.
The guards kept their guns on them.
“A self-destruct?” one of them whispered.
Another guard elbowed him. “She’s the average five-year-old. She finds the holes before we implement the program.”
“Huh?” the first guard asked.
“Y’know, how they always say that the plan’s so bad an average five-year-old could figure out how to get around it? She’s the average-”
“Enough!” Mommy said. “I don’t care if it is fake. I’m not going to take that risk.”
Carol squirmed. She wanted to kick, but Mommy hated it when she kicked. Sometimes Carol got in trouble for kicking Mommy. Not always. Sometimes Mommy forgot to yell at her. But right now, Mommy was stressed. She’d yell.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the first guard said. “We can’t let you go until Ms. Hanaday gets here.”
“And she is!” a lady’s voice said from far away. Carol peered around Mommy, and sure enough, there was that Ms. Hanaday, in her high heels and her black suit and wearing her glasses halfway down her nose even though she wasn’t as old as Mommy was.
“I wanna go,” Carol whispered.
“I know, honey,” Mommy said, but she wasn’t listening. She was just talking like she did when Carol was bugging her. But she did set Carol down, only she kept ahold of Carol’s hand so Carol couldn’t run away.
Ms. Hanaday was holding a bag. Her heels made clicky noises on the hard gray floor. It was colder out here than it was in that room. Carol shivered. She wanted a jacket. She wanted her blankie. She wanted a nap.
“I wanna go home,” she said again.
One of the guards looked at her real nice-like. He was somebody’s daddy, she just knew it. Maybe if she acted just a little cuter…
“What have we got here?” Ms. Hanaday said as she got close. She reached into the bag, and crouched at the same time. She whipped out a giant chocolate chip cookie, the kind Mommy said had to last at least three meals.
Carol reached for it, but Mommy grabbed her hand.
“We would like to leave now,” Mommy said.
“May I remind you, Ms. Rogers, that you signed a three-month contract? It’s only been three weeks.”
“Still. My daughter isn’t happy, and I’m not real comfortable here. No child should have to work all day.”
“It’s not designed as work, ma’am. It’s play.”
“Is not,” Carol muttered, wanting that cookie. She stared at it. Maybe if she stared hard enough, it would float over to her. She seen that in movies too.
“Did you hear her?” Mommy asked. “She doesn’t think it’s play.”
“Wanna nap,” Carol told Ms. Hanaday.
Really want that cookie, but Mommy still had ahold of her hand. Too tight. Mommy’s hand was cold and kinda sweaty.
Ms. Hanaday was frowning at her.
“I don’t like it here,” Carol said louder this time, in case Ms. Hanady didn’t hear so good. “Wanna go.”
“The day’s not over yet,” Ms. Hanaday said.
“Delores!” Lord Kafir shouted from down the hall. Carol knew it was him because he had the funny accent Mommy called Brid Ish. Some people from England had it. Most of them got to be bad guys in movies.
Carol shivered again.
Ms. Hanaday stood up. Lord Kafir was hurrying down the hall. His shoes didn’t make that clicky sound. They were kinda quiet, maybe because they weren’t official grown-up shoes.