Chapter 34: Sunday Morning

Inside the police station, the officers quickly split us up so they could talk to Liz and me separately. I sat in a small room with a lady policewoman who was little and probably older than Nana. She asked me all these questions about what happened at the bus stop. It felt weird talking about a man pulling out his penis to this little old lady – even though she was in a police uniform.

After a time, she said I had to go and look at a line-up to see if I could identify the man who did it. I went into one of those rooms like you see on TV police shows with a big thing of glass on one wall. I knew that on the other side, the glass was a mirror. Through the glass I could see a row of six men, but I couldn’t see their faces – they were holding big cards up in front of their faces with numbers from one to six.

The old lady policewoman spoke into a little microphone and all the men used one hand to undo their pants and push them to the floor. Soon I could see a row of six penises dangling in front of me. The policewoman turned to me and asked if I recognized any of the penises as the one which I saw at the bus stop. I looked carefully at each one in turn but in the end I shook my head and told the lady that it wasn’t one of them.

She told me not to worry and led me into another room. In that room was a computer sitting on a table. She tapped the screen of the computer and said this was a penis identification program. Inside this, she said, were the pictures of the penises of every adult male in the state.

I felt like telling her that she was pointing at the screen and inside there were the workings for the screen. The pictures would really be on the hard drive which would be in the box underneath the screen. Unless it was on a network in which case the hard drive with the pictures would be somewhere else entirely. I decided not to tell her that because she might have thought I was being rude.

So she sat down in front of the computer and started asking me questions like how long it was and how wide it was and so on. She would use one finger to type in the numbers when I told her each answer. This went on for a while with lots of different questions.

Then I noticed that the screen was completely blank.

“Oh dear!” said the police lady. “I must have forgotten to turn the computer on. I suppose now we’ll have to do it all over again.”

“Now you’re being silly,” I said and decided to wake up.

I opened my eyes and peered out into the gloom of my room. It was pretty dark so I couldn’t see much. I was wedged into a tiny space on my bed between Liz and the wall. This had been my solution to Liz pushing me out of the bed. I’d simply put myself on the other side of her so that she couldn’t push me out so easily – gee it’s handy to be so smart! Of course the result was – Liz lying sprawled all over the bed and me pushed up hard against the wall. Oh well, at least I wasn’t going to fall out anytime soon – yay!

I felt sorry for the guy who ended up married to Liz. He would have to put up with this every night. Or it could be a her if that was way the cookie crumbled. Either way was fine with me, she would always be my best friend forever. Then I stopped feeling sorry for him – or her – because Liz was such a nice person that whoever it turned out to be would be lucky to be with Liz. And I was pretty sure they would work out the bed problem quickly – and it would probably help being in a bigger bed like married people have.

Liz moved around a bit and rolled onto her side with her back to me. Almost immediately she went back into that steady breathing that meant she was sleeping. I slid a bit closer to her so that I was away from the wall and spooned myself up behind her. I tucked my head in behind hers so that I could breathe in the soft, sweet smell of her hair and wrapped an arm around her. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to relax into the warmth and comfort of being in bed wrapped around one of my most favorite people.

My hand was resting against a small furry lump. I shifted my hand against it and realized that it was Sabrina the Kitten. I felt a little smile spread across my face as I remembered Liz announcing last night that the kitten’s name was Sabrina. I asked her why and she said because she didn’t have any other animals called Sabrina. It was hard to argue with that – not that I wanted to or anything. Sabrina is a nice name.

Sabrina had made an appearance in the Magic Roundabout last night. Dan had come in and the dads had offered him a beer, which meant that they each had to have another one to keep him company. Of course, since Dan was the one standing up, he had to be the one to fetch the beer from the fridge. I had a theory that the only reason they offered Dan a beer in the first place was so that they would have an excuse to drink some more – and so that he would fetch it for them – but I didn’t say that out loud.

So anyway, that meant that Dan had to join in the game, but we’d run out of animals so Sabrina had made an appearance. And since Mum and Dad couldn’t remember any kittens in the original program, Sabrina got to be Sabrina.

The game had been hysterical. It was a bunch of adults (and two teens) playing a game – or telling a story or whatever it was we were doing – with talking animals. If there was a plot, then it was about exploring deepest, darkest America (which included such wildernesses as New York City and San Francisco and Disneyland and Yellowstone National Park) and continually coming across this magic roundabout in the middle of the strangest places. It was all very silly.

Mum had to explain to Liz that a roundabout was another name for a carousel. She’d been confused because she was thinking we were talking about a magic traffic circle and she couldn’t understand why the animals didn’t get run over – and why it wasn’t strange to come across one on the second floor of Macy’s. Liz’s dad had laughed and told her not to be embarrassed because he’d thought the same thing.

There had been quite a bit of fairly childish humor, like Dougal having to stop for a poop every five minutes and Florence getting an attack of the burps. That had Liz and me in hysterics.

There had also been a bit of fairly ... adult ... humor. That had started when Mr D. had pointed a nearly empty beer bottle at Dan, who’d been tossing Sabrina up in the air and catching her, and said, “Young man, will you stop playing with my daughter’s pussy!”

That had caused a fair amount of laughter, except from Liz who had squealed and hit her dad several times until he surrendered and apologized.

After laughing with everyone else, Mum had waggled her finger at Mr D. “Penalty for unnecessary crudeness. Put a penny in the jar.”

Mr D. had patted his pockets and then said, “I don’t think I have any pennies.”

“That’s okay,” replied Mum, “I don’t have any jars.”

Mum continued to periodically hand out one penny penalties for all sorts of offenses, either real or made up. I got a one penny penalty for excessive pouting which I thought was tremendously unfair because I hadn’t been, but then Mum pointed at me and said, “See? Excessive pouting! I awarded the penalty in advance.” Everyone laughed – including me – it wasn’t very fair but it was funny.

Dan got a one penny penalty for being boring when he couldn’t think of a creative way to rescue Dougal and Zeberdee from the clutches of a crazed purple dinosaur. Bryan and Florence ended up confusing it by singing silly purple dinosaur songs – sometimes it’s handy having a three year old in the house – you learn the most useful things.

I didn’t notice exactly when Ermintrude the Cow dropped out of the game. The first time I realized she’d gone quiet was when I felt Liz’s head drop into my lap. Liz was curled up on the floor, hugging the cow and fast asleep. I looked down at Liz and decided I was feeling sleepy too.

“It’s time for Ermintrude and me to go to bed,” said Dylan.

“Goodnight Dylan,” said Dougal.

“Goodnight Dylan,” said Florence.

“Boinnnng,” said Zerbedee.

I shook Liz on the shoulder, “Hey, come on. It’s time to go to bed.”

Mr D. poked her in the thigh – which was the part of her closest to him. “Go on, kiddo, bed time.”

Liz stirred and blinked up at me with bleary eyes.

“We’re going to bed. You have to stand up.”

I stood and helped Liz up. She was clutching the cow to her chest and looked a bit out of it. Everyone said goodnight and we went to my room. Getting ready for bed consisted of stripping off down to our panties – anything else seemed too complicated. It took remarkably little time for the two of us to be lying side-by-side in bed with Ermintrude and Dylan tucked in beside us. Liz was fast asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

Probably less than an hour after going to bed, I’d opened my eyes to see the door open and Mum moving silently beside the bed. She was putting something on the bedside table.

“Hey!” I whispered.

“Oh! Hi sweetie! I thought you two were fast asleep.” The whisper came back to me out of the shadow that was Mum.

“Not quite. Liz is out like a light.” At some stage, Liz had flipped over and was lying half on top of me with her head tucked under my chin, a bent leg draped over mine and an elbow resting on my stomach with the upper arm extending up my chest to just under her chin. I still lay on my back so I could look up at Mum without shifting – which was good because I wasn’t sure that I could.

Mum sat gently on the edge of the bed, careful not to move the bed too much and rouse Liz.

“I wanted to take a last look at my little girl before she turned into a teenager.” She leaned over the bed to kiss my forehead. “And I brought Sabrina in for Liz.”

“Don’t tell me! Dan didn’t want to be accused of taking Liz’s pussy to bed with him.”

Mum giggled. I’m going to say that again – Mum giggled. Then she stopped.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. I would have preferred it if you two didn’t have to listen to those sorts of comments.”

“Oh, Mum!” I rolled my eyes. That was probably a waste of effort, I wasn’t sure if she could see my eye rolling. “We hear those sorts of jokes every day at school – especially in the girls locker room. We were shocked before because we didn’t expect Daddy D. to say it.”

“I see! I’m being square am I – an old fuddy-duddy?”

I treated that comment with the ignore that it deserved.

“Pass Sabrina here.” I held out my hand. Mum put the stuffed kitten in my hand and I tucked Sabrina into the space on my chest between Liz and her arm.

“Are you all going to bed now?”

“Yes, honey, it’s getting late.” Mum used a hand to gently stroke my face, pushing my hair to the side away from my eyes. It was nice to lie there and let her do it.

“That was fun, the Magic Roundabout stuff.”

“I enjoyed it too. I wondered at first, when you came and wanted to join in, but now I’m glad that you did. It was good to relax and have fun with you. It was good for your dad too. Whatever inspired you to do that?”

“You know that parenting book I’ve been reading? Well, the first chapter is all about how parents should make an effort to spend time with their kids; join in activities their kids enjoy and play games together or whatever. I figured the reverse must be true as well so I thought I should make an effort to spend time with my parents and join in with something you were enjoying.”

In the dim light coming through the open door, I could see Mum chuckling quietly.

“If I’m not careful, you’ll be a better parent than I am before you graduate from middle school.”

“Don’t say that, Mum. You’re a good parent.”

“Not really, I seem to mess it up more often than I get it right. Luckily for all of us, your dad has gotten very good at running around after me and tidying up my messes. Dan’s starting to do a bit of that too. Lately, it seems like every mistake I’ve made has ended up hurting you.”

I groped around with my loose hand (Liz was lying on the other one) until I found Mum’s hand. I gripped it and squeezed it hard. “And still I love you! Go figure!”

“And still you love me,” she repeated and I could hear a hint of amazement in her voice. “You must sometimes have doubts that I love you, with the way I act.”

“Mum!” I protested. Liz moaned and shifted on my chest. Her hand wrapped around Sabrina and she pulled her kitten closer to her. Then she settled and was still again; breathing steadily.

We both waited while Liz settled. My heart was feeling the hint of pain I’d heard in Mum’s whispered voice.

“If ever I have any doubt, I only have to look at your paintings. I mean, look around.” I used our joined hands to gesture around my room. “Okay, you can’t really see them, but all those paintings on my walls are full of how much you love me. Every brush stroke in every picture tells me what you see in me, what you love about me. And not only these, but all the paintings you’ve done of me; that one in the living room, even that print in your room from when I was little. No, Mum! I’ve never had any doubt how you feel about me.”

“That print in my room? The one from when you were five? I thought you hated that.”

“I hated having it hanging in the living room. Everyone who walked into the house could see my bare butt. That was really embarrassing.”

“Oh!” Mum was quiet for a moment. “I always thought you hated it.”

I suppose I had hated it for a long time. It actually used to creep me out – both the painting itself, and because some anonymous person had paid money to have a painting of my naked five-year-old bum hanging on their wall. I used to think that was really creepy.

I found to my surprise that I didn’t mind anymore. I suppose spending a week living in a room where every wall is covered with pictures of me stark naked had gotten me over that.

“I supposed I used to, but it’s a good picture, Mum, a really good picture.” Apparently that mystery person had agreed because Mum had been paid an awful lot of money for it.

I must have sounded resigned when I said it because Mum lifted our joined hands up and kissed the back of my hand. “You’re a good person, Bec. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

“Everyone has their cross to bear,” I said lightly, with a little smile on my face. Except then I remembered that she probably couldn’t see me smiling.

She leaned over again and kissed my nose. “I love you so much, my little one. I love all my children of course, but you are so very precious to me. Every day you surprise me and I love every minute of it – even if I’m not good at showing you that all the time. I’ve been so proud of you these last few days; the things you’ve done, the way you’ve handled yourself – even when things didn’t go your way, your drawing, your painting – so very proud.”

I didn’t want to say anything. I wasn’t sure if my voice would work. I squeezed Mum’s hand to let her know I’d heard her. Her words had found a path all the way down to my heart and stuck there. As well as that, she was sounding happier than she had been five minutes before and I was happy about that too.

“I wanted to talk to you about what’s going on between you and Dan.”

I didn’t really want to have that discussion in the middle of the night. Especially with both of us whispering so we didn’t wake Liz. “It’s okay, Mum,” I said firmly. “I know what I have to do.”

She paused for a moment as if she wanted to say something more, but then I heard a soft sigh. Hopefully it meant she’d decided to trust me to do the right thing and stay away from Dan.

“I should let you get some sleep. I’m looking forward to meeting my new teenage daughter in the morning.”

Mum squeezed my hand one last time and stood up.

“Mum! You and Dad should spend time with Tara. I don’t mean cleaning the house – that was a punishment – I mean quality time. And she needs to practice saying no to people.”