But first let’s go find Lulu, who is in the living room screeching “No! No! No!” although she doesn’t screech much anymore. However, the news she was hearing from her mom and her dad was so utterly, totally SHOCKING that it not only started her screeching but almost shocked her into throwing one of her heel-kicking, arm-waving, on-the-floor tantrums. Lulu, however, thinks of herself as too grown-up now to throw tantrums. Which also means she thinks of herself as grown-up enough to go with her mom and her dad on the trip they just told her that they would be taking WITHOUT HER.

When Lulu had finished screeching, she fiercely glared at her mom and her dad and asked them—in a not-too-nice voice—these questions:

“How can you have a good time if I’m not there?”

And “Who’s going to take care of me, and how can you be positive that this person won’t kidnap me and hold me for ransom?”

And “Or maybe she’ll stop feeding me and start yelling at me and hitting me and locking me down in the basement with the rats.” (Okay, that isn’t technically a question.)

When Lulu was done, her mom and her dad looked at each other, then answered—very carefully. For even though their daughter wasn’t the serious pain in the butt that she used to be, she wasn’t the easiest girl in the world to be parents to when she didn’t get her way.

“First of all,” said Lulu’s dad, “there are no rats in our basement. As a matter of fact, we don’t even HAVE a basement.”

“But even if we did,” said Lulu’s mom, “we’d never hire a sitter who’d lock you up in it. Or starve you or hit you or yell at you or kidnap you.”

“Or,” added Lulu’s dad, “hold you for ransom.”

“And if you were held for ransom,” Lulu’s mom assured Lulu, patting her oh-so-lovingly on the cheek, “we’d pay whatever it took to get you back.”

“But,” Lulu pointed out, removing her mom’s patting hand from her cheek, “if instead of paying the ransom, you’d let me come with you, this trip of yours would cost a lot less money.”

Lulu’s dad explained that as much as they loved and adored their precious only child, they wanted to have—for the first time since they’d been parents—a private grown-ups-only vacation together. And that even though they wouldn’t be having the kind of fun they had with their fabulous Lulu, they would be having a DIFFERENT kind of fun.

“You mean BETTER fun,” grumped Lulu. “You’ll have better fun without me. And you won’t even care when I get sick and die.”