NOODLES FOR SUPPER! Mommy and Daddy were both in smiley moods, but Hanna suspected Mommy was merely trying a new tactic. She was a good opponent. She had big reactions to things and then sulked off to her room to regroup. When Daddy first saw Mommy’s new hair, his smile wobbled and Mommy looked scared for a second, tugging on the layers like she could make them longer. Hanna hoped Daddy would chuck her ugly butt out of the house.
“You don’t like it?” Mommy asked.
Then Daddy beamed at her, reaching for her like she was a snow angel who’d fallen to earth and his warm hands would make her melt. “It’s a surprise—but look at you. Radiant.”
Mommy, who knew how ugly she was, breathed with relief. Sometimes Daddy was too nice.
“What inspired this?” he asked.
“Your daughter. Who cut off half my hair while I lay in bed sleeping.”
Hanna heard the steel blade in her voice, the thing Mommy wanted to stab her with.
Daddy’s face grumpled. “Lilla gumman…”
He turned to her, frowning. Hanna thought she might have blown it, and felt squiggles of fear swimming inside her.
“Doing something like that—it can be dangerous, for one. You shouldn’t be using scissors like that. And it’s a violation—do you understand what that means?”
She shook her head, aware of Mommy watching Daddy with big eager eyes.
“Well, at least there’s no harm done.” He winked at Hanna. “Mommy looks more beautiful than ever.”
“Alex!”
Mommy clutched her chopsticks, ready to spear him with them, but Daddy reached out and squeezed her hand.
“It was wrong,” he said, “she shouldn’t have done it—but I love the way it frames your face. You can’t be mad at me for liking that.”
Mommy sagged a little. One side of her mouth lifted in a smile. He twinkled his eyes at her and dived back into his food. While he wasn’t looking, Mommy turned to her and gave her a see-you-haven’t-beaten-me smirk.
Hanna gave her a not-for-long grin in reply.
As Mommy and Daddy ate with their chopsticks, their hands looked like giant stick bugs, monsters click clacking as they devoured noodle cities. Hanna had to hide her glee because Daddy could never get really angry with her, and she was so excited for the day to end: she’d already decided her next move. Sneaky and awesome!
They babbled so happily about her new school that she couldn’t help feeling not so terrible about it, in spite of her determination to maintain a mask of so what. Things in the building had surprised her, reminding her of the Children’s Museum. Stuff to play and interact with. And it was so near the playground—maybe she’d get to play there every day. But the other children. They might be a problem. They looked stupid and, in some cases, deformed. One of them was floppy like her stuffed bunny. Another had knees like a kangaroo and walked with the aid of a four-wheeled walker. She heard howls and yowls coming through some of the doors; no wonder Mr. G was so placid about her barking. She’d give it a day or two to study the terrain, then decide what to do.
Just thinking about the other children ruined her good mood; if only they would all die and she could have the school to herself. She’d seen little blips on the news about mass shootings and had heard Daddy rant about the gun problem “not everyone needs a gun, children do not need guns!” But maybe Daddy was mistaken. Maybe the other children weren’t clever enough to conjure ways to handle their problems. A vengeful pit grew inside her and it remained to be seen how it would grow—very possibly into a tree with snaking branches and claws. How fun it would be to be such a tree, looming like a giant on a neighborhood street. People would pass beneath her, and the ones she didn’t like—snap snap crunch! She’d snatch them up and tangle her branches around them, and their bones would break with little crunches that would be mistaken for the snap of a twig. Her bark-self would absorb their yummy blood and the tree would grow and thrive.
“So, Hanna, remember how Daddy talked to you about having your very own person to talk to? Someone who’d focus their attention just on you?” Mommy glanced at Daddy and he stopped chewing for a second. He swallowed; his food and the surprised look slipped in tandem down his throat.
“Right, lilla gumman, we talked about that. Because maybe you’re thinking things and need a better way to express yourself. Remember?” Then Daddy turned back to Mommy, like he didn’t know what to say next.
“Well, I talked to a very helpful woman today; her name is Beatrix. She’s very, very nice. And it just happens that she has some time to see you on Monday.”
“Wait—doesn’t she start school on Monday?”
Daddy blinked at Mommy and for a minute both forgot about Hanna, who watched them volley back and forth in a friendly ping-pong match that risked becoming something more serious.
“Yes, the appointment’s after school.”
“Isn’t that too much? Too many new things for one day?”
“It’s when she could see her—she had an opening and I didn’t see the point in waiting.”
Daddy shook his head. “I just think … She’s going to need some down time, it’s already a big—”
“I know, but it might be good too. If she has any reactions about her new school.”
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t want to put it off, I thought we’d agreed.”
Daddy nodded at his plate and stabbed at his noodles. Hanna knew he would always defend her, but Mommy was such a bossy boss and always wanted her own way. It was hard to read the weird vibes passing between them. They tried to speak with their eyebrows instead of words.
“It’ll be good,” Mommy told him like a fish surfacing for air. “And I was very impressed with her. She’s so sweet and nice.”
“Someone named Beatrix,” Daddy said to Hanna, “must be nice. It isn’t humanly possible for someone with such an adorable name to be anything but kind. Right?”
Hanna gave one of her single, assertive head bobs.
After supper Mommy suggested that Daddy play a board game with Hanna while she cleaned the kitchen.
“Sure you don’t need any help?” He tucked his body behind hers, kissing the exposed skin on the back of her neck as she rinsed the dishes. “This is my new favorite spot,” he said.
Mommy looked way too happy as Daddy kissed her neck again. Hanna grabbed the Spot It! tin from a lower cabinet and ran back to the table, where she slapped the lid to get everyone’s attention.
“I think I’m being paged,” said Daddy, drifting toward the table.
“Is it okay if I use your laptop for a little bit?”
“Yeah, sure. We never did replace your old one—we should.”
“Also, I wanted to do some shopping this weekend—get some things for Hanna, some special school supplies and a backpack, maybe some clothes. She might like that.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Mommy turned off the faucet, and with her hands still wet she used her shoulder to rub something on her cheek, an itch or a splash of water. “I’ll be upstairs while you guys are playing.”
“Come join us when you’re finished.”
Hanna hoped she wouldn’t join them. Maybe, if her plan worked, Mommy would spend the entire weekend sick in bed—or maybe forever sick in bed—and then she and Daddy could do whatever they wanted. She placed one round card in front of each of them, then tidied the draw pile into a neat stack, ready to play.
* * *
When it was time for bed, Daddy brought her a special present.
“Don’t tell Mommy,” he whispered in her ear. “She’ll think we’re weird.”
It was a potato. A funny-shaped raw potato still cold from the refrigerator.
She giggled and hugged it to her chest. She and Daddy knew what would happen: the potato would become the body of her very own UnderSlumberBumbleBeast. She wasn’t quite ready to leave it to its destiny, though, so she slept with it in her fist, cuddled up so close to her nose she could inhale its earthy origins.
At three A.M. her alarm clock rumbled to life. First it flashed its lights, then it tolled its harmonic bells—which she’d set at a very low volume. It had been a very special Christmas Eve present from her grandparents and made her feel so grown-up. But she rarely needed to set it or get up by herself. Sometimes she set it anyway, for random times, just to make sure it would chime at whatever hour she appointed. But tonight she actually had a mission.
She grabbed her flashlight—another of her most favorite items. It fit perfectly in her small hand and she could set the brightness for low, medium, or high with just a press of her thumb. She put it on low and opened her door. Everything was dark and quiet. Her parents’ bedroom door was shut and no light glowed from beneath. She made her way downstairs as silently as a worm. She’d met a few cats in her day and they weren’t as quiet as everyone said. They purred and meowed and made thumping noises when they jumped off things. But a worm. She’d never heard a worm utter a sound even as faint as a breath.
It slightly concerned her that turning on the kitchen light would somehow awaken her parents, but she needed to see to do her work. The hardest part was lugging a chair over to the counter—if only Marie-Anne had a physical self and could help her. It was heavy, and she didn’t want to make any noise or leave scuffs on the floor or bang it into her chin or knee. The chair bumped against her a few times, but she finally got it right against the lower cabinet and then stood on the seat.
She used her flashlight to better illuminate all the medications Mommy kept in the cabinet. Some were just over-the-counter ones, like the chewable Tylenol she took when her throat hurt. She didn’t want to mess with anything that she or Daddy might take, so she concentrated on the clear orangey bottles that had Mommy’s name on the sticker. The pen thingy she injected into her belly would be too hard to tamper with; she’d already ruled that out. And she wanted something that Mommy used every day—unlike the pen thingy. She looked at one of the packets she’d seen Mommy mix with water, like instant lemonade. Could she poison it with something? But if she tore it open, there’d be no way to reseal it. Her best choice would be the little plastic-looking two-tone brown pills. Mommy took one with both breakfast and supper. She couldn’t pronounce the name of it, but the label said, “Take one capsule by mouth every four to six hours as needed for diarrhea.” She’d seen a commercial on TV where, by magic, a capsule opened and a million tiny balls spilled out, so she knew they could be pulled apart.
The bottle was a bit tricky, but she imitated how Mommy pressed her palm into the top of it, then turned. After a few tries, she got it to open.
She held one of the capsules between her thumb and forefinger. It looked so small, not at all like the animated thing she’d seen on TV. But she soon found that with a little twisting, it popped open. The capsule wasn’t filled with tiny balls as she’d expected, but with a fine white powder that looked exactly like flour.
For a moment, she weighed her options. Her original idea had been to dump out all the medication into the sink, but the capsules might feel too light if she left them all empty. Getting a tiny drop of flour into each one would be hard to do without making a mess, but it might be worth the effort. She tried putting the two halves of the capsule back together, just to verify that it would work. Easy peasy. It looked good as new. Testing it, she pinched it between her fingers and it squooshed, flat and empty. Nope. Definitely have to refill them.
She grabbed the fat canister of flour with both hands and tugged it over. The smallest-tipped object she could think of was a teeny tiny plastic-handled paring knife—she’d used it before, standing at the counter on a chair like she was now, slicing bananas and melon chunks on her own special cutting board. Daddy liked fruit salad. Very quietly, she slid open the drawer and found the knife.
For the next two hours she painstakingly sabotaged her mother’s pills. The process was too exhausting and boring for her to do all of them. But she scooped up the ones she’d altered and put them back in the bottle so all the ones on top were flour instead of medicine. The sink was filled with white powder residue, so she turned on the faucet and let the water wash it all away.
She yawned. Silently as a worm, she put everything back where it had been, turned off the light, and returned to bed.
* * *
Everyone seemed a bit groggy at breakfast. Mommy swallowed her pill. Hanna tugged her pajama collar up to cover her mouth, hiding her grin.
* * *
They all went to the office supply store, and it was hard to tell which one of them was having more fun. Daddy liked trying out the different ergonomic chairs. “Not the best they make, but still comfy,” he said. Hanna tried them all, too. They took turns spinning each other. She was surprised to see that Mommy was attracted to the same things she was, colorful packs of everything you could think of—card stock, Post-its, highlighters, and especially the metal binder clips.
“You’re a big girl now,” Mommy said. “Kindergarten students don’t need their own notebooks and supplies, but first graders do.”
Mommy and Daddy had a list of things she needed, and she got to pick her favoritest of each item. She chose a purple backpack, a red lunch cooler that reminded her of Daddy’s, a yellow binder and some three-ring lined paper, a matching yellow pencil case, pencils with swirly patterns around them, gummy erasers that looked like flowers (she couldn’t wait to toss one under her bed), a rectangular plastic container with a magnetized rim that kept a zillion colorful paper clips from falling out (“To use at home,” Mommy said), a pack of fat highlighters, an adorable jar of thumbtacks, and a square bulletin board (“We can put it right on your wall,” Daddy said). Plus all sorts of random objects because no one could stop oohing and aahing over all the rows of stuff. Daddy got a heavy bundle of paper for his printer and Mommy got some Post-its and a giant sketchbook.
The parking lot was a death trap of monstrous bugs: hulking SUVs in endless rows. The sky hung low in thick gray stripes and people scampered in and out of cars and stores like they were afraid the rain would come and wash them all away. After they put all the stuff in the trunk Daddy pointed at another store and said, “We could get you a computer.”
“I’m not ready,” Mommy said. “Not sure what I really want. A tablet? Don’t know yet.”
Daddy took Mommy’s hand, so Hanna took his other hand. “Clothes then? Some new school clothes, squirrely girl?”
Hanna usually fussed when she went shopping with just her mother, but it was a treat for Daddy to come along. But once they were inside he went off to the boring men’s section to look for gym pants, even though Mommy asked if he really needed them. Hanna tried to follow him but Mommy called her back. Hanna ignored her, but then Daddy told her, too, and suddenly the store wasn’t nearly as much fun. Stupid Mommy and stupid clothes.
Mommy clicked her tongue as they strolled past the racks. “It’s all for summer.”
Every building in the mile-long complex was the opposite of their house. Vast quantities of everything, enough for twenty cities of a million people on display in each one. Hanna squinted, picturing how different it would be if the place were empty. If every store had only a single item hanging among the circular racks. Shopping would be a treasure hunt then: If you found the item in ten seconds and if it was your size, you could keep it; otherwise you had to leave it behind. She hated how much everything there was in the everywhere outside of the house. Too much and too much. Sometimes she wished she could turn off her eyes instead of her mouth.
“What do you want to wear to school on your first day?” Mommy asked.
Hanna held a polka-dotted bathing suit against her body. It had a navy-blue background and dots of different sizes and colors. If it was almost summer, she’d get to go swimming soon. Farmor and Farfar would come. They would go to the park with the lake.
“You can’t wear a bathing suit,” Mommy said as she looked through a rack of sale items.
Hanna bounced a little, clutching the colorful bathing suit.
“No, Hanna.” She picked out a simple pale-yellow dress with a white collar. “This looks like something you’d like.”
“Mmmmnnn,” Hanna whined. She made angry or whining noises at everything Mommy pulled off the rack.
“You don’t want something new for school?” Hanna rubbed her eyes, her face in a grump. “Okay. We won’t get anything. Let’s go find Daddy.”
Hanna ran ahead of her.
“You didn’t find anything?” he asked when they found him looking at a folded wonderland of T-shirts.
“She didn’t want anything.”
Hanna’s face crumpled like she was about to cry. “What’s wrong, lilla gumman?” She pointed back toward the kids’ things.
Mommy gave one of her annoyed sighs. “She wanted a bathing suit. I think she’s tired.”
“It’ll be summer soon. Does she need one?”
“We haven’t tried on her old ones yet.”
“Nothing’s expensive here. Did they have her size?”
Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! She gripped his hand and jumped up and down. She led the way to the polka-dotted bathing suit. She glanced back at Mommy, who trailed behind them with a pinched face. Daddy wasn’t looking, so she stuck her tongue out. Mommy scratched the tip of her nose with her middle finger—the bad finger that meant a bad word. She couldn’t quite tell if Mommy was just fixing an itch or giving her the bad-word finger. It didn’t matter. Daddy bought her the bathing suit, so she won another round.
* * *
Otters swam like ripples of fur, peering at her through the glass. She liked them best, so far. She held Daddy’s hand the whole time and didn’t have to compete with Mommy, who stayed home. Not feeling well. Hanna was very proud of herself. She didn’t need Marie-Anne to do all the sneaky things. She almost wished she could tell someone how clever she was.
The elephants looked like boulders with fat stumps for legs. She wanted to climb a giraffe’s neck, its spots like a ladder. The peacocks strutted and showed the world their rainbows. They were very arrogant. Hanna wanted to wrap her fist around one of their delicate heads and squeeze. Would it crack open like an egg? The monkeys bore wise, sad faces that told the truth. She wasn’t fooled by the way they played, climbing with their four identical hands while their tails asked, Why? Why? Why? It was like watching babies in a prison.
Maybe someday there’d be a zoo full of people. Just ordinary people sitting at a dining room table with a meal they hated. The free people would stand on the other side of the glass, watching them sniff their food in misery. In another room, children in bunk beds would have to wear pajamas all the time. They’d sleep so much they wouldn’t grow, and parents would say to their own kids, “That could be you, if you aren’t good.” In the last room would be a solitary woman, bony and dirty, orange haired like an orangutan, sitting in a big stuffed chair watching the same three hours of television over and over, day in and day out. Poor monkeys.
“Have you ever said anything to Mommy?” Daddy asked. “Spoken to her?”
She shook her head. They walked along the plant-lined path on the way to the food stand, where Daddy promised her some french fries.
“Are you sure? Not even once or twice? When you were bursting with words and just couldn’t hold them in anymore?”
She furrowed her eyebrows and stuck her lips out, shaking her head. If she had anything to say so badly, she’d say it to Daddy, not Mommy. And she couldn’t be held accountable for Marie-Anne.
“But if you had anything to say—really, really important, or even just really, really silly, you know you could come to me, right? You know I’d listen?”
It was like he could read her mind. She kissed his hand, then gripped it in both of hers and did a little skip. Daddy skipped, too. They skipped all the way to the french fry place.