“Maggie can be Amy Gerding, and Polly, you can be the news reporter. No, wait, you should be the news reporter, Maggie. Polly, you’re Amy Gerding.”
Polly has a whole ponytail in her mouth. She wanted to play Protectors and so did I but Tana said she’d only play with us if we played Murderer. “It’s just a game,” she said. “Don’t be babies.”
“Stand back there,” Tana says, and Polly rocks like a penguin until she’s behind the dresser that Tana pulled out from the wall to be the checkout counter. “Now act like you’re selling Skittles or something.”
Polly takes her ponytail out of her mouth and whispers, “Anybody want some Skittles?”
“Not like that! That’s not how they do it in stores! You have to wait for me to come up and put my Skittles on the counter. See this comb? Polly, see this comb? You have to look! This comb’s the Skittles, got it?”
Before Tana even puts the comb on the counter, Polly’s wrapping her arms around her head and chirping the way she chirps instead of shouts, “Don’t shoot me! Don’t shoot me!”
“I’m just a customer! I just want to buy Skittles!”
“Don’t worry,” I whisper, “she won’t shoot you. Just say, ‘That’ll be sixty cents, please.’”
“That’ll be sixty cents—”
“Bang!” Tana yells. “Bang bang bang! Okay, now do the news report, Maggie.”
“But she’s crying! You scared her!”
“You can’t cry, Polly, you’re dead! Maggie, you have to do the news report.
“Fine,” Tana says. “I’ll do it. Today at four o’clock a man shot and killed a clerk at the Mini Mart. Witnesses say the murderer was buying Skittles when he pulled out a gun and shot the clerk in the heart.”