The Mastermind

“Well, it’s the least I can do,” Seraphina said, pouring milk over the cookie cereal that Clara was testing out. Small, nickel-sized cookies, three flavors: red velvet, oatmeal with chocolate chips, and ginger snaps, were floating in a round, clear glass bowl.

“Yummm. This is good,” Seraphina said between bites. “You should sell it!”

“Nonsense, my dear. It’s what we do here! I am trying to decide, though, if it’s over the top to serve it with chocolate milk.”

“I like it this way,” replied Seraphina. “Just plain milk. Too sweet with chocolate, I think,” she smiled, feeling very glad to have her opinion sought on the matter.

Seraphina only had one class with Dewey that year, and they sat at opposite sides of the U. It was Spanish class. So far, the one thing she’d learned how to say well was “chicle en la basura” which meant “gum in the trash.”

As opposed to many of her sillier classmates who got reprimanded for goofing off (present CEO of this winning company not excluded), Seraphina was more of what you’d call a silent offender. Her outfits were always just so. Her hair was the sort that looked as if it had never been colored out of the lines. Maybe that’s why it entertained her to be just a little bit less than “just so,” now and again, as she would try to get away with chewing gum hidden between her upper gum line and her teeth or tucked up into her cheek like a chipmunk.

Inevitably, though, she’d get bored and forget it was there. Then, before you knew it, it was chicle en la basura time. She probably got caught with gum at least twice a week. Other than that one (admittedly repeat) offense, she was, indeed, a model student.

Seraphina felt pretty honored and excited to be sitting in Dewey’s office, not as a client, but as a resource, eating cookie cereal and offering her opinion on this undercover assignment.

“I need to get her to talk about memories. So Michael is going to have a special lunch with her. But I need to help him get her to talk. How do you think this might work? What do you think he should say?”

“Well, why can’t he just ask her about stuff. You know, ‘Mom, how old was I when I first walked?’ That kind of thing. Oh! I know! How about if he asks her to go through his baby book with him. I did that with my mom on my birthday once. That was fun.”

“Good. Gooood!” Dewey burst out as he clicked a pen against his bottom teeth. “That’s the thinking I needed. Girl stuff.”

“Dewey. That’s kind of sexist, you know?”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound sexy,” Dewey said, turning three shades of red and completely confounded. “Why would that be sexy?”

“Hahahaha! No, silly! Not sexy, sexist. You know, prejudiced against women. Why does looking at a baby book have to be girl stuff? I’m just saying th—”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Of course. I mean, I guess so. OK, I meant no disrespect. How’s that?”

“Sure, yeah. Whatever. I’m still here. I think that can work, if your guy Michael can handle pulling it off.”

“Oh, sure,” Dewey replied before pouring himself a bowl of cookie cereal. “It’s not that hard, I imagine. But then how do we get her to get to the Mr. Hyde part? You know, the part that she’s not talking about all these years. I doubt that’s in the baby book.”

“Right,” Seraphina said. “So you gotta have him ask questions like, ‘So I walked at ten months. Did I have any big falls?’ ‘Oh, so I got my first tooth when I was six months? Did I bite anyone?’ That kind of thing. He should pepper those questions in along with the good, fun stuff they talk about.”

“Hmm. I better send Wolfie to record this. This is good. This is better than good. This is great, actually. Seraphina, you are a genius.”

Seraphina smiled at Dewey and turned three shades of red.

🖊

Michael didn’t need Wolfie to record it. He said he’d use his iPhone to do it himself.

They made a plan to keep in touch via text during his special lunch with his mom in case he needed help. Dewey had Seraphina on call, also via text, and he had his phone on his desk with Clara monitoring it for any action.

Saturday came and Michael had his lunch with his mother. He learned a lot about his many years of life thus far. He was pretty impressed with what he’d discovered. In fact, he was considering writing his autobiography after this lengthy conversation with his mother. After all, he’d walked and talked impressively early. At two months old he said, “ah-goo.” He was drawing pictures at twelve months old (OK, he was eating the crayons, but so what, he could draw!).

His mother shared with him “quotables” from his baby book. At three years old he’d said, “Hey, Dad! You’re sitting on one side of the table, and I’m on the other side. That’s ironic!” OK, so not quite irony, but not bad for three years old. Now there’s a mastermind in the making! Michael thought.

But the information that proved most helpful was the story she shared about the cat litter box.

“Oh, it was one of my worst days in mothering ever,” she recalled. “You were probably nine months old, and I was doing the dishes. The whole house was completely childproof as far as I was concerned, so you were allowed to crawl around the living room by yourself, and I’d left you there with your toys. When I turned off the garbage disposal the house was quiet. Disturbingly quiet. So I went to look for you in the living room, but you weren’t there. I went around the whole house—which, as you’ll recall, was just a little one at the time, so you couldn’t have gotten far—but it didn’t matter, because you had found yourself some danger, nonetheless.

“Our cat litter box had a lid on it. You know the kind. It was like a little plastic house, a sandbox with a roof and an opening for the cat to crawl into. We kept it in the laundry room. Well, that’s where I found you. Just your feet, actually, as the rest of you burrowed your way into the litter box like a puppy digging up a flower garden! Oh, I just shudder to even think of it now! I lifted the lid off to get you, and, to my horror, I found you with a big grin on your face munching and crunching on cat poo and litter!

“I screamed! I thought you’d cry I screamed so loudly. But you just sat there munching and crunching, little litter crumbs on your cheeks and a big proud smile on your face. I dragged you out of the box. Pulled the cat poop out of your mouth, scrubbed your tongue with a baby wipe, and made you rinse with mouthwash (then you began crying!). I called the emergency Poison Control Center.

“‘Don’t worry,’ they said. ‘Not the first time this has happened. He’ll be fine.’

“But I was horrified,” his mother’s eyes teared up now, “and I just couldn’t forgive myself for having let you out of my sight and for not putting a gate in front of the door.”

The lunch didn’t end on that tragic tale. Michael managed to ask her about his first time making her laugh hard, and she recalled the time his father dropped a heavy book on his foot and yelled out a four letter word that rhymed with duck, and Michael started quacking.

Michael joked that maybe “duck, duck, goose” wasn’t such a great game for kids, after all!

They both had a good laugh over that, finished their lemonade, and Michael gave his mom a quick hug.

“Thanks, Mom!” he called out and headed off to his room to make sure the recording had come out OK.

“Don’t forget to wash your hands when you go in!” she called out after him.

Michael went in, washed his hands, sent the recording to Dewey, and sat back to wait for Dewey to work his magic. He sure hoped he could.