The Little Devil

It was much too quiet. The green light on the monitor was steady, but I had just laid the baby to sleep so I wasn't expecting to hear him crying. It was the two year old. She never napped, and she usually announced her arrival by clumsy steps which would stamp rather than walk. When she did walk she muttered nonsense to herself, but when she ran with a quick thud-thud-thud of size 2 shoes, she always shouted. Her laces are always untied of course. It's a miracle she's never in the hospital with some sort of mild concussion, but just as I was thinking that, the house became uncomfortably silent. I feared she had fallen somewhere and I didn't know where she was. I felt my suspicions rise, followed by worry and panic. I yelled for her. No answer. I looked behind doors and under beds. No child. I yelled once more and was answered by the baby's cry over the monitor, but the two year old was my priority. As often happens when one is apprehensive, I began to think the worst. She had fallen down stairs, or she had discovered how to open the front door, or was the door to the pool locked? I looked everywhere and no two year old. Then, stopping me abruptly in my tracks, was the little girl's full-on stare. 

At first I was completely relieved, but as she sat there, back erect against the wall, eyes wide and unblinking, mouth shut, and face blank, I confused her for a large doll. I was petrified that she was scrutinizing me by looking at my face and reading all the lines of my eyes, mouth, and nose. It was as if she could see directly to the core of my being. I watched her eyes trace the expression on my face like a small sophisticated woman. Her overall conclusion of me was summed up by the disgusted curl of the lip and a turn of the head. For a moment, I thought I was dreaming, then I realized that the two year old had, in fact, expressed a feeling of condescending disapproval, which was hardly a feeling conceived by a toddler. A million goosebumps covered my skin as she stood up without looking back at me, kept her tiny dimpled fingers linked together in her lap, and walked out of the room with her head held high. But just before she walked into the kitchen, she rested her hand against the door frame, leaned against it, let her head droop slightly, then dropped her arm limply against her side. For the first time during my job as her babysitter, the two year old walked with an incredible grace and balance. I couldn't comprehend it. There was something about her demeanor that made me think of a wolf walking like a bi-pied. That image was soon shattered by the piercing cry of the baby that sounded strangely like an approaching echo from the distance, and, with some relief, the sudden thud-thud-thud of the two year old was followed by her childish laughter. 

(UNFINISHED PIECE) 


© Mikal Minarich