Charlie holds up her cookie. “This is a great way to do it.”
I chuckle, remembering she was on her way to thefridge when the power went out. “Do you want to play a game or something? I’ve got a few.”
She still has about one-third of her cookie left, but she reaches out with her other hand and grabs a second one while shaking her head. “Can’t. My hands are busy with cookies right now. It’s vital.”
“Okay, then, nothing that will use hands. How about a Q and A?”
“As long as I can keep eating cookies,” she says, and takes a bite.
I try to think of a random question that might help me to know Charlie better. “I’ve got one. What’s your earliest memory?”
“Pass.”
“Pass?”
“Yep. It’s not pleasant.”
“Okay, then, how aboutanyearly memory? Your choice.”
“Playing hide and seek with my family. No, correction. Beingthe bestat playing hide and seek with my family. One of the perks of being the littlest is that you can fit in so many great places. What’s yours?”
“Jingle bells.”
“The song, or the sound like when Santa is near?”
“The sound.”
Charlie nods. “That’s a good one. My turn.” She looks up, thinking, biting her lip as shedoes, and I’ve lost all ability to think. “Okay, tell me about a proud moment from your childhood.”
“That’s easy. Football. I started playing when I was little, and by the time I hit my teens, I realized that I was fairly decent at analyzing the strengths of the people on my team and knowing how to use them. I was also good at being able to quickly scan the field and know how to adjust. It made me a good quarterback.
“My family came to every one of my games. I think they were the loudest ones in the stands every time. I loved it. Especially when I got to my senior year of high school, because I was on top of my game. My team did so well. We might not have started off that way, but by senior year, we all understood each other well and fully trusted each other on the field.”
Well, that was until Cordell broke that trust. My bum knee starts hurting just thinking about him, and I have to push my negative feelings away. “Okay, let’s hear one of your proud memories.”
She thinks for a bit. “Mine isn’t nearly as flashy, but it was a huge moment for me. When I was a kid, feeling safe was super important to me. I’m the one who always made sure all the doors were locked, that we had a first aid kit in the car whenever we went anywhere, stuff like that.
“I also hated being away from family. I wasn’t a fan of anything unknown, really. So anytime I gotinvited to a sleepover, it was a hard pass for me. But afterward, I would always hear my friends talking about how much fun they had and all the things they did, and I knew I was missing out on so much.
“I got invited to a sleepover when I was twelve, and I knew my friend’s family pretty well. So I decided that I was going to do it! I was going to say yes. And I even managed to stay there through the whole night.”
“Nice! That must’ve felt like quite the accomplishment.”
“It did. I never told anyone, but I waited until everyone was asleep, and then I got up and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked before I fell asleep.”
“You didn’t wait to be ready. You just acted. That’s courage.”
Charlie gives me a playful push for quoting exactly what she said to me when I tried to save her from an intruder.
“Okay, my turn.” I think for a moment, and then say, “Hmm, we covered the proudest moment. What was the scariest thing you did as a kid?”
“Attempting to read an essay.”
Her answer comes quickly. I raise an eyebrow. “Really? I have to know more of this story.”
“Okay, when I was thirteen, for my English class, I had to write an essay about something Ilearned when I was younger. So, I wrote it about a time when I was shopping for school clothes with my mom when I was eleven. We’d stopped for lunch in a café, and a man came in,veryangry about something, and it looked like things might get a little scary. Well, remember how I’m great at hide and seek? I was also great at disappearing and keeping myself from being noticed.
“My mom? She’s great at diffusing tense situations. Before she stepped forward to help, though, she put me behind a young couple and said to them, ‘Protect her.’ So, in the essay, I told about how I’d learned that being able to keep the focus off me wasn’t enough—when there was danger, I needed to be protected by someone bigger or stronger than me.
