Page 24 of Hacking the Holidays
“Great—I’ll be right back,” she said.
I positioned myself strategically in front of the table while hoping everyone would be so engrossed in Sam’s storytelling that they’d leave me and the cookies alone until she got back.
Maybe I’d get lucky ...
Then again, maybe not …
While I was watching Sam continue with the story, a movement off to the side caught my eye. A girl, around five or six years old, approached the cookie table with Navy SEAL stealth, swooping in to grab three cookies in one fluid motion.
Fortunately, my reflexes were still top-notch. I reachedout and caught her by the arm just as she turned to make her escape.
“Not so fast there, speedy,” I whispered, hoping not to disrupt the reading as I smoothly snatched the pilfered cookies back from her grasp. “There’s a one-cookie-per-kid rule. And where’s your mother?”
The little girl shrugged, then looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes. “I haven’t had any cookies yet,” she declared with the earnest conviction that professional con artists would envy.
“Really?” I asked, pointing to the telltale evidence on her left cheek. “Because you have some raspberry jam on the side of your face.”
She wiped at it, making it worse. “That’s from home.”
“From your morning toast?” I asked, falling into interrogation mode and setting a trap for the little rugrat.
She nodded eagerly.
“You went to school today, right?” I continued.
She hesitated, then nodded again, with a confused look on her face.
“So you had jam on your face all day—through classes, lunch, even after school—and nobody mentioned it? Not even your parents?”
Her confidence wavered slightly. “Yeah …”
I had to admire her commitment to the lie.
“I’m sorry, but rules are rules,” I said. “One cookie per child.”
The little girl’s face began its transformation into what could only be described as the boo-boo face of massdestruction. Her lower lip pushed forward with the calculated engineering of someone who’d clearly perfected this technique through countless hours of research and development via her parents.
“That’s not fair,” she whimpered, her eyes beginning to glisten with the promise of incoming tears.
I glanced around nervously, hoping this would not escalate any further. Sam was still reading, the parents were watching him, but this tiny human was clearly building toward a meltdown that would make a volcanic eruption look like a campfire.
Where was her mother? I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of those off to the side ogling Sam.
“You’re a mean elf,” the girl added with a little more volume.
“And you’re a rude child, Veruca,” I said, so only she could hear me.
A tall woman with the kind of aggressive stride that suggested she ate conflict for dinner marched over to us, her face flushed with indignation. “Is there a problem here?”
“There certainly is. Your daughter stole three cookies,” I said.
“These cookies are free, so it is impossible to steal something that is free,” she blurted.
“Fine—if you want to go with that reasoning, I will add that I was simply enforcing the one-cookie-per-child rule, which is clearly stated on this sign,” I said, pointing to it. “Also, a parent needed to be present to receive a cookie, and you were not here.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “I’m here now.”
“Which would have been fine if she hadn’t already had a cookie.”
