“I’m not a cheater!” She giggled, as did the other girls around her.
“Okay,” I raised my hand to pause their laugh fest. “There are four Draw Four cards in an Uno deck.” I lifted the card in the middle of the pile and held it up for them. “This is the sixth Draw Four you girls have put down against me. The math doesn’t add up. Someone is cheating.”
“OR…,” Little Miss Pigtails, who sat to the left of Little Miss Toothless, said loudly, rising to her feet to defend her friend, “that card got mixed in with the other Uno deck. Stuff happens!” She shrugged.
I narrowed my eyes at the lot of them, and they only laughed at me more. Miss Bossy Skirt, who sat on the right of Little Miss Toothless, got up as well, “I don’t wanna play with someone who thinks we’re cheaters.”
She crossed her arms at me, causing the other girls to get up too, in open rebellion, crossing their arms in unity. Can you believe this shit? Seven year olds, a whole gang of them, temperamental with me?
“You leave the game and you lose automatically. Making me the winner. And you a loser. Losers don’t get more sugar cookies. Sorry.” I said with a smile, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair.
All the girls looked at her nervously. Miss Bossy Skirt pouted at me, her face getting all round. She looked like she was about to cry. Her bottom lip even quivered. And I knew then these little truants had done this to some other poor schmuck before.
Where did girls learn to do this?
“You’re mean,” Little Miss Freckles said with a pout, her voice the softest of the Little Miss collection.
I gasped and looked over my shoulder. Greyson was trying his best not to pay attention to any of us, out of fear of laughing. “Greyson, am I mean?”
“Most definitely,” he replied, nodding.
“See! Even your…what are you anyway?” Miss Toothless asked.
“Yeah, you’re kinda creeping me out here, dude.” Miss Pigtails agreed, tilting her head to the side, making her pigtails fall lopsided.
All of their attention focused in on him, and I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I laughed so hard tears pooled at the corner of my eyes.
“Ladies,” I finally regained composure. “While I’m sure something sketchy is up with this card game, I’m going to let it slide, because I haven’t laughed so well in a long time. Just don’t cheat again, hear me?”
“Fine.” Miss Freckles and Toothless replied in unison, to the dismay of their two other friends.
I snapped my fingers. “I knew it!”
“Not fair, you tricked them!” Miss Bossy Skirt snapped, pointing back at me.
“Not fair, you cheated,” I said in the same high-pitched voice, even shaking my head like her.
She made a fist and squinted her eyes at me, making me laugh again. For some reason, she reminded me of an angry Miss Piggy.
“Oh…” I shook my head at them, looking over to Greyson, “Creepy dude, go to the kitchen and tell them to bring out more sugar cookies for my deceitful little friends.”
“Thank you!” They all chirped, reminding me again that they were seven and most likely didn’t know what deceitful meant and just heard “sugar cookies.”
Greyson shook his head at me, but didn’t argue or grumble about his new nickname. He made his way toward the double doors of the O.S., but not before nodding to a few other guards around, making themselves useful with the staff.
“How many of these guys do you have, too?” Miss Pigtails questioned when another guard stepped up in Greyson’s place.
“Forget him,” I lifted the card for them to see again. “Who have you all tricked with these cards?”
None of them answered.
“I said never cheat against me. I never said you had to stop cheating others,” I reminded them, leaning in to whisper, “the kitchen staff?”
Toothless shook her head, grinning. “No, they won’t play with us anymore. We play the boys for their stuff.”
“They lose all the time, but still play us.” Freckles said with a giggle.
All of them grinned like little fiends. I glanced over to the boys in the corner playing videogames. I wasn’t sure if I should weep for them or laugh at how dumb they were.
“You can’t tell them just because you’re a boy, too,” Miss Bossy Skirt said as she pointed at me. She was really working that index finger of hers today.
“Scouts honor,” I said, raising my hand.
“What is that?” Miss Pigtails questioned.
What? “Scouts honor? Like the Boy Scouts?”
Their faces were blank.
“Mary!”
At the sound of the older woman’s voice, the pigtails of Miss Pigtails, aka Mary, spun in the air.
“Mommy!” She grinned happily as she ran to her mother.
One by one, all the girls ran back to their parents as I spun the card in my hand, leaning back in my chair to watch them. The O.S. center functioned as daycare during holidays and every other Monday for parents who had to work. On Mondays, there could be upward of eighty children in the O.S. center, if not more. It was still early in day. But as it was Indigenous Peoples Day, school was closed, meaning there were only forty or so, plus those still here from the church bombing.
“Wyatt,” a woman I did not know, but Irish I could tell, nodded to me. She was the first to step up to the table where I sat. She was short with long, thick red-brown hair. She stood proud and, from the looks of it, had the respect of the few other Irishmen behind her.
It was odd to me how they gave her space, allowing her to approach me…no, allowing her to stand for them. My
