A scream splits the air.
Maj comes weeping down the stairs, her right hand cradled to her chest, “Kallan smashed all of my fingers in the door!”
Kallan races down the stairs after her sister, “I did not! She is filled with lies and false blaming! I am innocent, I tell you! I have no idea what is going on here, but I can tell you that I am innocent!”
Maj weeps into my chest, “My fingers are smashed into boneless nubs! Kallan nubbed my fingers!”
Kallan laughs, “So it will be difficult for you to point the finger of blame.” She keeps giggling, but then she sees my face and brings her expression back to innocence, “I did nothing. Nubbed fingers are funny, but I did nothing.”
I hold a wailing Maj and inspect her hand . . . all five fingers are intact . . . unnubbed, “OK, Maj? I need you to bring the volume down a bit. Nothing has been amputated. Get a grip.”
Kallan giggles again and then sucks in her laughter as I glare at her. She stifles a final snicker, “What? It’s hard to get a grip with nubs. How is that not funny?”
I rub Maj’s back as she cautiously bends her fingers. I turn to Kallan, “Kallan, were you the one on the inside or the outside of the bathroom door?”
“What?”
“You know the rule . . . no pushing on the bathroom door. Whoever is in the room has priority.”
Kallan is exasperated, “Hmmph. I was outside, but all I did was push the door open. She’s the one who pushed it shut on her fingers.”
“Because you let go, right?”
“Yes, that’s true. But I only let go because I suddenly remembered the rule about not pushing on the door, and I wanted to be obedient as quickly as possible.”
“So quickly that you did not mention to your sister that you were about to let go?”
Kallan averts her eyes, “Maybe.”
Maj heads off in search of an ice pack for her hand, and Kallan stays to plead her case, “I would like to point out that Maj should perhaps give some thought to the identity of the person on the other side of the door when she gets all sassy and refuses to open the door a tiny bit and hand that person that person’s hairbrush. Because if the person on the other side of the door is K, Maj has enough experience with this K woman to know that there is going to be stubbornness and anger and possibly some nubbed fingers.”
“So your argument is that you are so badly behaved that Maj should just let you have your way rather than confront you?”
Kallan meets my gaze, “Just a thought, Mom. It would save a lot of hassle.”
“You are living in a dream world, babe. Not even. Go apologize to your sister and then empty the dishwasher.”
A few minutes later, Kallan is back, “Can I watch a show?”
“Is your bed fixed?”
Kallan bats her eyes at me, “In K-World, my bed is fixed.”
“Is K-World anything like your imagination?”
“Yes. A lot like that . . . and in K-World, my bed is fixed.”
“Well then, you may watch TV in K-World.”
“Yay! Wait. You mean I can watch TV in my imagination?”
“Yes, Kallan. Enjoy the rich imaginative programming K-TV appears to offer.”
“But Mom . . .”
Our discussion is interrupted by screams from Maj, “I burned my fingers on toast! I burned my fingers on hot lava toast!”
I hurry to the bottom of the stairs and call up, “You mean you burned yourself on the toaster?”
Maj walks angrily to the top of the stairs and glares down at me, “Toast, Mother. I burned my fingers on toast. Why would I touch the toaster? I am not stupid.”
“Toasters heat bread, Maj. That’s what they do. I am not coming upstairs to nurse a hot-sliced-bread injury.”
Maj screams, “Fine! First my fingers are smashed and nubbled in the door and now I need skin grafts! Skin grafts, Mother! I am a burn victim!”
Kallan snorts, “Maj is having a sad finger day.”
Maj stomps off and then narrates loudly from the floor above, “How am I to butter this toast with no finger skin? Skin grafts, I tell you! If I slip into a burn coma, tell the doctors I need skin grafts!”
Kallan races up the stairs to check out her sister’s injuries.
Maybe a minute or so goes by, and then Maj comes wailing down the stairs, “Kallan says that they will take the skin for the skin grafts from my butt! Kallan says my fingers will be made of butt! Kallan says my hands will be bootoxic!”
Wait . . . what?
I giggle, “What was that last thing?”
“Kallan says my hands will be bootoxic!”
Kallan comes flying into the room, “Bootoxic is a combination of boo-tocks and toxic . . . get it? Her hands will be made of butt and they are going to smell like poo! They will be bootoxic!”
I am still giggling, “You made that up?”
“Yes!” Kallan beams with pride.
I high-five Kallan, “That’s pretty awesome!”
Maj stares at Kallan and me, “Do you care even the slightest bit that I am seriously injured? Do either of you care even the slightest bit?”
I hold Maj’s perfect unburned and unnubbed hands in my own, “Is it possible that the severity of this morning’s wounds is only evident in M-World?”
Maj yanks her hands from mine, “You mean M-World like my imagination?”
“Yes, a lot like that.”
Kallan interjects, “Go with it, Maj. Maybe you can get out of fixing your bed.”
