Kallan and her friend walk sadly into the room, stunned pained looks on their faces. Each holds a hand to the side of her head. Kallan speaks for the two of them, “Mommy, Maj’s friend hurt us.”
I look at them, “She hurt both of you?”
Kallan’s voice is outraged, “Yes, she clonked our heads together!”
OK, that is rather awesome. I clear my throat, “Really?”
Kallan senses that I am not taking their complaint seriously, “Mom, she bonked our heads together in repeated fashion. Again and again and again. She just grabbed our heads by the sides and pushed them together. Bonk, bonk, bonk. We told her to stop, but she said she wouldn’t stop until we learned our lesson.”
I choke back laughter, “She bonked your heads like in a cartoon?”
Kallan looks at me sadly, “Just like that, but with pain.”
I put a hand over my mouth to cover my giggles, “You guys want some ice?”
They nod and walk into the kitchen side by side, their heads tipped in at one another as they cradle their heads in their hands.
I call Maj’s friend to the top of the stairs, where she appears with her giddy friend Maj, “Yes, Mrs. Wehrmeister?”
“OK, I am sure the younger girls were being annoying, but you are not allowed to bonk their heads together.”
Maj snorts with laughter, and her friend speaks with confident authority, “It had to be done. They would not stop spying on us. I gave them a warning. The consequences were made clear. They got what they were promised.”
“Yeah, I can see that you were all reasonable about the consequences, but you are not allowed to bonk people’s heads together.”
“Whatever.”
“Seriously . . . don’t do that again.”
“Got it. But Mrs. Wehrmeister?”
“Yeah?”
“Could you possibly tell them to stay out of our business? Maj and I are trying to have a private conversation, and they are spying on us.”
“I will do the best I can, but even if they spy on you, you may not hurt them in any way. Got that?”
Maj’s friend smiles, “That’s funny how you closed that loophole, Mrs. Wehrmeister.”
Maj drags her friend away, and I head into the kitchen to check on Kallan and her friend. They are both tilting their heads into bags of frozen vegetables. Their faces are sad and forlorn.
“So ladies, is this a game-ending injury?”
The girls look at one another, “What?”
“Are you badly hurt, or is this the sort of pain that might be solved by a cookie?”
Kallan opens the freezer and both girls hurl their bags of frozen vegetables into the cold, “We have cookies?”
I hand them each an Oreo, “So it sounds like the two of you were being huge pains in the booty. I’m sorry your heads got bonked, but it sounds like you kind of asked for it.”
They giggle as they pull apart their Oreos, and Kallan explains, “We were spying! That’s how you play the game of spying, Mom. People’s business gets spied into.”
Kallan’s friend agrees, “Obviously.”
“Alright, so I told them they are not allowed to hurt you, but you guys should think about maybe playing a different game. Try to stay out of the older girls’ way.”
Kallan snorts, “Easier said than done, Mom. Have you seen the two of them? Maj and her friend fill this house with attitude. Everywhere we turn we bonk into a sludgy 7th grader wall of doom and sass.”
Her friend giggles, “Doomensass should so be a word!”
Kallan high-fives her friend and then the two of them pretend to be trapped in a small bouncy room of doomensass . . . they bounce off of one another and off of the kitchen counters and onto the floor. For some reason, this is all done in slow motion as they laugh hysterically.
“Help me! I have fallen into a puddle of doomensass!”
“I am up to my elbows in doomensass!”
“Ewwww . . . I got some doomensass up my butt-crack!”
I grab a cookie for myself and head out of the room, “Just try not to get hurt again.”
A few minutes later, I walk upstairs to get a book from my bedside table. Kallan and her friend are lying on the floor outside of Maj’s bedroom, their faces pressed to the crack below the door. This pressing of faces is made more difficult by the fact that they have each, through the ingenious use of belts and scarves, tied a pillow to their heads.
I speak from the end of the hallway, “Ladies?”
They turn awkward giant heads in my direction, “Shhhhh.”
“Head-bonking protection?”
They nod cumbersome padded heads.
“You’re going to be doomensassed, you know.”
They press pillowed faces to the floor to stifle their giggles.
“Carry on, ladies . . . but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I turn to walk down the stairs.
When I arrive in the kitchen, I am greeted by Maj and her friend, “Hi, ladies . . . you know that Kallan and her friend are upstairs spying on an empty room with their heads wrapped in pillows, right?”
Maj snorts with laughter and turns to her friend, “Come on! Let’s go spy on them spying on us! I’ll get my videocamera.”
They run off together.
A few minutes later?
Doomensass.
Obviously.
