“Mother, Kallan has gone mental!”
I sigh, “Please just leave me out of it.”
“I have not gone mental. This is me, completely unmentaled.” Kallan whirls and jumps and spins around the room, finally leaning over the back of the couch to pat her sister on the head, “I am a child of great enthusiasm and boist, Maj. Deal with it.”
“Mother, she is patting me! I will not be patted! Mother, reign in the madness you have birthed!”
Kallan hops about the room, “I have boist, Maj. You’re just jealous of my boist.”
“You mean boisterousness.”
“What?”
“You don’t have boist. You have boisterousness.”
Kallan considers as she spins, “I believe you are incorrect. I definitely have boist.”
“Whatever. Just stop being near me. I’m doing homework and you are just . . . radiating joy. I do not want your radiating joy. I want solemn respectful quiet.”
Kallan does a yelly bouncy cheer that ends with an extended booty-shake, “Yeah, guess what, Maj? You may be living in the wrong house. This is how I roll, sister of mine. I roll with the noise and the joy. I bring the crazy. Oh yeah . . . KK brings the crazy . . . Say whaaaaat?”
“Oh my god, just STOP!”
“Hammertime!”
Maj turns to me, “Mother, please. Intervene. She is hammertiming me. Make it stop.” She turns to Kallan again, “STOP!”
“Hammertime!”
“Kallan, stop dancing all weird and shaky and sideways. What on earth are you doing? What sort of dancing is that? STOP!”
“Hammertime!”
As Kallan struts and slithers about the room, I explain to Maj that her words are bringing down the hammer. Maj stares at me incredulously, “Kallan is insane.”
Kallan shakes her booty across the room and into her sister’s personal space, “Uh huh . . . uh huh . . . KK be bringing the hammer DOWN, baby. She be bringing it DOWN. KK say whaaaaat? KK say DOWN. KK be hammering the ROOM, baby. The room? It be HAMMERED.”
“STOP STOP STOP!”
Kallan shrugs her shoulders and looks over at me, “She asked for it . . . HAMMERTIME!”
Through giggles, I yell at Kallan to stop and she rushes to my side, leaning in to embrace me and rub a soothing hand over my cheek as she whispers, “Shhhhh. Shhhhh . . . everything will be OK. Just calm yourself. No, don’t say anything. Just be quiet and let me help you through this difficult moment.”
Still giggling, I try to extricate myself from her grasp, but Kallan clings tightly, touching my cheek gently as she murmurs against my shoulder, “Shhhhh. I’m here for you. Just rest in the quiet and be calm.” She pats me on the shoulder as I try to wiggle free, “Shhhh. Be calm. Accept the support and feel my concern. Shhhhhhh.”
“Oh my god, Kallan. Let go of me. Stop soothing me!”
Pat, pat, pat, “Shhhhhh.”
“Stop soothing me!”
“Shhhhh.”
“STOP!”
She whirls suddenly away in a frenzy of lame dancing, “HAMMERTIME!”
Maj looks at me in despair, “Do you see how she is? Do you see?”
“Yes, I see. Alright, Kallan? Choose a dog and dance your booty-shaking self around the block.”
“Aw, man . . . I don’t want to take a dog for a walk.”
“Choose.”
Kallan looks at the dogs, who are both staring at her hopefully, “Which of you is less likely to poo, you think?”
She chooses the Labrador. I hand her a large Ziploc bag, “Just in case. It’s the only kind of bag I’ve got at the moment. . . if she poos, you need to clean it up.”
Kallan clips the leash on the Labrador and shakes the bag in the dog’s face, “This bag is to remain empty at all times, do you understand?”
The dog wags her tail.
The whole time they are gone, Jack the outraged unwalked dog stands in the front window and barks his fool head off about the BARK BARK UNFAIRNESS BARK OF THE BARK BARK MOTHERFUCKING BARK BARK WORLD BARK BARK BARK. In disgust and irritation, Maj retreats to her room.
And then they are back, and I open the door, “Kallan, you guys weren’t gone very long.”
Kallan squeezes past me into the house, holding a bag of something in her hand, “Long enough. Mom, I need another bag to go back and clean up the Labrador poo.”
I follow her into the kitchen, “Seriously? What’s in the bag I gave you?”
She holds it high, her face filled with triumph, “A snake!”
I lean to look, “A dead snake?”
“Yes,” she crows, “Isn’t he awesome? He’s all curled up and he fits in the bag perfectly.”
“So you picked up roadkill.”
“What’s your point? He’s all sanitary and bagged. Look! I only had to peel him up a little bit where he was stuck to the road. He’s pretty dry . . . it was a gutless job.”
“Kallan, he’s flat.”
She hugs the bag of snake to her chest, “He is not flat! He is slim!”
“Slim?”
“Yes, look . . . you can see where Slim was molting.”
“Kallan, he was not molting. His skin came off because he was smashed by a car.”
She peers at the snake, “Really? Huh. Well, that’s unfortunate.”
Maj reappears and stares at the bagged snake and then at her sister, “ARE . . . YOU . . . KIDDING . . . ME?”
Kallan holds out the bag, “Want to meet Slim Snakey?”
“I’m gonna have to go with NO, you insane little woman.”
“That’s too bad, because Slim Snakey has an intro all worked up.”
“What?”
And then Kallan, in her best small-white-girl rapper voice, waving the bagged snake up high above her head, dances and sings . . .
I’m Slim Snakey. Yes, I’m the real Snakey.
All you other Slim Snakeys are just imitating
So won’t the real Slim Snakey please stand up?
Please stand up. Please stand up.
She stops singing and looks at us, “What?”
Maj sighs, “Kallan, just stop.”
Kallan breaks into dance, “HAMMERTIME! SLIM SNAKEY BE BRINGING THE HAMMER DOWN ON THESE HERE FESTIVITIES. SOMEBODY BRING SLIM SNAKEY A BEER! SOMEBODY GET SLIM SNAKEY A WOMAN!”
Maj sinks her face into her hands, “Kallan, you have gone mental.”
“KK be hammering the ROOM, baby. The room? It be HAMMERED.”
Sigh.
“Hey, Mom? Can Slim Snakey have a cookie?”
I hand her another large Ziploc bag, “After you go clean up the poo.”
Kallan runs off, leaving Maj behind to stare at the snake and shake her head, “I do not understand that girl.” She looks at me, “I wish that you could just make her . . . STOP.”
I reach to hug Maj tightly, “Hammertime!”
Ahem.
