Page 16 of Margo

That was all she said. Knox blinked but didn’t let it throw him off course.

“Oh, Miss Margo will be getting a nap,” he answered. “I promise you that. She’ll just be having her nap with a very sore bottom.”

“And the rest of us?”

“You’ll go to bed with sore bottoms tonight once I get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”

“Yes, Mister Knox.”

“Go on now. Corners, all of you. Hurry up. I’m not setting the timer until everyone is ready.”

They all scattered, rushing to their rooms to obey, and he stuck his head into the room he was using to give Margo the same instruction as everyone else.

He checked on them all before starting the timer, then went back to the common room and stared out at the mess. What the hell had happened? Every puzzle and game had been upended, with the pieces thrown about the room. Crayons and markers littered the floor with doll clothes thrown in for good measure. It looked like they’d had a massive food fight of sorts, but with toys. He shook his head. If it was even possible, it would take them days to clean up the mess, sorting game and puzzle pieces into the correct boxes. And if it wasn’t possible, he’d recommend Baze take the price out of their hides.

The timer went off and he stood in the hallway between the rooms. “All of you write in your naughty journals about what happened today. Then change your pull-ups and get into bed. Oh, and by the way, you’ve all lost any semblance of free time until further notice. Any free time you were supposed to have will be spent cleaning up your mess. I want every single game or puzzle piece put back exactly where it belongs.”

Ellie gasped. “But that will take days!”

Knox nodded, unfazed by her protest. “Yes, I expect it will. Should have thought about that before you did it. Baze has spent tons of time and money building you a nice play area with lots of toys and games and things to do, and you trashed it. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”

His words were met with more startled gasps and a symphony of guilty tears, but Knox wasn’t swayed. He spoke the truth.

“If you’re gonna spank us tonight, then why do we have to write it down in our journals?” Mariah protested.

“Because it’s good for you to reflect on your behavior and your punishment and because this is serious enough that spanking or no, Baze will be hearing about it.” Knox was still surprised that all of the girls had given their consent for him to spank them, citing the reason that waiting all day for a punishment was excruciating enough but waiting ten days would be torture.

It had given him a whole new level of appreciation for Baze. Taking care of seven naughty Littles every day was a full-time job all by itself. He had no idea how the man managed it with such ease while keeping up with everything else he did.

He waited until all the girls had done what they were told and the doors to their rooms closed, indicating they were changing. He would check on them again after he took care of Margo to make sure they were napping.

Entering Baze and Luna’s room, he found Margo sitting cross-armed and cross-legged on the bed, looking sullen.

“Well, little one. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“It was an ambush!” Margo cried, her eyes blazing with anger.

Knox raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. From what he knew of Margo’s reputation she was usually the first one to instigate a shenanigan and never shied away from copping to her part in things. “An ambush?” he repeated. “Explain.”

“I was being good. I’ve followed every rule and done my chores and stayed out of fights and cleaned my messes and gone to bed on time and haven’t said any naughty words!”

Knox nodded. “You have been very good. Why is that?”

“Because!” Margo huffed. “I didn’t want you to spank me. Everyone else had a choice in the matter, but not me. My only choice was to be a perfect angel so that’s what I did.”

Once again, he chose not to point out that only a couple days before she’d all but begged him to spank her and he’d turned her down and told her that if she wanted a spanking from him, she’d have to do something else to earn one. He’d expected her to do exactly that, and right away, but she’d gone the other direction and turned into a perfect little angel.

Margo wasn’t the angelic type—she was a brat through and through—and it was easy to see that being so good was wearing on her. When he came home for lunch and saw the mess they’d made, he’d assumed her good streak had finally broken her and that she’d been the main instigator. Now, she was claiming that wasn’t the case, and he was worried.

Knox crossed the room and took a seat next to her on the bed. “Who started it?”

“I don’t know,” Margo muttered, still looking cross. “I heard a commotion, and I went in there to see if everything was okay, and I got pelted with a handful of crayons. I threw them back and that’s when the fight really started.”

“The fight?” He zeroed in on the words she used. “Were there words spoken, or just things thrown?”

“Both.”

He waited for her to expand, but she didn’t.