Page 9 of Who's that Girl?
“It’s pretty late. You haven’t eaten anything at all today? Nothing all day? Not even cereal? Not even a muffin? Not even one single, solitary hash brown?”
I shake my head no.
“Well, that’s silly.”
Suddenly she’s swinging her little pink backpack off her shoulders and opening it from the top. In about fifteen seconds she’s pulled out a little picnic blanket and laid it over the snowy path.
“Sit!” she says, pointing at the blanket. It’s weird, but I obey.
In a few more moments, she’s produced a plastic container of cookies — all sorts of different Christmas cookies, but some generic chocolate chip ones and a few heart-shaped ones as well — all obviously homemade, as well as a little flask of hot chocolate, which she pours into the little cup that is also the lid, and hands to me, steaming. “Come on, eat some cookies. What if you faint or something? I can’t rescue you from the mountain, you know. I’m only a kid! And I’m a girl! So you better eat something so you can get your strength up.”
“I’m only a kid too,” I say. “And girls can do lots of stuff better than boys. And lots of times you’re stronger too. How come you have all this stuff?”
She shrugs. “The Girl Scout motto is be prepared. So.”
“Be prepared is the Boy Scout motto,” I finally say.
“Are you a Scout?” she asks. I shake my head no. Like Mac would ever take me to do something like Scouting.
Please.
Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m too old for Scouts at this point.
“Want to know something funny?” It sounds like she’s asking, but she barely pauses for me to nod before going on. “I’m not a Girl Scout either. I just like to be prepared. I don’t just have cookies. I have a lot of other good stuff in here too. Like a First Aid kit. Do you need any bandaids?” I shake my head again. “Are you bored? I have a book. Or if you like to draw, I have a notebook and pencils and pens. And an eraser. Because I make a lot of mistakes. A lot of mistakes. I make so many mistakes, I have a joke eraser at home. My sisters got it for me last Christmas and put it in my stocking. It’s huge. Like, bigger than a gold bullion bar. And it says for big mistakes on it in big black letters. The eraser’s pink. I don’t really like pink, but I like wearing it because my mother says you’re not supposed to wear pink if you have red hair like mine, so it’s fun to wind her up. Anyway, I don’t carry the big eraser around or anything because it’s way too chunky and anyway, it’s just a joke and not very good for actual erasing, so it lives on my desk.”
She’s rifling around her bag as she speaks and her words are like a fast-moving stream. I’m not keeping up so much as watching the water go by. Watching it sparkle and move. It’s amazing. I’ve never met anyone who talks like this. Definitely no kids. Definitely no girls. “Oh,” she’s saying, as she digs further. “And I have a friend, of course.” She tips the bag my way and I see the fuzzy head of a blue-gray stuffed animal. Some sort of mouse. I guess that’s the “friend.”
“The bandaids I understand, but I’m not sure cookies count as being prepared,” I finally say.
“Of course they do! Look at you, you’re already looking a little better. These cookies saved your life! Anyway, they’re for me too. What if I got lost in the mountains? What if a bear got me and dragged me to his cave? What if I got hungry? So.”
“So you have a bunch of cookies and hot chocolate? And a book? And a stuffed mouse?”
“He’s not a mouse, but yeah. You know. Just in case. Be prepared.”
“I’m not sure a stuffie would help very much if a bear dragged you into its cave.”
“It might. You never know. Anyway, what if I ran into a very hungry boy who didn’t eat any breakfast and was lost? What then?”
“I’m not lost.”
“Okay.”
The cookies are amazing, I have to admit — some chewy, others crunchy, some with lots of nuts, others with bits of jam and fruit. I’m eating them way too fast. I probably look like a rabid animal.
“Sorry,” I say, my mouth full. “I’m really hungry. You should take these away before I eat them all. They’re really good.”
She shrugs. “You’re probably growing. My mom says boys turn into monsters when they’re growing. I don’t know how she’d know. My brother’s practically a baby. But you can eat them all. It’s fine. I’ll probably be going home soon. I’m glad they came in handy.” She pauses for a moment, then seems to change tacks. “I saw you in the parking lot before. That was a cool car, right?”
“Which one?”
“The green one. That pickup truck. I loved it. I want a truck like that when I grow up.”
“You want a truck?”
“Yeah! An old one. With no seat belts. I bet that one doesn’t have seatbelts.”
“That’s dumb. No seatbelts mean it’s not very safe,” I say. She shrugs.
