Forums
0
A Different Christmas (7)
Posted by
Emmalyn
,
23 February 2012
·
318 views
(It is December, 2034. Again, my premise is that a child needs some moments to reaffirm her value, something to give her pleasure and comfort and hope. So this story moves from descriptions of how Little Eve is brutalized by her parents and moments where she has more positive experiences with other people who are responsible for her during brief periods.)
The child woke up locked up in a closet. Her father had dumped her in it for having done something wrong—dimly she remembered her most recent crime. And she felt pain. Her back was aflame with the blows from his belt. Some had drawn blood and as the blood dried, it stuck to her shirt. She whimpered softly. Crying too loud might bring him back, to hit her some more.
She was hungry and thirsty. She had also, while unconscious, wet herself. She hated that, not only because she was uncomfortable, but because her parents might punish her for incontinence. She wondered why they were so mean to her. Was it really because she was worthless? Aunt Mitzi hadn’t thought so. Aunt Mitzi had told her that she was smart and special. But Aunt Mitzi had given her back to her parents. Maybe her parents were right and Aunt Mitzi had not wanted her around.
She drowsed after a while. Sleep healed and protected her. Many years later, she would be tortured with nightmares, but as a child she found comfort in sleep. It took her away from the horrible present and reminded her of times of being cared for and valued. She did not remember Nana consciously, but she remembered gentle hands and a loving voice. The dreams balanced the uncertainty and brutality of her real life.
The next time she woke, the urine had dried on her body and she was really thirsty. She tried the closet door again. Like most of the doors in the house it was a “pocket door,” which slid into the wall. To keep it “locked,” Rick had had to attach loop-closure strips to the outer door. A six-year-old who had been living mostly on candy and cookies for the past few weeks was not strong enough to push and pull to loosen the strips. But her jiggling of the door reminded her parents that she was there.
“The kid’s awake,” said Stella to Rick. She hated Rick for many reasons, and one of them was that he had forced her to have the child. But she kept her voice neutral. Rick enjoyed stirring her emotions, and she didn’t want to give him the pleasure. She had been listening to him tell of a contact he had made who was going to bring a lot of new “business” his way, wondering if this new “business” was worth sticking around with the man.
“She’s rattling in her cage,” he said with amusement as the door to the closet shook.
“Are you going to let her out?” Stella asked indifferently. She really wanted drugs, but she knew that if she asked for them, Rick would enjoy torturing her by extending the time before she got it.
She had liked Tino better. Tino had been generous with drugs, and he had never beaten her. But Tino was dead and she had been forced to come back to Rick until she could find something better. Meanwhile, there was that brat rattling the closet door.
“You want I should let her out?” he asked.
“I don’t care what you do with her, so long as you keep her out of my hair. It’s a good thing the place is sound-proof though. She was screaming to wake the dead, when I left for work earlier.”
“And now she is as quiet as a mouse,” he said. “A rattling mouse.” He liked his choice of words and he laughed softly. “I better let the little mousey out of her cage,” he said with a chuckle.
Liberated, the child looked up fearfully at her father.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” she asked.
“Smells like you already went in here,” said Rick. “But go ahead and do the rest of your business in the real bathroom.”
“Thank you,” said the child. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You must never disobey keep any secrets from me,” he said. “Or you know what will happen.”
The little girl nodded obedience and ducked into the bathroom where she first drank a lot of water and then used the toilet. Next she went to the room where she slept and changed her clothes. It really hurt when she pulled off the top because the blood had scabbed onto the shirt.
When she had clean clothes on, she wondered if it was okay to ask for food. She decided she shouldn’t because it might remind her father why he had beaten her, and then he would beat her again. She wished he would go out of the house, as he sometimes did, to make money or have fun. Then she could get some of the cookies in the boy’s bedroom, the stash she had not told him about.
While she waited, she turned on the screen in her room and watched some children’s shows. In other places where they’d lived she’d only been able to watch these shows when her parents were out, but they had not objected to her watching whatever she wanted on the screen.
It was close to Christmas now, though the holiday usually meant nothing to the little girl except to remind her that she did not have a normal family. The children’s shows were full of references to the holidays, but she knew that these things didn’t apply to her and her parents.
She enjoyed some of the stories though, especially the ones where the children explored, discovered and had adventures. One favorite was about a little boy who had been separated from his parents and had to travel all across the country to find them. Sometimes she liked to think that Rick and Stella were not her real parents. If she ever had an idea where to find her real parents, she would go looking for them and find them, just like the little boy in the story.
She watched a few educational shows too. Sometimes, when Stella was asleep and Rick was out of the house, she would pretend that she was a normal little girl who went to school. She would sit through three or four 20-minute “lessons” and do the assignments. Without computer access she couldn’t check her answers online, but in a few shows they reviewed the assignments the next day, so if she could get to the screens on those days, she could see how many answers she had got right. She enjoyed getting things right. It told her maybe she wasn’t as worthless as her parents said.
The next day, the child found that the blood had seeped into her shirt and dried again. She decided that after she took of the shirt she would take a nice hot shower and then stay without a top until the scabs dried. The showers were one of the extra-nice things about this apartment. She loved having hot water fall on her, even when the water made her cuts and bruises sting.
Later that day, she was seated in front of the screen watching a vid-animation about a treasure hunt when her father stepped into the room, switched off the screen and told her to start getting ready to leave.
“Yes, Daddy,” she said because she knew that was the response he preferred and she didn’t want to risk any more blows. She was very disappointed to have to leave the apartment. She liked having her own room, taking hot showers and having a screen she could watch by herself. But she knew better than to object. Instead, she had to do anything she could to please her father.
“What do you want me to do?”
She wasn’t sure what “getting ready” meant. Did it mean, “get used to the idea, we are leaving soon” or was she supposed to pack her stuff? Sometimes he made her pack, but other times he get angry if she did, so she always asked.
“Gather up your clothes. Wash them. Pack them in your backpack. What else would I want you to do?” he asked impatiently. But he didn’t hit her.
In the evening, when Stella was getting ready to go out, he let the little girl eat as much pizza as she wanted.
“Are you all packed?” he demanded when she was finishing her second slice.
“Yes,” she said. “The backpack is next to my bed.”
“Okay. Go to the bathroom, wash your hands and face and comb your hair and then grab your backpack and we can go. Oh—and get your shoes and coat.”
The shoes were old and tight. They had had been snug on her feet when they had come into the apartment almost two months earlier. She hadn’t worn them since then, spending most of her time barefoot or in old socks when her feet were cold. She knew her feet would hurt in the shoes, but she knew better than complain. The last time she had said her shoes were tight her father had stomped on each little foot to “stretch the shoe” and then laughed.
Her coat was also too small. She had had it since she had been with Aunt Mitzi. Although it still fit across her body, the sleeves were short and the coat looked more like a jacket than a coat. For a cold Minneapolis winter, she was not nearly warm enough. She didn’t even have a hat.
Her father noticed the lack of a hat when they got outside. He didn’t care if she was cold, but he had a sharp eye for what might call attention to them, and in this weather, a little girl with a bare head would probably be noticed. So he stopped at the first vending machine that had clothes items in it and got her a hat and scarf set that came with mittens too. He regretted he hadn’t remembered to get them second hand, but he reminded himself that he would be making a profit anyway. And ten new dollars spent to keep the authorities away was well worth it.
The child was grateful for the hat, scarf and mittens. Though her coat, intended for a smaller child in a warmer climate, was still insufficient, she felt a little more comfortable. Her daddy had given her pizza and had taken care that she wasn’t too cold. Maybe he was not going to be too mean today.
The trip to their destination was pleasant for the child. It was warm in public transport and because her father wanted to keep her from calling attention to them, sat on the outside, so she got to sit at the window. Some of the trip was underground, but even the underground was lined with advertisements and most stations were lined with interesting shops, all of them decorated for Christmas.
She knew that Christmas was a big party that other people had. She knew everyone had bright colors and that people bought presents. It did not apply to her, but she wished it did, and she enjoyed looking at the decorations.
She wondered where they were going. Since she had her clothes with her, she deduced that she was going to go stay with someone like Aunt Mitzi. She wished she could see Aunt Mitzi again. She didn’t remember very much, but she thought Aunt Mitzi had been nice, like the mommies or maybe one of the teachers on the screen.
She thought of asking her father where they were going, but she knew he would probably just say, “you’ll know soon enough” and maybe pinch her. He never hit her in public, but his pinches could be brutal.
It was easier to keep her mouth shut and observe.
She was a good observer. She counted the stations and she noticed that the stations got shabbier first and then fancier. She had the impression that the space between stations got longer also. But gradually she fell asleep, lulled by the whoosh of the transport and the warmth around her, so she didn’t notice when the transport took them to post Urban Wars developments in the new suburbs.
The little girl held her father’s hand tightly. Like most abused children, she feared strangers as much as she feared her abuser. Her parents had told her that if the social workers ever got hold of her, she would be taken away and locked up in a dungeon because she was a bad girl and undocumented. She didn’t know what undocumented meant, but she figured it was worse than being just plain “bad.” And she knew that she didn’t want to be locked up in a dungeon even though she wasn’t too sure what that was either. She imagined it as some sort of deep dark closet, with maybe crawling insects and no potty.
She was cold, but she knew better than to complain. Nor did she complain that he was going too fast and that her feet hurt. She had taken the shoes off while they were seated in the public transport, and when he had noticed, he had made her put them on again even though she had told them that they were too tight. He wasn’t going to want to hear it again, and though he never hit her in public, he had other ways of causing her pain.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to walk far. At the far end of the station there was a place for private transport pick ups, and there was a vehicle waiting for them. She held back for a moment when her father indicated that she should get into the back seat, but he pushed her and she slid in, grateful that he got in beside her.
The couple in the front of the car greeted her father with enthusiasm before they turned to her and wished her Merry Christmas.
“And what is your name?” asked the woman kindly.
The child looked at her father. What would he want her to call herself this time?
“You can name her anything you want and she will answer,” said Rick.
“But she must have a name,” said the woman.
"No need for a name. She is nothing. The authorities don't know she exists. You can call her whatever you like."
The woman looked surprised but she didn't say anything further.
"How old is she?" she asked Rick.
“You said you wanted a six year old,” he said to the man. “That’s how old she is.”
“She looks younger,” said the man.
“And she is very quiet,” said the woman.
“She can talk when she has to. I’ve taught her to be quiet and not bother the grown ups, but if you want, she can talk.” He pinched the child softly, to show her that she needed to speak up.
“I can talk,” she said, knowing that this was what her father wanted her to say.
“Well, that's splendid,” said the woman. “How would you like to come and stay with us for a while, and help us celebrate Christmas.”
The child looked at her father. He nodded slightly.
“I would like it very much, if you will have me,” she said politely, keeping her voice sweet and unemotional the way her father liked it. Inside, she was thinking hopefully that this might be another time like being with Aunt Mitzi. And she would celebrate Christmas like the children did on the screen? That sounded more than mag. She smiled suddenly at the woman.
“Why she is quite pretty when she smiles, Rick,” said the woman.
The child was surprised to hear this, but it made her smile even more.
“She should be what you want,” said Rick. “She is sharp, not bad looking, small… you can tell her what to do, and if she doesn’t do it, you can call me and I’ll make sure she behaves. Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t see why not,” said the man. “You know the terms--$100 up-front now, and 15% of what we make less expenses. If we lose our shirts—and we won’t, I have a system—you only get the $100, but you get the kid out of your hair for the holidays. If we make money, well… then you’ll get a nice little bonus.”
“I want 30 percent,” said Rick.
“No way. We talked about 15% and that’s all that it’s worth it to us.”
“If you don’t have her, you can’t do anything.”
“We could find another kid.”
“At Christmas time? At this late date?" Rick laughed. "You think I don’t know you are paying me because you couldn’t find another? You’ll get your money’s worth. You will be using her for more than to keep up appearances. I am not asking for a share of what you get for your own stuff, even if you use her in it. But I do want 30% of what you get for the security information. You know you can’t get to Vegas unnoticed without having the kid.”
“Twenty maybe. Not thirty.”
They dickered a bit more and finally settled on 25. Then they drove back to the transpo station and dropped Rick off.
“Be good, do you hear me, Brat?” said her father. “Do what these people tell you, and if you are good, I won’t come to get you and make you sorry for being bad.”
Then he turned to Ted.
“Go ahead and spank her if you need to. No funny business though or you'll pay extra.”
"I am not inclined in that direction," said Ted with annoyance. "And I wouldn't deal in children's flesh that way."
"Well, I was just mentioning it, in case," Rick said with a nasty laugh.
And with not a further way of goodbye he got out of the car and walked away.
The little girl didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset. She had enough memory of being with people that weren’t her father to know that it might be a lot better. On the other hand, she didn’t know these people. She didn’t understand very much, but this time she thought they had just negotiated to buy her as though she were a thing. What was going to happen to her?
“Don’t be scared,” said the woman as though she were reading the girl’s thoughts. “We won’t do anything to hurt you, not even spank you, unless you really need it. We just want you to stay with us for a while. I am Julia and this is Ted, but we want you to pretend you are our daughter for a little while and call us Mommy and Daddy while we are with other people. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” said the child. She knew how to pretend things. And she was beginning to understand that these people had some plan that required them to have a child along, so her father had sold her to them for a while.
“Great. So you will call us Mommy and Daddy, and we will call you . . . What do you want to be called?"
“You mean, I can choose my name?” The idea was oddly empowering.
“Yes. What would you like to be called?”
The child thought for a moment. She wanted a powerful name. A name for a strong person.
“Helen,” she said after a while. “I’d like to be called Helen, if it’s okay.”
As they drove away from the station, the child reflected that this might be the beginning of a good time. Ted and Julia, were nice to her, spoke of having fun at Christmas and let her call herself Helen. She didn’t know exactly what they wanted her to do, but she was used to obeying the grown ups without asking questions. She wondered, of course. No amount of abuse had erased the natural curiosity and intelligence that Nana had noticed in the infant she had named Lili.
“We’re going to ‘Vegas?” she asked. She had heard her parents talk about the town as something great.
“Yes,” said Julia. “We are going to pretend that we are a family. Ted and I won a contest for a family to spend Christmas in ‘Vegas. We were going to bring my niece to play our daughter, but my stupid sister says no way she’s going to be without her daughter at Christmas—like she isn’t going to make money from it? So we were wondering what we could do when Ted her mentioned to your Daddy that we had this problem, and he said that we could have you come with us, that you would probably enjoy it more than spending Christmas with them. Would you like to go to Las Vegas with us?”
“Oh yes m’am!” she said enthusiastically.
The next morning, Julia went through ”Helen’s” belongings and decided that about the only clothes the child did not need was underpants. In fact, she probably needed those too, but since no one could see, the need was less urgent. The weather in Las Vegas might be a little milder than in Minneapolis, but still the child’s worn and mostly out-grown summer-weight clothes were totally unsuitable for a child supposedly from a nice middle class family.
“We didn’t bargain for this,” Ted grumbled.
“I did,” said Julia. “I figured that any kid whose father would rent her out for a week would probably not have much in the way of suitable clothing. That’s why I said we should get her a day in advance.”
“Well, how much you reckon this is going to cost us?”
“Not much, if I haven't lost my talent,” Julia said.
“Are you going to risk getting caught shoplifting just when we're headed for a big job in Vegas?”
“Relax, lover. I haven’t been caught yet, and I won’t be caught now.”
The child did not know about this conversation. She was still sleeping peacefully on the living room couch as they discussed what they needed for the trip besides clothes for the kid.
When she awoke, Julia was getting ready to leave to go “shopping,” and Ted had to take care of some “business.”
“You don’t mind staying home alone, do you?” they asked the little girl.
“No,” she said. “Can I watch the screen while you are away?”
“Of course!” said Julia. “Do you need me to show you how to use it?”
“No ma’am. I can figure it out.”
“Great! Now let me get you some breakfast and then I will be on my way. What would you like for Christmas?”
“Ma’am?” she asked puzzled.
“What present do you want? It has to be something small, so we can put it in our bags. But you can choose one thing.”
“Oh,” the little girl said. The idea that she could ask for a present was so unexpected that she didn’t know what to say. “Anything you get me will be great,” she said, remembering that this was what polite people said in movies she watched on the screen.
“But I don’t know you yet. How can I know what you want?” asked the woman as she programed the autochef for crunchy cereal, fruit and soy milk. “Would you enjoy a dolly, a craft set, an electro-game?”
“I don’t want a dolly,” she said. “They have strange staring eyes, you know? But I don’t really know what I want,” she finished uncomfortably.
“Okay then,” said Julia cheerfully. “I won’t get you a dolly and I’ll find something to surprise you with.”
The child smiled with pleasure, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say. This whole idea of presents was very strange to her. Once she had tried to believe in Santa Claus, but when he had not brought her anything she had felt stupid and told herself she didn't care.
Julia returned in the afternoon with three shopping bags bulging with things.
“Come watch me ‘cook the goods,’” she said to the little girl.
“What does that mean?” asked the child.
“It means that I get things ready to be used,” the woman said with a chuckle.
Julia took out what looked like a cross between an autochef and a gamer console and, opening the main door, she put in one object after another. The unit was actually a demagnetizer and code scrambler that effectively removed all the embedded anti-shop-lifting tags in the merchandise that Julia had not already removed by hand at the store before boosting them. The little girl didn’t understand any of this. She thought it was maybe a cleaner or sanitizer of some sort. In fact, the unit was built in the casing of a standard portable sanitizer, but it made a noise like an autochef so the jargon was to call it a “cooker.”
When she was done “cooking” the goods, Julia told the child to take off her clothes and try on the new ones—and was appalled at the bruises and half-healed cuts on the child’s body.
“Who did that to you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said the child. “Maybe it was when I fell down.” She knew she was never ever supposed to tell people that her parents hit her.
“Oh my,” said Julia thoughtfully. “That must have been some fall.”
That the kid had obviously been abused, and probably by her parents, made Julia furious. But she couldn’t see what she could do about it. Like Mitzi before her, she knew that to report the abuse would lead to scrutiny that might endanger anyone associated with the child.
“I’ll make sure that at least she has a nice Christmas,” she thought.
The hotel in Las Vegas was a mid-level hotel, not quite luxury quality, but well designed and comfortable. Julia and Ted had won an all-expenses paid trip that included a “family suite,” so “Helen” had a room of her own, a private screen, and a card that she could use for free ice cream and snacks. She wasn't sure what ice cream was, but snacks were always good.
There was a tree in the suite's sitting room. The child had never been in the same room as a Christmas tree before. She was looking at it curiously when Ted called her attention.
"Tomorrow," he said. "You will have to make yourself useful."
“What do I have to do?” she asked.
“Good girl," he nodded approvingly at her readiness to take orders without asking questions. "So the first instruction is you always call me Daddy and Julia Mommy when we are in public. Can you do that?”
The kid nodded. That was easy to remember.
“The next thing is that you will be walking around with Julia while I talk to people and gamble. She’ll be watching, and when I give her a signal, you will pull away from her and rush over to where ever I am and say that you want me to come with you right away because you have something to show me. Can you do that?”
The little girl nodded again.
“Okay, let’s try it.”
“Now?”
“Yes, get up, go over to the other side of the room, and after you count to ten come back over here and act like you really want me to go with you to see something.”
They tried it a few times until Ted was satisfied that the kid sounded believable.
“She’ll do,” he said.
“She’s better than my sister’s kid would have been,” Julia said.
“Big surprise there. Your sister is raising a little copy of herself—no imagination.”
“I have enough imagination to make up for it,” said Julia with a laugh. "And this kid reminds me a little of me."
*****
To be continued. (The next section will have little Eve's observation skills help solve a small mystery.)
The child woke up locked up in a closet. Her father had dumped her in it for having done something wrong—dimly she remembered her most recent crime. And she felt pain. Her back was aflame with the blows from his belt. Some had drawn blood and as the blood dried, it stuck to her shirt. She whimpered softly. Crying too loud might bring him back, to hit her some more.
She was hungry and thirsty. She had also, while unconscious, wet herself. She hated that, not only because she was uncomfortable, but because her parents might punish her for incontinence. She wondered why they were so mean to her. Was it really because she was worthless? Aunt Mitzi hadn’t thought so. Aunt Mitzi had told her that she was smart and special. But Aunt Mitzi had given her back to her parents. Maybe her parents were right and Aunt Mitzi had not wanted her around.
She drowsed after a while. Sleep healed and protected her. Many years later, she would be tortured with nightmares, but as a child she found comfort in sleep. It took her away from the horrible present and reminded her of times of being cared for and valued. She did not remember Nana consciously, but she remembered gentle hands and a loving voice. The dreams balanced the uncertainty and brutality of her real life.
The next time she woke, the urine had dried on her body and she was really thirsty. She tried the closet door again. Like most of the doors in the house it was a “pocket door,” which slid into the wall. To keep it “locked,” Rick had had to attach loop-closure strips to the outer door. A six-year-old who had been living mostly on candy and cookies for the past few weeks was not strong enough to push and pull to loosen the strips. But her jiggling of the door reminded her parents that she was there.
“The kid’s awake,” said Stella to Rick. She hated Rick for many reasons, and one of them was that he had forced her to have the child. But she kept her voice neutral. Rick enjoyed stirring her emotions, and she didn’t want to give him the pleasure. She had been listening to him tell of a contact he had made who was going to bring a lot of new “business” his way, wondering if this new “business” was worth sticking around with the man.
“She’s rattling in her cage,” he said with amusement as the door to the closet shook.
“Are you going to let her out?” Stella asked indifferently. She really wanted drugs, but she knew that if she asked for them, Rick would enjoy torturing her by extending the time before she got it.
She had liked Tino better. Tino had been generous with drugs, and he had never beaten her. But Tino was dead and she had been forced to come back to Rick until she could find something better. Meanwhile, there was that brat rattling the closet door.
“You want I should let her out?” he asked.
“I don’t care what you do with her, so long as you keep her out of my hair. It’s a good thing the place is sound-proof though. She was screaming to wake the dead, when I left for work earlier.”
“And now she is as quiet as a mouse,” he said. “A rattling mouse.” He liked his choice of words and he laughed softly. “I better let the little mousey out of her cage,” he said with a chuckle.
Liberated, the child looked up fearfully at her father.
“Can I go to the bathroom?” she asked.
“Smells like you already went in here,” said Rick. “But go ahead and do the rest of your business in the real bathroom.”
“Thank you,” said the child. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. You must never disobey keep any secrets from me,” he said. “Or you know what will happen.”
The little girl nodded obedience and ducked into the bathroom where she first drank a lot of water and then used the toilet. Next she went to the room where she slept and changed her clothes. It really hurt when she pulled off the top because the blood had scabbed onto the shirt.
When she had clean clothes on, she wondered if it was okay to ask for food. She decided she shouldn’t because it might remind her father why he had beaten her, and then he would beat her again. She wished he would go out of the house, as he sometimes did, to make money or have fun. Then she could get some of the cookies in the boy’s bedroom, the stash she had not told him about.
While she waited, she turned on the screen in her room and watched some children’s shows. In other places where they’d lived she’d only been able to watch these shows when her parents were out, but they had not objected to her watching whatever she wanted on the screen.
It was close to Christmas now, though the holiday usually meant nothing to the little girl except to remind her that she did not have a normal family. The children’s shows were full of references to the holidays, but she knew that these things didn’t apply to her and her parents.
She enjoyed some of the stories though, especially the ones where the children explored, discovered and had adventures. One favorite was about a little boy who had been separated from his parents and had to travel all across the country to find them. Sometimes she liked to think that Rick and Stella were not her real parents. If she ever had an idea where to find her real parents, she would go looking for them and find them, just like the little boy in the story.
She watched a few educational shows too. Sometimes, when Stella was asleep and Rick was out of the house, she would pretend that she was a normal little girl who went to school. She would sit through three or four 20-minute “lessons” and do the assignments. Without computer access she couldn’t check her answers online, but in a few shows they reviewed the assignments the next day, so if she could get to the screens on those days, she could see how many answers she had got right. She enjoyed getting things right. It told her maybe she wasn’t as worthless as her parents said.
*****
The next day, the child found that the blood had seeped into her shirt and dried again. She decided that after she took of the shirt she would take a nice hot shower and then stay without a top until the scabs dried. The showers were one of the extra-nice things about this apartment. She loved having hot water fall on her, even when the water made her cuts and bruises sting.
Later that day, she was seated in front of the screen watching a vid-animation about a treasure hunt when her father stepped into the room, switched off the screen and told her to start getting ready to leave.
“Yes, Daddy,” she said because she knew that was the response he preferred and she didn’t want to risk any more blows. She was very disappointed to have to leave the apartment. She liked having her own room, taking hot showers and having a screen she could watch by herself. But she knew better than to object. Instead, she had to do anything she could to please her father.
“What do you want me to do?”
She wasn’t sure what “getting ready” meant. Did it mean, “get used to the idea, we are leaving soon” or was she supposed to pack her stuff? Sometimes he made her pack, but other times he get angry if she did, so she always asked.
“Gather up your clothes. Wash them. Pack them in your backpack. What else would I want you to do?” he asked impatiently. But he didn’t hit her.
In the evening, when Stella was getting ready to go out, he let the little girl eat as much pizza as she wanted.
“Are you all packed?” he demanded when she was finishing her second slice.
“Yes,” she said. “The backpack is next to my bed.”
“Okay. Go to the bathroom, wash your hands and face and comb your hair and then grab your backpack and we can go. Oh—and get your shoes and coat.”
The shoes were old and tight. They had had been snug on her feet when they had come into the apartment almost two months earlier. She hadn’t worn them since then, spending most of her time barefoot or in old socks when her feet were cold. She knew her feet would hurt in the shoes, but she knew better than complain. The last time she had said her shoes were tight her father had stomped on each little foot to “stretch the shoe” and then laughed.
Her coat was also too small. She had had it since she had been with Aunt Mitzi. Although it still fit across her body, the sleeves were short and the coat looked more like a jacket than a coat. For a cold Minneapolis winter, she was not nearly warm enough. She didn’t even have a hat.
Her father noticed the lack of a hat when they got outside. He didn’t care if she was cold, but he had a sharp eye for what might call attention to them, and in this weather, a little girl with a bare head would probably be noticed. So he stopped at the first vending machine that had clothes items in it and got her a hat and scarf set that came with mittens too. He regretted he hadn’t remembered to get them second hand, but he reminded himself that he would be making a profit anyway. And ten new dollars spent to keep the authorities away was well worth it.
The child was grateful for the hat, scarf and mittens. Though her coat, intended for a smaller child in a warmer climate, was still insufficient, she felt a little more comfortable. Her daddy had given her pizza and had taken care that she wasn’t too cold. Maybe he was not going to be too mean today.
The trip to their destination was pleasant for the child. It was warm in public transport and because her father wanted to keep her from calling attention to them, sat on the outside, so she got to sit at the window. Some of the trip was underground, but even the underground was lined with advertisements and most stations were lined with interesting shops, all of them decorated for Christmas.
She knew that Christmas was a big party that other people had. She knew everyone had bright colors and that people bought presents. It did not apply to her, but she wished it did, and she enjoyed looking at the decorations.
She wondered where they were going. Since she had her clothes with her, she deduced that she was going to go stay with someone like Aunt Mitzi. She wished she could see Aunt Mitzi again. She didn’t remember very much, but she thought Aunt Mitzi had been nice, like the mommies or maybe one of the teachers on the screen.
She thought of asking her father where they were going, but she knew he would probably just say, “you’ll know soon enough” and maybe pinch her. He never hit her in public, but his pinches could be brutal.
It was easier to keep her mouth shut and observe.
She was a good observer. She counted the stations and she noticed that the stations got shabbier first and then fancier. She had the impression that the space between stations got longer also. But gradually she fell asleep, lulled by the whoosh of the transport and the warmth around her, so she didn’t notice when the transport took them to post Urban Wars developments in the new suburbs.
*****
The little girl held her father’s hand tightly. Like most abused children, she feared strangers as much as she feared her abuser. Her parents had told her that if the social workers ever got hold of her, she would be taken away and locked up in a dungeon because she was a bad girl and undocumented. She didn’t know what undocumented meant, but she figured it was worse than being just plain “bad.” And she knew that she didn’t want to be locked up in a dungeon even though she wasn’t too sure what that was either. She imagined it as some sort of deep dark closet, with maybe crawling insects and no potty.
She was cold, but she knew better than to complain. Nor did she complain that he was going too fast and that her feet hurt. She had taken the shoes off while they were seated in the public transport, and when he had noticed, he had made her put them on again even though she had told them that they were too tight. He wasn’t going to want to hear it again, and though he never hit her in public, he had other ways of causing her pain.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to walk far. At the far end of the station there was a place for private transport pick ups, and there was a vehicle waiting for them. She held back for a moment when her father indicated that she should get into the back seat, but he pushed her and she slid in, grateful that he got in beside her.
The couple in the front of the car greeted her father with enthusiasm before they turned to her and wished her Merry Christmas.
“And what is your name?” asked the woman kindly.
The child looked at her father. What would he want her to call herself this time?
“You can name her anything you want and she will answer,” said Rick.
“But she must have a name,” said the woman.
"No need for a name. She is nothing. The authorities don't know she exists. You can call her whatever you like."
The woman looked surprised but she didn't say anything further.
"How old is she?" she asked Rick.
“You said you wanted a six year old,” he said to the man. “That’s how old she is.”
“She looks younger,” said the man.
“And she is very quiet,” said the woman.
“She can talk when she has to. I’ve taught her to be quiet and not bother the grown ups, but if you want, she can talk.” He pinched the child softly, to show her that she needed to speak up.
“I can talk,” she said, knowing that this was what her father wanted her to say.
“Well, that's splendid,” said the woman. “How would you like to come and stay with us for a while, and help us celebrate Christmas.”
The child looked at her father. He nodded slightly.
“I would like it very much, if you will have me,” she said politely, keeping her voice sweet and unemotional the way her father liked it. Inside, she was thinking hopefully that this might be another time like being with Aunt Mitzi. And she would celebrate Christmas like the children did on the screen? That sounded more than mag. She smiled suddenly at the woman.
“Why she is quite pretty when she smiles, Rick,” said the woman.
The child was surprised to hear this, but it made her smile even more.
“She should be what you want,” said Rick. “She is sharp, not bad looking, small… you can tell her what to do, and if she doesn’t do it, you can call me and I’ll make sure she behaves. Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t see why not,” said the man. “You know the terms--$100 up-front now, and 15% of what we make less expenses. If we lose our shirts—and we won’t, I have a system—you only get the $100, but you get the kid out of your hair for the holidays. If we make money, well… then you’ll get a nice little bonus.”
“I want 30 percent,” said Rick.
“No way. We talked about 15% and that’s all that it’s worth it to us.”
“If you don’t have her, you can’t do anything.”
“We could find another kid.”
“At Christmas time? At this late date?" Rick laughed. "You think I don’t know you are paying me because you couldn’t find another? You’ll get your money’s worth. You will be using her for more than to keep up appearances. I am not asking for a share of what you get for your own stuff, even if you use her in it. But I do want 30% of what you get for the security information. You know you can’t get to Vegas unnoticed without having the kid.”
“Twenty maybe. Not thirty.”
They dickered a bit more and finally settled on 25. Then they drove back to the transpo station and dropped Rick off.
“Be good, do you hear me, Brat?” said her father. “Do what these people tell you, and if you are good, I won’t come to get you and make you sorry for being bad.”
Then he turned to Ted.
“Go ahead and spank her if you need to. No funny business though or you'll pay extra.”
"I am not inclined in that direction," said Ted with annoyance. "And I wouldn't deal in children's flesh that way."
"Well, I was just mentioning it, in case," Rick said with a nasty laugh.
And with not a further way of goodbye he got out of the car and walked away.
The little girl didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset. She had enough memory of being with people that weren’t her father to know that it might be a lot better. On the other hand, she didn’t know these people. She didn’t understand very much, but this time she thought they had just negotiated to buy her as though she were a thing. What was going to happen to her?
“Don’t be scared,” said the woman as though she were reading the girl’s thoughts. “We won’t do anything to hurt you, not even spank you, unless you really need it. We just want you to stay with us for a while. I am Julia and this is Ted, but we want you to pretend you are our daughter for a little while and call us Mommy and Daddy while we are with other people. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” said the child. She knew how to pretend things. And she was beginning to understand that these people had some plan that required them to have a child along, so her father had sold her to them for a while.
“Great. So you will call us Mommy and Daddy, and we will call you . . . What do you want to be called?"
“You mean, I can choose my name?” The idea was oddly empowering.
“Yes. What would you like to be called?”
The child thought for a moment. She wanted a powerful name. A name for a strong person.
“Helen,” she said after a while. “I’d like to be called Helen, if it’s okay.”
As they drove away from the station, the child reflected that this might be the beginning of a good time. Ted and Julia, were nice to her, spoke of having fun at Christmas and let her call herself Helen. She didn’t know exactly what they wanted her to do, but she was used to obeying the grown ups without asking questions. She wondered, of course. No amount of abuse had erased the natural curiosity and intelligence that Nana had noticed in the infant she had named Lili.
*****
Ted and Julia lived in a small one bedroom apartment. There was no bedroom for “Helen,” and they apologized to her for it, but they told her that when they got to Las Vegas they would be renting a suite and she’d have her own room.“We’re going to ‘Vegas?” she asked. She had heard her parents talk about the town as something great.
“Yes,” said Julia. “We are going to pretend that we are a family. Ted and I won a contest for a family to spend Christmas in ‘Vegas. We were going to bring my niece to play our daughter, but my stupid sister says no way she’s going to be without her daughter at Christmas—like she isn’t going to make money from it? So we were wondering what we could do when Ted her mentioned to your Daddy that we had this problem, and he said that we could have you come with us, that you would probably enjoy it more than spending Christmas with them. Would you like to go to Las Vegas with us?”
“Oh yes m’am!” she said enthusiastically.
*****
The next morning, Julia went through ”Helen’s” belongings and decided that about the only clothes the child did not need was underpants. In fact, she probably needed those too, but since no one could see, the need was less urgent. The weather in Las Vegas might be a little milder than in Minneapolis, but still the child’s worn and mostly out-grown summer-weight clothes were totally unsuitable for a child supposedly from a nice middle class family.
“We didn’t bargain for this,” Ted grumbled.
“I did,” said Julia. “I figured that any kid whose father would rent her out for a week would probably not have much in the way of suitable clothing. That’s why I said we should get her a day in advance.”
“Well, how much you reckon this is going to cost us?”
“Not much, if I haven't lost my talent,” Julia said.
“Are you going to risk getting caught shoplifting just when we're headed for a big job in Vegas?”
“Relax, lover. I haven’t been caught yet, and I won’t be caught now.”
The child did not know about this conversation. She was still sleeping peacefully on the living room couch as they discussed what they needed for the trip besides clothes for the kid.
When she awoke, Julia was getting ready to leave to go “shopping,” and Ted had to take care of some “business.”
“You don’t mind staying home alone, do you?” they asked the little girl.
“No,” she said. “Can I watch the screen while you are away?”
“Of course!” said Julia. “Do you need me to show you how to use it?”
“No ma’am. I can figure it out.”
“Great! Now let me get you some breakfast and then I will be on my way. What would you like for Christmas?”
“Ma’am?” she asked puzzled.
“What present do you want? It has to be something small, so we can put it in our bags. But you can choose one thing.”
“Oh,” the little girl said. The idea that she could ask for a present was so unexpected that she didn’t know what to say. “Anything you get me will be great,” she said, remembering that this was what polite people said in movies she watched on the screen.
“But I don’t know you yet. How can I know what you want?” asked the woman as she programed the autochef for crunchy cereal, fruit and soy milk. “Would you enjoy a dolly, a craft set, an electro-game?”
“I don’t want a dolly,” she said. “They have strange staring eyes, you know? But I don’t really know what I want,” she finished uncomfortably.
“Okay then,” said Julia cheerfully. “I won’t get you a dolly and I’ll find something to surprise you with.”
The child smiled with pleasure, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say. This whole idea of presents was very strange to her. Once she had tried to believe in Santa Claus, but when he had not brought her anything she had felt stupid and told herself she didn't care.
*****
Julia returned in the afternoon with three shopping bags bulging with things.
“Come watch me ‘cook the goods,’” she said to the little girl.
“What does that mean?” asked the child.
“It means that I get things ready to be used,” the woman said with a chuckle.
Julia took out what looked like a cross between an autochef and a gamer console and, opening the main door, she put in one object after another. The unit was actually a demagnetizer and code scrambler that effectively removed all the embedded anti-shop-lifting tags in the merchandise that Julia had not already removed by hand at the store before boosting them. The little girl didn’t understand any of this. She thought it was maybe a cleaner or sanitizer of some sort. In fact, the unit was built in the casing of a standard portable sanitizer, but it made a noise like an autochef so the jargon was to call it a “cooker.”
When she was done “cooking” the goods, Julia told the child to take off her clothes and try on the new ones—and was appalled at the bruises and half-healed cuts on the child’s body.
“Who did that to you?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said the child. “Maybe it was when I fell down.” She knew she was never ever supposed to tell people that her parents hit her.
“Oh my,” said Julia thoughtfully. “That must have been some fall.”
That the kid had obviously been abused, and probably by her parents, made Julia furious. But she couldn’t see what she could do about it. Like Mitzi before her, she knew that to report the abuse would lead to scrutiny that might endanger anyone associated with the child.
“I’ll make sure that at least she has a nice Christmas,” she thought.
*****
The hotel in Las Vegas was a mid-level hotel, not quite luxury quality, but well designed and comfortable. Julia and Ted had won an all-expenses paid trip that included a “family suite,” so “Helen” had a room of her own, a private screen, and a card that she could use for free ice cream and snacks. She wasn't sure what ice cream was, but snacks were always good.
There was a tree in the suite's sitting room. The child had never been in the same room as a Christmas tree before. She was looking at it curiously when Ted called her attention.
"Tomorrow," he said. "You will have to make yourself useful."
“What do I have to do?” she asked.
“Good girl," he nodded approvingly at her readiness to take orders without asking questions. "So the first instruction is you always call me Daddy and Julia Mommy when we are in public. Can you do that?”
The kid nodded. That was easy to remember.
“The next thing is that you will be walking around with Julia while I talk to people and gamble. She’ll be watching, and when I give her a signal, you will pull away from her and rush over to where ever I am and say that you want me to come with you right away because you have something to show me. Can you do that?”
The little girl nodded again.
“Okay, let’s try it.”
“Now?”
“Yes, get up, go over to the other side of the room, and after you count to ten come back over here and act like you really want me to go with you to see something.”
They tried it a few times until Ted was satisfied that the kid sounded believable.
“She’ll do,” he said.
“She’s better than my sister’s kid would have been,” Julia said.
“Big surprise there. Your sister is raising a little copy of herself—no imagination.”
“I have enough imagination to make up for it,” said Julia with a laugh. "And this kid reminds me a little of me."
*****
To be continued. (The next section will have little Eve's observation skills help solve a small mystery.)
