"Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom..."
"Oh, geez, cut the crap already," 4-year-old Emma whines as the other children turn and stare at her in disbelief.
"Excuse me?" The woman who Emma doesn't want to call her "mother" growls the words angrily. "How dare you act in such a way in MY house. And where did you learn that word, exactly?"
The doorbell chimes, and the woman huffily gets up to go answer it, freezing up when she realizes that strange man has come over. He lets himself in, waving at Emma who waves back.
"You and the man say it to me," Emma says, giggling to herself. She knows she's going to cause a commotion, it was what she was aiming for. After all, they weren't her real parents, they were her "foster parents," not to mention the fact they all underestimated her. She was smarter than they would all think, even though they thought she was just a dumb kid. In truth, she wasn't dumb. She just pretended to be.
"Say what to you?" The strange man questions.
"Crap!" Emma cries out gleefully. The strange man glares at the woman, who starts to swat noticably.
"Of course I don't say that to you, sweetheart," The woman replies, eyeing the stranger by her. Emma knows she's lying. No big deal, she somehow can tell whenever someone is lying.
"Yes, you do, all the time." Emma says, pretending to be sad, because she knows now the strange man is going to take her away to another family.
Her goal, her one and only goal, is to end up with a family that really loves her.
