"Papa, come play with me!" I shout from outside our house. It is near the jungle, and since his office is a really big room with really big door windows, I'm allowed to talk really loud, though not at school. Tomorrow is Monday, so I have to go back to school tomorrow. Papa isn't always with me because sometimes he has to make a business trip somewhere. One time, he was gone for an entire month. I don't know why he goes on business trips when he's a writer, but for some reason he does. If I don't get him to come outside, he'll just spend the rest of the day writing something. "Come on Papa, Frate wants to play with you too!"
"Tell Frate that shouting is bad for you" he says as he continues typing up his thing with a type-writer. "If he wants me to come play, then he should walk over here and ask me."
"Papa..." Papa focuses on work way too much. It's bad when he goes traveling without me, though sometimes he brings me with him. He doesn't do anything interesting, though. He just talks to people and writes. Then he takes me sight-seeing and teaches me a lot of cool things about the places we visit, like how the giant rock in the Yu Garden was supposed to be for a palace before the shipment was ship-wrecked, or shows me things like strange plants, giant temples and statues, all other sort of things I didn't know existed. He also knows every language in the world, and he tries to teach me them too. My daddy is amazing.
But he's too busy to play with me a lot. When he does have time, I end up having to go to school.
Frate comes up to me and makes a sad sound to let me know that he's sad too. "I know, Frate" I say as I rub his head. "Papa is write-aholic". Maybe he'll stop if I grab the mail? I know that it's the end of the day, but since Papa spent most of the day inside, he might not have picked it up.
But I pick it up when I see it, because I'm a good girl who does her chores and picks up the mail when Papa forgets. I hope there's something for me I think as I look through the letters. My birthday is in two and a half months. Maybe I got a letter from those uncles that Papa says I have. I haven't met them in forever, though. I have a lot of them, about eight, or some number that high. Maybe some are from my mom's side.
That was when I saw a letter addressed to Daddy and me. From someone named Synthia Grane. I never met anyone with the same last name as me who wasn't Papa, and Synthia seems to be my mom's name, so Synthia Grane is probably my mom. I run into his office and say "Papa, I got something from Mom!"
"What?" he says as crouches down to grab the letter. "A letter from Synthia? But how?" Papa grabs the letter and reads it.
Papa's face grows dark. Normally, Papa always smiles and is very confident and happy, though the way he smiles when he isn't talking to the many different people on his business trips seem to be different than when he's with me. I noticed that when he's with me, he's less like a puppet, and his eyes twinkle brightly. He seems brighter, somehow. Papa says that I am very good at reading people, and that I could be like an actress or a spy. I think that I used to think that Papa was a spy for some reason, but he's definitely not. He's not handsome enough, and doesn't act like the people in movies who fall in love with a lot of women. Most importantly, Papa is too Papa to be a spy. Maybe he would be more spy like if he had a mustache.
"I can't believe this, after all these years, she has the nerve to..."
"Um, Papa, what's going on?" I don't know why, but Papa seems smoldering, and I've never seen him like this before. He does get upset when I stay out too late playing on the beaches or exploring the jungle, as well as when I didn't tell him that he stepped in Frate's poop that one time, but now Papa looks really scared and worried as well as fierce. "What does it say?"
Papa looked up from the letter and his face was blank before he put on a fake smile. "It's nothing, Emmy, just something that I never even pondered because it only had a minuscule percentage of occurring."
"Why are you using such big words? Are you trying not to tell me something?"
"Of course not, I just wanted you not to worry about something because I'm your father, and I love you dearly. You know that I love you, right?"
"Of course, Papa!"
"And you love me a whole lot as well, right?"
"Of course! How can I not love you? You're my Papa, and you are so smart!"
"Good girl" he said before rubbing my head. "You are such a good girl, Emma. I'll love you forever."
"What about Frate?" I said after giggling.
"Frate as well. Frate and my little dolphin girl are here to stay in my heart forever." He picked me up and carried me in his arms to my room across the hall. I guess that it must be around bed time.
"Hey Papa, how did we first meet?" I ask for the hundredth time as he tucks me in.
"On a boat head to Hawaii from San Francisco. I was lost, and couldn't come home because I didn't know where home was, but when I saw you, everything just felt better. You had never met me before, so I summoned dolphins by whistling to make you less shy. It was easier than it sounds because I knew that they were ready to head up soon."
"You're so amazing! I want to be a detective like you one day!"
"Detective? Why do you think that I'm a detective?"
"Because you are so smart, and know a lot of things, and are good at puzzles. I would say spy, but you can't be one because you're not like the spies in the movies."
"Ha ha, yeah, I am definitely not like those spies in movies and books."
"And spies always lie and forget people. You are the opposite of that." Frate arrived and I lifted the cover so he could lie down underneath. I pet him until I feel sleepy. "So you must be a detective."
"I am most certainly not a detective" he says as he tucks me in. "But I am most definitely not like a spy in those movies." He turns off the light, and I am so tired, I'm already dreaming someone saying "In real life, spying isn't like that at all. Spies are very lonely".