I hopped out of bed and got dressed, then went and got my brush. I took it over to Uncle Sam and handed it to him, then turned around. He brushed my hair, and then tapped my shoulder. I turned again, taking my brush from him, and he looked at my shirt, and then chuckled. I was wearing a shirt that said, "My Patronus is a bookworm" with a little drawing of a worm in an open book.

"That's a great shirt!" he said.

"Thanks, I love it." I said with a grin. I put my brush back, and then went to put my new tennis shoes on.

"Those are the ones you just got?" Uncle Sam leaned over and looked down at my feet.

"Yeah."

He started to shut his laptop down. "You like pink?"

"It's okay. Purple is my favorite, but I'll take pink too. Especially if it's sparkly!"

He chuckled again. "Purple, pink, and sparkly. I'll remember that. Ready to go?"

"Yep!" I followed him out the door, and we went to the car. We ate at the Pancake House restaurant again, and I got chocolate chip pancakes. Uncle Sam and I shared a mixed fruit cup again. He got a phone call from Dean as we were finishing up.

"We need to get back to the room." he said to me, motioning to the waitress. He paid the bill and then we went back to the hotel.

"Can I go to the playground?" I asked Uncle Sam as he sat down at the table and turned his laptop on.

"Not right now. I need to take you there, and I've got some work to do." He was concentrating on the computer screen, and he called Dean back.

I leaned on the edge of the table. "Can I talk to him?" I asked.

"No, Charlie. Go find something to do." Uncle Sam said. He turned away from me slightly. I sighed and went to find my 3DS. It didn't have much charge left, I was never good at remembering to plug it in every night. I laid on my bed and played one of the games until the power ran out. Then I found the charger and plugged it into the wall. I wandered over to the tv and turned it on, flipping through the channels over and over.

"Charlie, pick a channel and watch something. That's annoying." Uncle Sam called to me.

I sighed again, and found a cartoon that I liked to watch. I got bored, though, because all that was playing was episodes I had already seen a lot.

Uncle Sam's phone rang again, and he talked for a moment, then glanced at me and got up to walk outside. I guess he wanted to have a private conversation.

I walked over to his computer quickly and opened a new browser window. I typed in the name of an educational reading website that I played on at school. It took several seconds to load and then I found one of the games I liked. I started playing it, and then the computer screen froze. I remembered just then that this site had caused problems with the computers at school, and made them freeze and sometimes crash.

Uncle Sam came back into the room as I tried to close the browser, but it was stuck. He took one look at me standing there at the table and his face got angry.

"Go sit on your bed." he said sternly, and a muscle jumped in his cheek. I hurried over to my bed and got on it, watching him anxiously as he sat down.

He frowned as he tapped the keys, and then sighed and ran his hands through his hair. His face was tense and he muttered to himself every once in a while.

"Uncle Sam, can I get up?" I asked.

He turned his head to look at me. "No. You're in time out until I say so."

"Time out is for little kids!" I protested.

He straightened up and looked at me. "Would you rather stand in the corner?"

I had never had to stand in a corner before, but it seemed like it would be embarrassing.

"Uh, no." I said.

"No more talking." he said curtly.

I sat there as the minutes dragged by slowly and he worked on the laptop. Finally, I heard the chimes that meant the computer was starting up, and he watched the screen. Then he sighed, and rubbed his hand across his face. He pushed his chair back from the table a little bit and turned his head to me.

"Charlie, come here." he said.

All of a sudden, I didn't want to. I had broken a rule that Uncle Sam had made about his computer, I had disobeyed him, and he was probably really mad at me. He was going to scold me for sure. My mouth went dry as I wondered if he was going to spank me. I didn't think he would, because he wasn't my dad, but he still might.

"Uh, why?" I asked.

"Because I told you to, young lady." he said in a hard voice.

I stood up and slowly walked over to stand in front of him. I put my hands behind my back and toed the floor in front of me.

He looked at me with a serious look on his face. "I told you when we first met that my computer was not a toy. I use this for research and there's a lot of sensitive information stored on here. Because of that, I can't just take this to a regular computer store to get fixed if something breaks. I have to take it to a friend who is a computer guy who lives a few states away. And that takes time away from our hunting. That's why I'm so careful with it. Do you understand now?"

I nodded, looking up at him. "Yes, Uncle Sam." I said in a quiet voice.

"What I want to know is, why you thought it would be okay to blatantly disregard the rules that I made."

"Huh? Blat- blatan-" I was confused by those big words.

"It means that you just do what you want without thinking about the rules. Why did you think it would be okay to do that?"

I blushed, and then shrugged, still staring at the floor.

"Use your words." Uncle Sam's voice was hard again.

"I dunno." I said quietly.

"I dunno is not a reason, young lady." he said. He glared at me, and I stepped away from him, afraid of the intensity of his eyes.

"Get back over here." he said, beckoning me with his hand.

I stood still, feeling a scared pang in my tummy.

"Now." he said forcefully.

I walked towards him, until I was standing right in front of him

"You deliberately disobeyed me, you broke a rule that I made, and I'm going to give you a spanking."

"But- but you're not my Dad, you can't!" I said in a rush.

"My computer, my rules, so yes, I am going to spank you."

"It- it was an accident!" I burst out, trying to defend myself.

He sat back, and gave me a look.

"You're telling me that you 'accidentally' got on my computer, after I made those rules?" he narrowed his eyes."You want to add lying to how much trouble you're in?"

I gulped. "No, I—I just thought I could play a game real quick...it was an educational website for reading!"

"Stop making excuses." he said in an angry voice. "The computer isn't frozen any more, but I'm still going to need to run some virus scans later and make sure everything is okay."

"I'm sorry." I said in a small voice.

He patted his knee once. "Come here. Over my lap." he said.

I squirmed, feeling nervous. "I—but I—I don't-"

He looked at me intently. "Charlotte Anne." he said sternly, pointing at the floor next to him.

It was only a couple steps over to Uncle Sam's side but I felt like I was walking through molasses. Even sitting in a chair, Uncle Sam was taller than me, and I felt very small standing there and looking up at him. I put my hands on his thigh and leaned forward, and he had to reach over and pick me up because I was so short and his legs were so tall.

"Please, Uncle Sam, I said I was sorry!" I cried out.

He was so tall and huge, and his hands were so big- a second later I found out that they are also very hard as his hand spanked my bottom for the first time. I yelled out, because it hurt, a lot! I struggled, trying to get up, but he put his hand on my back to hold me there over his lap.

"You're not going anywhere." he said to me, and he spanked me again. I flinched- his big hand covered my whole butt!

"I'm very disappointed in you. You need to stop acting like the rules don't apply to you, and you need to listen to me and your dad. We expect you to do as you're told, and if you don't you're going to end up in trouble." As he talked, his hand fell again and again on my bottom, and I whimpered and struggled. I had started to cry right away, because when he said he was disappointed in me, it made me feel bad.

"I'm sorrryyyy!" I wailed, as the swats continued to fall. Dean hadn't spanked me for this long or this hard, and my bottom was stinging.

"You're going to stay off of my computer." A hard swat fell.

"Y-yes."

"And you're going to follow the rules." Another hard swat, right below the first one.

"Y-yes!"

"And you will not lie any more!" Another, harder swat landed.

"Y-YES!" I sobbed out.

He spanked me five more times, hard, right on the lower part of my butt where you sit down. I yelped and kicked my legs.

Then he helped me to sit up on his lap. I turned my face into his flannel shirt, sobbing, feeling guilty and embarrassed.

"What are the rules about my computer, Charlie?" he asked gently.

"Uh, you said- you said I wasn't 'llowed to get on your laptop right now. And, and that I had to ask your permission to play on it, always. And that you would check the websites that I wanted play to make sure they were okay."

"That's right." he said. "Good girl. I want you to make sure you follow those rules from now on, and no more lying. Understand?"

"Y-yes, Uncle Sam."

He put his arms around me and pulled me close to him.

"Are you still disappointed?" I asked hesitantly. "And mad at me?" More tears filled my eyes and I sobbed without meaning to.

"No, you've been punished for what you did wrong. You follow the rules and do what you're supposed to, and I won't have a reason to be disappointed any more."

"I'm not trying to be bad." I said.

"I know, honey. You're still getting used to everything." He stroked my hair back from my face, and I pulled my legs up and curled up in his lap, putting my arms around his middle. My chest hitched, and he rubbed my back and said, "Shh, you're all right."

Uncle Sam was huge and tall and it could be a little intimidating, but it was also comforting to be snuggled on his lap like this. I felt little and safe. We sat together for a while, and I started to feel sleepy. Then Uncle Sam's phone rang again. He patted my back and I sat up, then got off of his lap.

"Hey, Bobby, what's up? Yeah? Okay, let me pull that up..." Uncle Sam looked at me.

"Go on over there, Charlie." he said quietly, motioning to the other side of the room. I walked away, and he turned his attention back to his computer screen.

I found my backpack that had a bunch of my little toys in it, and I pulled out some of the action figures and little figurines. I had had a whole made-up game that I played with them, so I gathered them up and then got on the floor and scooted under my bed. Since it was a sofa bed, it was higher off the ground than a regular bed and there was room under it for me to lay on my tummy and play with my toys privately.

"Charlie?" I heard Uncle Sam say. "What are you doing under there?" I turned and saw his feet next to the bed. I pushed myself back out from under the bed and stood up.

"I was playing with stuff." I said, feeling a little embarrassed.

"Oh." he said. He picked something off of my head. "You have a dust bunny in your hair. I guess housekeeping doesn't clean under there very much. Are you hungry? It's about time to eat lunch."

"Yeah." I said. I looked up at him and hugged him suddenly. It was nice that they always asked me if I was hungry and made sure I ate. I was on my own so much with Mom that I just ate whenever I wanted, and sometimes I would forget to eat.

He hugged me back. "What's this for?" he asked, chuckling a little.

"I just felt like it." I said, feeling shy.

Uncle Sam took us to a restaurant that served soup in a bread bowl and lots of fancy salads. I had noticed that he liked to eat salad and ate lots of healthy food. He ordered a big salad that had lots of vegetables in it, and I ordered soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

"Do you want some of my salad?" He asked as we were eating.

"No thanks, this is enough." I said. My meal had also come with a bag of potato chips.

"Make sure you eat some vegetables with dinner then." He told me.

"Okay, I will." I smiled at him.

"I thought we could go out after we eat and try to find you some more shoes. You need more than one pair."

"Okay!" I said happily. "If we go to different store maybe I can find some Hello Kitty shoes!"

He laughed. "Maybe. Don't get your hopes up, though. I don't think every store sells Hello Kitty stuff."

Uncle Sam took me to a shoe store, and got a salesman to help us measure my feet and find the right size shoe for me. I got a pair of sandals with velcro straps and a pair of slip-on shoes that had zoo animals all over them.

"Mom says that velcro is a parent's best friend." I told Uncle Sam as we walked to the checkout line.

He chuckled. "I can see how that's true." he said. "I can't imagine trying to buckle a shoe onto a squirmy little kid. Those buckles on your black shoes were so small!"

We walked by a rack of purses and then I saw it- a pink and white Hello Kitty purse! I stopped walking and pulled on Uncle Sam's hand.

"Look, Uncle Sam!" I pointed at it. "A Hello Kitty purse! Can I get it? Please? Pleeease?" I begged, looking up at him.

"Well..." he hesitated. "All right, go ahead."

"Thank you!" I hugged him and then ran over to grab one of them off the shelf. "Yay!" I said happily. "I've never had a purse before!" I unzipped it and looked inside. "And look, it's big enough that I can put my 3Ds in it!"

Uncle Sam laughed. "You really like Hello Kitty, don't you?"

"No, I don't like her, I LOVE her!" I said, grinning at him, and he laughed again.

When we got back to the hotel, he said, "Do you want to go to the playground for a while?"

"Yeah!" I said.

"All right, you go ahead. I'm going to get my laptop and bring it out here."

I went to the playground and he walked to the room and went in to get his laptop. He sat on a bench and did some work on it as I ran around and swung on the swings.

"Come here, Charlie." Uncle Sam called to me after a while. I jumped off the swing and walked over to him. He took my chin and turned my head a little, looking at my face.

"You're getting a little sunburnt." he said. "Does your skin burn easily in the sun?"

"Oh. Yeah, I do. Mommy said that I have her pale skin, it's from Italy or something."

He smiled. "Well, we'll have to see about getting you some sunscreen. Let's go to the room, I don't want it getting worse."

I sighed. "O-kay." I liked playing outside. "Can we come back later when the sun is down?"

"We'll see." Uncle Sam closed his laptop and stood up. I took his hand as we walked across the parking lot, remembering what Dean had said about always holding hands.

"You're going to need a bath tonight, you got all sweaty on the playground." Uncle Sam told me.

"Okay." I agreed. "Can I watch a movie?"

He helped me find the fourth Harry Potter movie on the hotel tv and I sat down to watch it while he went over to the table and got on his laptop again. The movie was almost over when the room door opened, and Dean and Uncle Bobby came in, carrying flat pizza boxes and a couple of bags.

I got up and ran over to them. "Dad, I missed you!" I said, throwing myself at Dean. His face lit up when I said that and he picked me up and hugged me.

"I missed you too." He said. He put me down on the floor. "How did it go today?"

"Uh-" I looked down at the floor, realizing that Dean was going to find out about me getting in trouble. Uh-oh.

"We had an issue this morning, but I took care of it." Uncle Sam said. "We'll talk about it later."

"Oh. Okay." Dean said, raising his eyebrows. Sam moved his laptop off of the table so that they could put the pizza boxes down. We sat at the table and ate, and Uncle Bobby handed them bottles of beer that he had brought to the room.

"Charlie needs to take a bath tonight, I figured we could talk about the case then." Uncle Sam said. "And we need to get her some sunscreen, she burns quickly."

"Yeah, I noticed that her face is a little red." Dean said. "You were outside today?"

"We went to the playground." I told him. "And Uncle Sam took me to get more shoes. And look!" I got up from the table and brought over my purse. "I got a purse!"

"That's that cat. Right?" Dean said.

"That's supposed to be a cat?" Uncle Bobby said.

"Yes! How come you guys can't tell?" I said.

"We just can't see it." Dean said. He leaned over and looked down. "Those are your new sandals?"

"Yeah."

He looked at Uncle Sam. "Uncle Sam has the patience of a saint." he sighed. "I don't know how Dad got through it with two boys, man, shoe shopping is stressful."

"Well, his approach to parenting was a little different than yours, Dean." Uncle Bobby said with a chuckle. "You boys knew that if you acted up in the slightest you were gonna end up with a sore tail."

"Your Dad spanked you?" I asked Dean.

"Yeah, he was in the military, so he expected us to follow his orders to the letter. But he had his reasons for acting the way he did. He was training us to be hunters, and it can be life-or-death sometimes." He took a deep drink of his beer. "He mellowed some as he got older." He looked at me. "Ready to take a bath?"

"Yeah, I just need to get my pjs." I got up and went over to my suitcase to get out a nightshirt- Hello Kitty, of course. Dean went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. He waited with me until the tub was filled partway, and then he left, closing the door after him. I could hear them talking as I washed myself.

I came out of the bathroom carrying my brush, and I walked over to Uncle Sam and handed it to him. He brushed through my wet hair, and then handed it back to me. He and Dean were sitting at the table. Uncle Bobby had left.

"Sit down, Charlie, we need to have a talk." Dean said.

I sat down between them, getting nervous. Had Uncle Sam told Dean about this morning? I looked at both of them.

"I understand you got yourself into some trouble this morning." Dean said, leaning forward.

I folded my fingers together and looked down at them in my lap.

"Uh, yeah." I said quietly.

"Charlie, look at me." Dean said. His voice was that deeper tone when he was being very serious. I looked up at him. He looked me in the eyes.

"Sam's laptop is an important tool that we use, and we need it to help us with our hunting. You cannot be messing with it." Dean glanced at Uncle Sam. "Did she get the message, Sam, or does it need to be reinforced?"

I gulped. Was Dean going to spank me too?

"Not this time. She got it." Uncle Sam said.

Dean looked at me again. "If that happens again, you're going to get a spanking from me as well as from Uncle Sam, do you understand?"

I blushed. "Y-yes, Dean." I dropped my eyes back to my lap.

He sat up straight. "We need to talk about a couple other things. The lying has to stop."

I felt myself blushing harder. I wasn't used to someone talking to me like this about the things that I did, or being caught at things like telling lies. I didn't think of them like something serious, just little things to help me get my way.

"This is very important, Charlotte." Dean said. "From now on, if you lie to either of us, that will be an automatic spanking. And if you're already getting a consequence for something else, you'll still get a spanking for lying. You got it?"

"Uh- yes, De—Dad."

He cleared his throat. "Last night, your behavior was out of hand. I had just talked to you about hitting and kicking, and you did it again. I told you that you needed to stop screaming and fighting me when I tell you to do something, and you still did it. You tried to run away, and left the room, which breaks the rule that you aren't to leave the room without an adult. If the tantrums keep happening, there are going to be serious consequences, and I'm only going to give you once chance to calm down and rein it in. Got it?"

I nodded. "Yes, Dad." I squirmed uncomfortably, because they were both looking at me. "Am I- am I in trouble for last night?"

"No, you're not. But that's the last time I'm going to let behavior like that slide." He held his arms out to me. "Come here."

I got off my chair and walked over to him, and he pulled me to sit in his lap. "I know this is really different than what you're used to."

I put my arms around him and snuggled into his chest. "I don't mind." I said. "I never had a Dad or an Uncle before."

"Well, I've never had a daughter before." Dean said.

"And I've never had a niece!" Uncle Sam said with a laugh. "That's new for all of us."

Dean looked down at me. "Did you brush your teeth?"

"Oh- I forgot." I said. I got off of his lap.

He patted my bottom and said, "Go brush your teeth, it's almost time for bed for you."

"You want to start reading the Harry Potter tonight?" Uncle Sam asked me.

"Yeah!" I called as I walked into the bathroom.

When I came out, Uncle Sam was sitting on the sofa with the book in his lap. "I thought it would be more comfortable to sit here, there isn't really a headboard on your bed." he said.

"Okay." I said, sitting next to him. He put his arm around me and read part of the first chapter out loud. Then he closed the book. "It's 8:30, time for you to be in bed."

"Aww, can't we finish the chapter?" I begged.

"Nope. Bedtime is important."

"O-kay." I sighed. I leaned over and hugged him. "Good night, Uncle Sam. Thanks for taking me out today."

"Good night, Charlie." he said, hugging me tightly for a moment. I walked over to me bed and Dean came over and sat down as I got on it.

He leaned over and hugged me.

"Good night, Dad." I said. "I'm glad I have a Dad and and Uncle."

He kissed my cheek as he pulled back. "I'm glad I have a daughter." He smiled at me, and I laid down so he could pull the covers up.

I didn't have any bad dreams that night.