The Antidote to Girls
#17 Juice

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Becca almost jumped out of her skin when she saw little Marco totter towards her, bawling and with copious amounts of red liquid oozing down his face. Oh God I'm going to get in so much trouble she thought, then abashedly banished that notion and tried to focus on the fact that a kid in her care was apparently bleeding from his head.

"You big crybaby!" Rachel yelled, bounding after him and standing on top of the day care's picnic table so her accusatory pointing would be even more dramatic.

"Rachel, get off the table before another one of you breaks your head!" Becca shouted, a bit more harshly than she meant to, but she had an injured, crying kid to take care of. She pulled Marco closer, trying to inspect the damage on the squirming five year-old. "Tell me where it hurts, Marco. Point it out to me."

"We were just playing," Rachel pouted as she jumped off the table, but Becca didn't hear because Marco chose that moment to scream "Rachel poured juice on my head!" at the top of his lungs.

"She…what?" Becca asked, sighing the last syllable with relief and chiding herself for not realizing how watery and sickly sweet-smelling the "blood" was.

Marco took a few quick deep breaths as he shifted from crying to just mad. "A whole juice box! She poured it on my head!"

"And that's why you were crying? This is just…cranberry juice?"

Fresh tears welled in Marco's eyes. "Dad says this sweatshirt came from Wiggly Field."

Rachel chose this moment to try and make her daring escape, but before she left Becca shot her a look that told her that there was still a talking-to to be had.

"Wiggly…Wrigley Field? Oh, oh, kiddo, the juice will wash out. It's not ruined."

The little boy didn't look sated by this revelation. "Rachel didn't even say sorry."

Becca sighed, getting a pack of baby wipes from the cabinet to try and clean Marco up with. "Well," she said as she sat down in front of him, "girls are like that. Sometimes they do silly things and don't apologize."

"Why?"

"Because," Becca bit her lip as she tried to think of an excuse, "because that's how girls say they like boys."

Marco's eyes widened. "But girls think boys are gross."

"That's just what they want you to think," she said with a grin.

Marco grinned back somewhat deviously, stained sweatshirt and wet hair entirely forgotten as he bolted out of the room chanting "Rayyy-chul liiikes me, Rayyy-chul liiikes me!"

Becca got up to go bring him back and wipe the last dribbles of cranberry juice from his head, but then sat back down on the floor with a smile. Maybe she wouldn't have to give Rachel a talking-to. Maybe this was payback enough and then some.