Notes: Mari and Sammy - thanks for the squeal-inducing feedback! You're the best, ladies.
Readers and REAL McRollers - Thank you for your amazing support! It is always appreciated.
Hope you enjoy!
Overachiever (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)
"Red!" Angie announced as she slapped a laminated slip of paper down on the children's desk at the library.
"Is that the word you picked today, Angie?" Ms. Ginny, one of the children's librarians, asked with a smile.
Angie nodded eagerly and pointed to the word on the paper. "It says red."
"It does, indeed. Do you know any of the letters?"
Angie nodded again. "R, e, d," she said.
"Good job!" Ginny said, impressed.
"DJ help-ted me," Angie said, beaming at her brother.
"What a good big brother!"
Behind the kids, Esther squeezed DJ's shoulder and he straightened, smiling proudly. "He's the best," she agreed.
"Are any of those letters in your name?" Ginny asked.
Angie's brow furrowed, having not prepped for that question.
"How do you spell your name, Angie?" DJ asked.
"A, n, g, i, e," she automatically replied.
"And 'red' is r, e, d," he continued, slightly stressing the second letter. "Do you have one of those letters in your name?"
"A, n, g, i, e," she said again, more to herself this time. Her eyes widened in realization. "E!"
"Yes!" Esther said, clapping.
DJ joined in. "You did it!"
Angie jumped up and down happily. "I did it! You help-ted me 'gain, DJ!"
"That was some wonderful sibling teamwork," Ginny said happily.
"You' turn now, DJ," Angie said. She smiled eagerly. "Den we get our stickers!"
"What word did you pick, DJ?" Ginny asked.
DJ passed his slip of paper over. "I picked a third grade word because I'm going to be in third grade."
"Challenging yourself," Ginny said, nodding approvingly. "Good for you."
"Trade," DJ read. He covered the word with his hand as the librarian's usually did for school-age kids and also closed his eyes. "T, r, a, d, e."
Esther grinned. "He's ready for the spelling bee."
"I see that," Ginny agreed. "Great job, DJ. Can you tell me what 'trade' means?"
DJ bit his lip, thinking about how to explain the word. "It's like … when you give someone something and they give you something back and you do a trade. Like when Angie and I are building with LEGOs and she has the red pieces I need for my house so I trade her some blue ones so it's fair."
Angie shook her head. "Don't take the LEGOs, you gotta share," she said, repeating what she'd been told a time or three in the past.
"Yeah, a trade is like sharing when both people get something," DJ said.
"That's an excellent definition," Ginny said. She smiled. "And I love to hear that you and your sister are very fair when you play, though I'm not surprised."
"Can we have the stickers now, please?" Angie asked excitedly.
"Of course! You both did a wonderful job with your words."
Angie tapped the countertop with both hands, standing on her tiptoes eagerly as Ginny brought out a small basket of stickers.
"You can go first, Angie," DJ said. He looked at Ginny. "She gets really excited about stickers."
Esther squeezed his shoulder again and smiled at him.
Ginny smiled. "Well, who doesn't?" She placed the basket in front of the almost four-year-old. "There you go."
Angie started rifling through it, looking at the different options. DJ looked over her shoulder as she did. There were stars and hearts, cartoon characters and animals.
"There's a Mickey Mouse one!" DJ exclaimed. He looked up at Ginny. "We're going to Disney World next month!"
"Yeah!" Angie echoed, momentarily distracted from the stickers. "Wif Joanie!" She looked back at Esther. "How many sleeps?"
"Still a lot of sleeps," Esther told her with a smile. "Are you going to pick a Disney sticker to remind you about your trip?" She grinned. "Not that you need any reminding."
"Mmmm …" Angie began indecisively, going back to the stickers. Her brow knit as she pulled out a square one with a plastic piece on top of it. "Why's dis one have dis on it?" she asked, pulling at the plastic piece.
"Oh, that's a temporary tattoo," Ginny told her. "You have to leave that plastic piece on there to protect it before you put it on."
Angie's eyes caught on one word. "Tattoo? Daddy has tattoos!"
"Yes, he does," Esther replied.
Angie stared at the tattoo, a colorful tree frog with large eyes.
"We don't always have those," Ginny said. "They usually go pretty fast when we do. You put them on with water."
Angie settled back on her heels, holding the tattoo with both hands as she continued to look at it.
"Is that the one you want, Angie?" Esther asked. "If it is, let's let your brother pick."
Angie nodded, her gaze still focused on the tattoo in her hands.
"Do you want a temp tattoo as well, DJ?" Ginny asked. "I think there's a couple more in there."
He paused a moment, thinking, but ultimately shook his head. "I'm going to get the Mickey Mouse sticker and save it for when we go to Disney World."
"Good choice," Ginny said, tucking the basket away.
"Wait, Angie," Esther said, gently stopping her from peeling back the plastic covering her tattoo. "Ms. Ginny said we have to put it on with water."
Angie looked at them hopefully. "You have some water for da tattoo?"
Ginny looked doubtfully toward the family restroom in the children's area. "There's a sink in the restroom, but they really work best when you have a washcloth or some paper towel."
"We can put it on when we get home, Angie," Esther said. "After we pick out our books."
Angie looked devastated at the idea of waiting.
"It'll be okay, Angie," DJ said, trying to convince her.
She turned her eyes to him and he nodded encouragingly. Looking back at Esther she said, "Right when we get home?"
"First thing," Esther promised. "How about I keep it safe for you until we get there?"
Angie pulled the tattoo to her chest, reluctant to hand it over, even to Esther.
"If you pull the plastic off, it might be ruined and then no tattoo," Esther said, knowing her young charge very well.
Angie heaved a sigh and finally held it out to her.
"I'll keep it right here in my wallet so it won't get bent," Esther said. "Okay?"
Angie nodded slowly, pressing her lips together.
"Can you hold mine, too, Esther?" DJ asked. "I don't want it to get bent either."
"Of course." She tucked both stickers in her wallet for safe-keeping.
"Now is it time to find books?" DJ asked.
"Aren't you forgetting one important thing?" Esther prompted.
DJ gasped, turning back to the desk. "Thank you for the sticker, Ms. Ginny!"
"T'ank you for da tattoo!" Angie echoed. "We going to put it on right when we get home."
"You're both very welcome," Ginny said with her usual warm smile. "And you let me know if you need any help at all finding books."
"Okay," DJ said, before turning to his sister eagerly. "Let's find some more Elephant and Piggie books, Angie!"
"Yeah!"
Sticker and tattoo temporarily forgotten, they hurried toward the stacks.
"Mommy! Daddy! I got a tattoo!" Angie squealed as she barrelled toward them when they arrived home.
"Didn't think we'd hear that one for fourteen more years," Catherine quipped as she knelt to catch Angie who flew into her arms.
"See?" Angie said, holding out her arm. The frog tattoo smiled at them from about an inch below her t-shirt sleeve. "It's a frog!"
"I see that, very nice," Catherine said, kissing her head. "Did you get one, too, DJ?" she asked, kissing him as well.
He shook his head. "I got a Mickey Mouse sticker. I want to save it for Disney World so I put it in my suitcase."
Steve grinned. "You know we're not leaving for another month, right, buddy?" He leaned down to ruffle his hair and kiss his head.
"I know, but I didn't want to lose it."
"That's a good place, then," Steve said. He lifted Angie up for a kiss. "Let's see this tattoo, baby girl."
"Esther put it dere," Angie told him, twisting her arm toward him. "We count to thirty!"
"Angie missed some numbers but we helped," DJ said.
Angie nodded. "DJ help-ted me lots today."
"Just like every day," Esther said with a smile.
Catherine gave him another kiss.
"You like it, Daddy?" Angie asked.
He kissed her cheek. "I love it."
She beamed. "I love it, too."
As her parents and brother chatted about the day with Esther, Angie's gaze remained fixed on the tattoo on her arm. During dinner, she missed her mouth so many times with her fork that Catherine had to threaten her post-meal treat. On their family walk around the neighborhood, Angie insisted on stopping everyone they passed to show off her tattoo, informing them that, "DJ help-ted me with my word and I got a tattoo!"
As Catherine tucked her in that night while Steve was in DJ's room, Angie asked, "Will my tattoo be dere when I wake up?"
"It will," Catherine said, kissing her head. As Angie settled against her pillow happily, gazing at her tattoo, Catherine winced a little, recognizing the look. "But it won't be there forever, baby girl. It's a temporary tattoo, so it'll be there for a few days, but it will start to come off."
Angie looked stricken at this news. "Come off?" she repeated.
Catherine brushed her hair back and kissed her head again. "I'm sorry, honey, but that's how they work. So let's enjoy your frog tattoo while it's there, okay?" She kissed the green frog on Angie's arm, causing the little girl to giggle.
"Okay!"
Angie spent a few blissful days with her tattoo mostly intact, but true to her mother's words, it eventually started to rub off.
"No no no!" Angie cried, trying to turn her arm away from the washcloth in Catherine's hand during her bath.
"Angie, you have to wash," Catherine said. "You've got dirt all over you from playing outside and we've put off your bath night long enough."
"My tattoo!" Angie insisted, covering what was left with one hand.
"Honey, it's almost gone already. Maybe you can get another one when we go to the library tomorrow," Catherine suggested. She held up the washcloth. "Please?"
With the hope of a new tattoo to come, Angie allowed Catherine to finish washing her arm. However, the next day at the library there were only stickers in the basket after Angie and DJ had done their words. Angie was so visibly disappointed that the librarian working the desk let both her and DJ pick two stickers each.
"Here, Angie," DJ said as they walked toward the bookshelves. "You can have my extra sticker. It's a star that's red, white, and blue like the flag."
Angie gave him a small smile. "T'ank you, DJ."
"Stickers are pretty much like tattoos, anyway," he continued, putting his other sticker on his hand. He handed Catherine the adhesive backing. "They just come off sooner."
"That's a good way to think about it, honey," Catherine said.
Angie smiled at the thought and stopped to put her three stickers on her arm where her frog tattoo had been.
Catherine bent to kiss her head as she took the sticker backings for the garbage. "They look great, baby girl."
Angie examined the stickers and nodded to herself. "Dey look great," she repeated. "Like Daddy."
"Dey keep falling off," Angie said in frustration to DJ as they were in the playroom that evening after dinner. She put the star sticker back on her arm and pressed the leg of the teddy bear sticker down where it had started curling up.
He nodded. "That's what happens with stickers," he said. "They're not sticky for very long. Mine already fell off."
Angie frowned, studying her arm as she thought about the problem. She walked over to the drawers where they kept various craft supplies and dug around until she found a roll of Scotch tape.
"Tape is sticky!" she announced.
"Are you going to tape them on?" he asked, incredulous.
She nodded. "You help me, DJ?"
He glanced toward the doorway. "I don't know if we're supposed to use the tape on ourselves."
"Mommy said dis is our tape."
"That's true," he said, joining her. "Let me see."
"Tape it right here," she said, pointing to her arm.
With DJ's help, they got all three stickers taped down on her arm just as Steve came in to check on them.
"What's going on here?"
"We made dem sticky again!" Angie announced, holding out her arm to display the stickers proudly.
"Angie's stickers were falling off so she got the idea to use tape and tape them on her arm," DJ explained. He looked a little worried. "Is that okay?"
Steve tilted his head, eyeing Angie's arm. "How much did you use?"
"It's all gone," DJ admitted.
Steve chuckled. "Well, good thing it's dollar store tape."
"Dese are my new tattoos," Angie said. "I love dem."
"I'm glad," Steve said, picking her up. "But I gotta tell you, I'm not sure those are gonna last the night, baby girl. It is dollar store tape."
The next morning, there was a wad of tape and sticker pieces in Angie's bed after her movements during the night dislodged them.
"I'm sorry, honey," Catherine said as she went to throw them away.
"No, no, no!" Angie said, pulling on Catherine's arm to prevent her.
"Angie, they're all ripped up."
"I need dem!" Angie insisted, holding both hands up plaintively.
"Angie!" DJ said, running into her room. "Know what I remembered we have?"
Her eyes widened at the excitement in her brother's voice. "What?" she asked.
"Remember this coloring book we got at the dentists? We never used all the stickers! There's still some left!"
Angie gasped, running over to look at the small coloring book he held. He opened up to the last pages of stickers and sure enough there were about five left.
"Now you can have more on your arm!" he said.
She threw her arms around him in a full-bodied hug. "Yay, DJ!"
Catherine smiled, running a hand over Angie's hair and kissing DJ's head gratefully as she passed them on her way out of the room.
When the kids came down for breakfast, Angie was sporting five dental-themed stickers around her bicep, held firmly in place by two colorful bandaids along the tops and bottoms of the row of stickers.
Catherine covered her mouth to hide her grin when Angie proudly showed off her arm.
Steve raised his eyebrows, fighting his own smile. "Whose idea was the bandaids?" he asked.
"Angie's," DJ said. "She wanted to use more but I said we need to keep them for real owies."
"That's right, we do," Catherine said. "But I think we can spare a couple for the important job of keeping stickers in place. That was good thinking all around." She handed DJ two empty cups and Angie four cloth napkins. "We thought we'd eat on the deck this morning. Can you bring these out to the table?"
"Okay, Mommy," DJ said. "Come on, Angie!"
They ran out of the kitchen, Angie bumping her shoulder on the doorway because she was looking at her arm instead of in front of her. When they heard the backdoor open and close, Catherine turned to Steve.
"You know what she's doing, right?" she asked.
"What's that?"
"She's trying to have an arm full of tattoos like her daddy." She ran a hand up one of biceps.
He grinned, then just as suddenly stopped, looking toward the window where they could see the kids starting to set the table on the deck. "How long till she gets the idea to use markers?"
"Honestly, I'm surprised she hasn't thought of it yet." She picked up a tray of fruit.
"You don't seem worried," he observed, getting the other tray full of whole-grain waffles.
Catherine shrugged as they made their way toward the backdoor. "Eh, they're washable."
"Washable, huh?" Steve repeated four days later after Angie showed off the drawings she had made on her arm after the stickers and bandaids had come off.
"How did she even find the Sharpies?" Catherine asked. "I hid them after she wanted to give Pumpkin stripes to make her look like Daniel Tiger."
"I think it's pretty clear we need to up our concealment game, Lieutenant."
They looked over to where Angie was proudly showing DJ, who had been at Michael's house for the afternoon, everything she had drawn and written on her arm.
Steve chuckled as he draped an arm over Catherine's shoulders. "At least she's in good company. I remember Danny telling me Grace did something similar when she was young."
"I suppose it is a bit of a childhood rite of passage," Catherine admitted with a smile.
"And one we'll always remember because they'll be in her birthday photos next week."
"We could probably wipe it off with rubbing alcohol," Catherine said.
He snorted. "Good luck with that."
She took his meaning given Angie's proud, radiant expression as she admired her new "tattoos."
"On the other hand," she said, "they'll be good photos to show her when she waltzes in on her eighteenth birthday with an actual tattoo."
He groaned. "I'm beginning to understand that t-shirt Danny showed me."
She glanced up at him curiously.
" 'Like father, like daughter. Oh crap.' "
She chuckled. "You didn't get your tattoos when you were eighteen," she pointed out.
"No," he acknowledged, as their gazes went back to their daughter. "But Angie's an overachiever."
Hope you enjoyed!
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