Hanna crouched down by the wall of the pantry. Her father would be coming into the kitchen soon, and she could pop up and yell "Boo!", a game her mother had taught her. The young girl giggled with anticipation. She heard her parents talking.
"No, Able. No more." Clarice said. "I'm putting my foot down."
Hannibal laughed. "What are you so worried about?"
"I'm worried that she'll end up like you." Clarice told him point blank.
"And what's wrong with that?" Hannibal asked. "It's my cannibalism that brought us together."
Clarice gave a cry of frustration.
"Besides," Hannibal said. "It should be her choice, not ours. Oh, stop pouting. She doesn't like kidney."
"But she can't get enough of the sweetbreads. And don't tell me it should be her choice. She's three years old! She's incapable of making decisions like that. I do NOT want her to wind up in a prison like you did, I do not want her to be on the Top 10 Most Wanted, I do not want her to kill people, and I DON'T WANT HER EATING HUMANS!!" Clarice yelled.
"Boo!" Hanna shouted, jumping out. Hannibal and Clarice spun around, the look of shock on their faces very evident. "I scared you!" She said happily.
"Hanna Clara, did you hear Mummy and Father talking?" Hannibal asked, kneeling down.
"Uh-huh." The child nodded. "What's cabalism?"
"Cannibalism." Hannibal corrected. "It's when someone eats a bad person." Hannibal said.
"You're going to scare her!" Clarice exclaimed.
"I'm not scared." Hanna informed her. "We eat bad persons?" She asked her father.
"Yes, we do, Lamb." Hannibal said gently. "But if you don't want to, you don't have to."
"I wanna eat bad persons. Bad persons are bad." Hanna declared.
"Darling, you shouldn't eat any people, good or bad." Clarice said.
"Father does." Hanna said.
"Sometimes your Father is wrong." Clarice said, glaring at him.
"I eat bad persons." Hanna declared.
"Lamb, you can't tell anyone about this. Not a single person. Not your friends, not your babysitters, no one." Hannibal said.
"Ok." Hanna said. "Why?"
"Because," Clarice said, "It's against the law to eat people."
"Oh." Hanna said. "Mummy, lets go outside." She said, taking her mother's hand and pulling it.
Hanna laughed. "Mummy wasn't too happy on the topic, was she?"
"She became a vegetarian soon after you were born." Hannibal told her. "I found it charming, that she held on to some of her principles."
Hanna nodded. "She really missed out, though." She said as she pulled the casserole of human brain and beef out of the oven.
"I didn't want to pressure her." Hannibal said. "I'm just glad she let you join me."
"She had some rules, though. The meat had to be cooked, I couldn't kill anyone, if I knew who was being served and I knew them personally, I couldn't eat it." Hanna ticked the rules off on her fingers.
"She just wanted to protect you." Hannibal said. "She didn't want you to become a sociopath. Speaking of, didn't you turn in your report on Friday?"
"Mmmhmmm. We'll get it back on Monday."
