Interlude: Actions and Consequences

Sweet was good.

Food was good unless veggies, but sweet was gooder-better. Lyra sucked more sweet from her bowl, happy in her chair.

Lemy was happy because he got a sweet too but he was fat because he kept stealing lollies when Moms and Dad don't looking. Like now, he was looking at her sweet like he wanted more- but Lyra was smarter so she pulled hers away and-

SLPPSH!

Oh no.

All the sweet fell out the bowl.

"Lyra?" Dad was looking. "Wh- dang it,"

Dad pulled out a clean tissue from his bag and cleaned up all of Lyra's sweet. "What happened?"

"Lemy want my sweet!" Lyra explained- pointing at the fat greedy pig boy with a big open mouth for gobbling.

"Nu-uh, I don't do it!" Lemy lied really bad!

"Hmm," Dad was looking at her like she did a bad thing! "But you still threw your sweets out didn't you?"

"Yea…" the bowl was in her hand. "But Lemy-"

"If Lemy steals your sweets we'll punish him then," Dad said dadly. "But right now it's bathtime so lets get ready-"

"Bath? But not done!" Dad got closer and got ready to take her sweets but the bowl still had stuff in it! Lyra quickly stuck her spoon in to get it- but it only got a little bit of the sweet so she used her finger to get more off.

"Lyra…" Dad stopped so she could get the last white gooey bits.

Lemy was a pig though and Dad noticed this time!

"Lemy, don't eat like a dog!" the gross boy was holding his bowl on his face again and licking it. Dad was annoyed and pulled it off him- and Lemy had bits of sweet all in his stupid poofy hair.

"Heeey!" Lemy whinged.

"Use your spoon- or least a finger like Lyra," Dad grumbled and took Lyra's bowl away too. But it was fine because there was only sweet-tasting spit on it now anyway. "You're lucky it's bath time or you'd be getting the rag again."

Lyra's face screwed up as she remembered the The Rag. It was a nasty long cloth thing that dad kept in his bag with all the other stuff. If someone got sticky after bathtime he got it out and scrubbed their face with it and soapy water- and it wasn't fun!

"Bath?" Lemy's eyes were doing that funny thing when they poked out a little-

Wait?

"Not bath!" Lyra demanded in horror; they'd had one yesterday!

"Yeah, no bath!" Lynn also said, clapping her hands down in her chair table thing.

"No bah!" Lari said too and started saying it a lot. Sooner everyone else was saying it too except the grownups who were making that weird face like they were thinking about something nasty.

"Lyra come on!" Lemy waved at her.

Lyra looked at him, and saw he was already out of his chair and was climbing down. Lyra gasped as she realised what was happening- they were running away!

Lari and Lacy always ran away after Lunchtime so that maybe if they stayed away long enough the grownups would forget about them until after Bathtime. But they got caught because they're not smart, but Lyra was smart and Lemy was smart enough to know she was smart so he was helping her escape so they could escape together!

The grownups were busy because everyone was talking about no baths so Lyra pulled herself out of her chair and started climbing down- her sticky finger helped even!

Lemy was waiting for her at the bottom and helped catch her with his head, but she shushed him and pointed to the white wall the grownups put up to stop them running away.

"How we go through?" Lemy wondered.

Lyra thought about it. The wall had a door in it, but the grownups locked it and the lock was outside- but the lock was really easy- even Lemy or Auntie Leni could open it.

"Idea!" Lyra proclaimed quietly. "I go over and undo lock, then you go through too!"

"How you undo lock?" Lemy asked her like she was lying.

"I use broom!" Lyra ponted to a broom on the other side of the wall.

That made sense; "okay." Lemy nodded and they snook over to the door.

"How you go up?"

Lyra pointed at Lemy. "You hold me up!"

"Why me hold you?"

"Because I'm going over."

Lemy frowned, "but- ummm-"

Lyra looked around- the grownups were nearly done. "Quick! quick!"

Lemy grumbled but tried to grab her anyway, and tried to push her up by the foots so she could grab a sidewise wood part- but he was too weenie to push her up enough! Lyra frowned and took her foot out of his hand- and pushed off of his head instead!

Lemy gasped in shock and let go- but Lyra was faster and grabbed onto the sideways wood at the top and pulled herself over.

But the top parts were all pointy so she couldn't stay- she just fell over the top and on the other side, landing on her bottom.

"Owww," she whinged.

"Lyra!" Dad's voice sounded mad, she looked back slowly and saw Dad giving her Early Bedtime Eyes.

"Oh no!" She gasped, and quickly went to run away- there was a good hiding place in-

"Wwwwmmnn," something sounded hurt and Lyra looked back to see Lemy holding his eye.

"Lemy?"

A single big tear came out of his good eye and his face turned red as he started to sob. Lyra stumbled forward and reached through the bars at him, but he turned away. Lyra just sat there, unsure of what to do next. Then she remembered her foot pushing into his head- and understood why Lemy was crying.

"I-I sorry Lemy!" She called out, but Lemy just cried harder. Suddenly he was scooped up into Dad's white shirted arms and Lyra felt herself lifted up the handle on her back.

She looked up and saw Auntie Leni's face- but it was sad.

"I sorry."

Lyra didn't go to the bath after all.

Instead she stayed with Auntie Leni in the kitchen, while everyone else went upstairs. She tried to say something but Leni wasn't talking very much- she didn't seem angry but she was quiet in a way that was scarier than if she was yelling at her. Not that Auntie Leni really yelled but it probably would have felt better if she did.

They stayed that way for a really long time, but when Dad came down Lyra wanted it to be longer.

Dad came over to the table and nodded to Auntie, who got up and left Lyra with him. She was sat down in a chair, not her big chair but one of the adult ones that didn't have any sideways handles for her to climb down from. Dad was right across and he seemed scary too even though he didn't look angry.

"Lyra, do you know what you did?"

Lyra looked up at him, but she couldn't look at his face she looked at his shoulder ins-

"Look at me Lyra."

She looked closer to his eyes, but not right at the blue part- more around his nose instead.

"What do you think you did?"

Lyra sniffed as she spoke, "I p-popped Lemy's e-e-e-uuhrh- ISORRYISORRYISORRY-"

She babbled and broke as she cried.

Suddenly there was something warm around her, but she couldn't see what since her eyes were running too much.

"Lemy's eye will be okay," Dad was hugging her. "It's not forever, but he's going to have a nasty bruise because of what you did to him."

Lyra felt hiccups coming up and Dad left for a bit, then came back with some water in her purple sippy cup. He let her drink some down in between sobs and she felt a bit better.

"Can you talk now?"

Lyra nodded, "yea."

"Do you want to apologise to Lemy?"

Lyra nodded again.

Dad let out a breath, "well, he probably doesn't want to see you right now- we'll have to wait for an hour first okay?"

"Okay…" Lyra hiccupped again.

"… and I'm going to have to talk to your Moms about what kind of punishment you'll be getting."

Lyra trembled and felt like she was shrinking a bit. "D-do you have to?"

Dad was sure. "Sorry Lyra, but you need to be punished for this. You didn't just make a little problem like running from bathtime, you hurt Lemy."

That was true. She hurt Lemy really bad- so bad she thought his eye popped. But she didn't want Moms to know!

"B-but, I go bed early for month instead!" She offered. "I let Lemy have my toys for ages too, no need to know!"

Dad was doing that weird breathing again, "it's not just about me punishing you Lyra, it's about them knowing that Lemy was hurt and they have to know."

Lyra looked up at Dad's blue eyes properly, "please Dad- I don't want them to know it."

Dad's face was sad, and so were his eyes. She could feel his arms around her again and he pulled her up into a kind of hug before he sat down in her chair.

"I know how you feel Lyra, but it's not going to change that you did the bad thing." She sniffled again and he let her push her face into his orange shirt. "But what can change things is if you prove that you're really sorry."

"How?" she mumbled into his shirt.

She felt his arms move, and suddenly Dad's fingers were under her chin, and he gently pushed her face up and out so she was looking up at him again. "You can start by telling Lemy you're sorry, after that I'll let you tell your side of the story to your moms tonight before we decide anything alright? That way you can show them that you mean it."

Lyra nodded again, and hiccupped and cried for a bit longer.

Lincoln and his daughter stayed in the Kitchen for another fifteen minutes, though Lyra was sure it was longer. By the time they went up Lemy was fully patched up by Lisa (though 'creative solutions' were off the table by familial decree) and he was ready to talk to Lyra.

He said no to her first apology, still sour about being kicked in the face. But her burst of tears instantly evaporated his bitterness and they ended up crying together.

Lyra ended up crying again that night when she had to explain herself to her Moms through the tablet and had to stop partway through. Lincoln finished the story with her, and after a bit of discussion outside the nursery the three parents agreed that Lyra would indeed suffer a few punishments. But perhaps not as many as if she had tried to deny her actions.

The point however was made, and while Lyra was still somewhat rambunctious- she was a bit more careful with her brother from now on. A little nicer and less petty from what she was like before.

She even stopped calling him fat for a whole week before they resumed their usual rivalry. But for a toddler that was practically a lifetime's atonement anyway.