Big Girl (takes place concurrent with The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night-Time)
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he leaned down to swoop Ada up and carried her, still kicking and screaming down the hall. Amy gasped in shock. The ear-splitting howls got quieter, but probably because they were only getting further away; she heard the rumble of Sheldon's ice, and then the door to Ada's bedroom shut. Amy took a couple of tentative steps into the living room, when Sheldon rounded the corner from the hallway.
"What was that?" she asked.
"I decided I've had enough. Ignoring is not working. She needs to learn her actions have consequences. I told her that if she cannot control herself, then she can go to bed alone without a story." He had started his explanation with surety, but his voice shrank as he continued talking. By the time he shrugged at the end, it was a resigned shrug.
She didn't understand. She was having fun doing shapes with Daddy. She loved shapes with Daddy. Why did she have to stop and go to bed? She wasn't tired. Shapes with Daddy was more fun. She just wanted Mama and Daddy to understand how much she'd rather do shapes. But then Daddy had picked her up and carried her to bed. He told her that if she could not control herself, then she could go to bed alone without a story. But she loved the stories! They were her favorite! Why couldn't she have both shapes with Daddy and stories? It was too hard to ask when she was crying. Daddy said controlling herself meant not screaming and crying and kicking, but using her words. If she used her words, Mama and Daddy would understand her. He said Mama and Daddy didn't speak screaming. Then he said he was leaving her alone to think.
Ada didn't mean to make Daddy unhappy. She always knew when Daddy was unhappy. He had an unhappy voice, deeper than usual. Mama frowned when she was unhappy, but sometimes she tried to hide it, so it was harder to tell.
Maybe Daddy was unhappy because of The Schedule. Daddy loved The Schedule. The Schedule had Always Been. Ada did not understand why, but she usually liked The Schedule, too. The Schedule felt comfortable, like her favorite shirt with the unicorn on it. The Schedule was rhythmic. The Schedule helped her fall asleep. The Schedule reassured her that food was coming. But The Schedule said there would be a story. The story was the best part of the day.
Right now, the story was long. It was about a girl named Laura who lived in a little house in a big woods. The story did not end before bed. Mama said it was a chapter story, one of her favorites. Ada almost cried the first night, because she didn't understand, because she wanted the end of the story. But Mama said no, there would be one chapter each night. Then Daddy came in his unhappy voice and told her not to whine, it would teach her patience. Ada repeated the word, "patience," because she didn't understand it and she wanted Daddy to talk about it. She liked it when Daddy talked about things. Then Mama and Daddy had smiled but it was that smile they only smiled at each other. Then Daddy had said patience was endurance under difficult circumstances. She wasn't sure what that meant either, but Daddy's unhappy voice was gone as he kept talking and she was so very sleepy . . .
Ada wanted to know what happened to the girl named Laura. They had just killed a pig to eat it. Ada already knew about that because at school they had talked about farms and they sang a song about Old McDonald Had a Farm. In school, her teacher still read them books with pictures. Laura's story only had a few pictures. Ada liked Laura's story but she wanted it to have pictures, too. Her favorite books were when the words and the pictures were one.
Daddy took her to see where Uncle Stuart worked sometimes. Daddy said work was like school for grown-ups. There were books there, but not like the books Mama read to her. In these books the words and the pictures were one. Daddy liked those books, and he read them to her sometimes. He even bought her own book like that. But why weren't the pictures and the words always one?
This was very confusing to Ada. Jacob told her books with pictures were for babies. But Daddy liked books with pictures. Why couldn't she like them too? Jacob was fun, and she liked to play with him. But sometimes he was mean and told her she was a baby. But she knew what a baby was, a baby was like Fenny or Lucy. She wasn't a baby. She knew she wasn't a baby because Mama had said once she used the potty all the time, even if she woke up in the middle of the night, she would be a big girl. And she had been doing that for a long time now. Mama and Daddy had even given her a big girl bed.
Last time she saw Jacob he was mean and bossy. He told her all her puzzles were baby puzzles. Ada said they were not! Jacob said they would have a race and the last person to finish a puzzle was the baby. He picked the puzzle of monkeys and gave her the puzzle of robots. He took all of the pieces out and mixed them together on the floor. "Ready, set, go!"
Ada finished her puzzle first, but then she didn't understand what happened. Jacob started to cry, and Aunt Bernadette had to hold him. All her other aunts and uncles stopped talking and just looked at their food. They must have been very hungry, which Ada didn't understand because they had been eating for a long time already. Then Aunt Bernadette told Jacob it wasn't a real race.
"It was too a race! I won!" Ada had said. She didn't understand, and she felt like maybe she was going to have to get on the floor again and kick to show everyone that she didn't understand.
But then Mama picked her up instead and whispered, "Now is not the time, sweetheart. Jacob is sad, and we don't make people feel more sad than they already are."
Mama squeezed her tight, and Ada liked it when Mama held her close. Mama was soft and warm. She didn't understand why Mama didn't want her to talk about it, but Mama had made it so that she didn't want to get on the floor and kick anymore. Then Daddy winked at her over Mama's shoulder, so she knew it was a real race and she knew she won and she knew she wasn't a baby.
Daddy. Daddy was picking her up, but it was too hard to open her eyes to look at him. Then she was back in bed again, but warmer. Daddy had put the blankets on her. Daddy smelled like soap.
Then she was riding a unicorn through the big woods and Wonder Girl was with her and all the trees looked like the shapes Daddy had told her about and there were words floating like clouds and she loved it when the shapes and the words were one and she was so very happy. . .
Ada will remember none of this. As her mother had once wisely pointed out, her hippocampus and amygdala will not be fully developed for at least another year, and those parts of the brain are vital for memory storage.
However, her first impression will stay with her always. It is vague, short, intense, more of a feeling than an event. There is a field of white. There are shapes. She knows the names of the shapes. Daddy is speaking. Mama is smiling. There is the feeling. The feeling, like The Schedule, has Always Been, too. She is Loved.
Thank you in advance for your reviews! They really do mean the world to me.