Matilda could feel the wave of anger emanating from Miss Honey's core as her flats stomped and pounded up the walkway behind her. With the palm of her hand pressed to Matilda's back, her adoptive mother forced her feet forward. Matilda felt like she was being led to the gallows.

"Get inside." Jennifer barked. Matilda watched as Jennifer tried and failed to get her house keys in the lock as the keyring shook and jangled in the trembling woman's hand. "Take off your shoes, go to your room and just, just stay there. " Matilda kicked her shoes off with a little more force than was necessary. This was so unfair! "You better knock that attitude off, young lady!"

"Or what? You'll make me stand in the corner?" Matilda growled between clenched teeth. She watched as Jennifer's face began to flush.

Matilda felt a small wave of satisfaction deep inside her. For reasons she couldn't comprehend, she wanted to get under the woman's skin. She knew in the back of her mind she loved Jenny more than she had ever thought she could love a fellow human being, but these last few weeks everything about the woman was irritating! The way she sing song called her name in the mornings! The way she always made her stay in her sights when they left the house! And wouldn't let her use the stove without her permission and supervision!

Matilda had been cooking for herself long before Miss Honey had come into her life!

It was just pancakes, Matilda thought bitterly. She could have at least said thanks.

"You know what? I have had it with your behavior lately! I don't know what's gotten into you! First the daycare window, and now t- this?" Miss Honey said followed by a choked back sob.

"You're overreacting." Matilda said with an eye roll.

"OVERREACTING? Matilda, do you have any idea how scared I was!? When I went to pick you up, they told me they couldn't find you! I called the police, Matilda! I was certain you had gotten snatched!"

"I was just messing around, like they told you." Matilda grumbled. "Didn't want to stop, you know, playing." she said quietly with a touch of sarcasm. In the blink of an eye, she found her cheeks pinched together between Jennifer's hand and her face pulled forward. Jennifer leaned down and forced her to meet her eyes.

"I called the police because I was certain that if my highly intelligent and mature daughter didn't come out after hearing her name frantically called for over ten minutes by seven different adults, it must mean she's either dead or not in the building! I thought I knew you better than to think you, of all people, would sit there not ten feet away underneath a table cloth, and let me believe the worst! That you'd rather sit there in the cold and listen to me cry, than to come out and let me know you were at least safe! That you-that you'd rather pee yourself than make the worst day of my life stop!"

"Worst day of your life?" Matilda said incredulously! "This was far from the worst day of your life! Worst day of your month maybe! I said I was sorry! It wasn't like that."

…..

"Then tell me what it was like?" The woman who sat cross legged on the carpet across from Matilda asked. "Look, i'm just throwing this out there, and see, maybe if it fits with all those feelings and emotions you say you can't explain. If it doesn't fit, that's totally okay."

Matilda sat in front of the therapist and stared down at the circle of marbles. She clearly wasn't interested in their game or she would have noticed something was amiss everytime Matilda took a turn. Her marble would hurdle forward, mysteriously turn directions, and knock out several marbles one at a time in ways that clearly disregarded the laws of motion despite barely being tapped.

She had been amused by a new game she made. It gave her such a rush. To see what she could get away with right in front of people. Could she make an object float in the air right outside their peripheral? If they saw it, how would they react? Would they assume it's a trick of the light, or would they believe what they were seeing? Questions like this poured into her mind, and she needed to know.

Mrs. Reinfield was apparently a trick of the light kind of person.

"Matilda, were you maybe a bit upset over what you've come to call the, 'wardens rules' at home and maybe, the reason you hid was because you felt just a little bit justified making her worry. Do you think maybe you hid because you wanted to punish her a little?" Mrs. Reinfield asked with her fingers indicating a minuscule amount.

Matilda brustled.

"No," she said a little too quickly. She lost concentration and fired. With a tiny tap of her thumb she had sent the marble shooting out and smashing every other marble in its path leaving behind a trail of glass.

Matilda slowly raised her head with a blank expression. How long could Mrs. Reinfield lie to herself?

"Matilda, let's put away the marbles; I know what you're doing, and yes, I've noticed what you can do and we can address that later if you wish, but right now-"

"I'm surprised she told you." Matilda stared at her for a moment. "I'm surprised you believed her."

Mrs. Reinfield let out a nervous chuckle and mumbled something that sounded like, "I may owe her an apology and new diagnosis.'But Miss Honey everyone thinks their child is exponentially smart and special'" she said in a mockery of her own voice.

Matilda made the marbles rise and twirl as Mrs. Reinfield stared in amazement before snapping back.

"Put the marbles down and let's talk about last night."

"Aren't you going to just accuse me of looking for attention again?" Matilda mumbled. She let the marbles drop before manually scooping them back into the bag.

"I wasn't accusing you of anything, last time. I'm not here to point fingers and assign blame." I'm here to help investigate what may have happened and hopefully help open a line of communication between you and your mom. You've brought up concerns of trust, and she wishes you would open up to her more."

"It didn't happen like they said." Matilda blurted out. "I wasn't hiding from them."

"If you weren't hiding, then what were you doing?"

"I was sleeping." Matilda said with a sniffle. "At first."

"But you must have woken up when everyone started yelling your name?" Mrs. Reinfield asked.

"Yeah." Matilda said, barely over a whisper. "I thought I was in trouble." She hung her head.

"Matilda, was there a particular reason you were sleeping underneath a table cloth? You could have laid down inside if you were feeling that tired, somewhere where'd they have known where you were?" Matilda shook her head.

"I can't just sleep out in the open. They'll pour water down my pants again." Matilda grumbled. "He got me put on the bed wetter list so now every time I even look sleepy they make me wear those stupid padded training underwear. He tried to pull me back into a plastic chair full of water so it looked like I had an accident during the day, but one of the helpers saw him do it."

"Who is doing this to you? Is one of the boys picking on you?"

" It's an old classmate from Miss Honey's class. We sort of unintentionally swapped shoes for an afternoon kick ball game and he's had it out for me ever since."

"Had it out for you how?"

"This one time Lavender,another one of my old classmates, yelled during class I was wearing a diaper, so now he goes out of his way to knock over my cup of water into my lap," Matilda finished with a huff.

"Is it at all possible he bumped into you accidentally?"

"No! He's been harassing me all week!"

"All week? So this hasn't been happening for, say, a few months?"

"No," Matilda said with a scrunched up face. "He used to be nice, until a few weeks ago. Now he goes out of his way to torment me. He just wants to look cool in front of Greggory, one of the guys from the highschool."

"You know you can tell me the truth here. You'll never be in trouble for telling me the truth."

Matilda scowled and looked away.

"Do you think, maybe, you had an accident that day and were just trying to assign blame because you were embarrassed? Because from what your mom has told me, Nigel, the boy you've been saying is picking on you, wasn't there the day you claimed he knocked over your cup."

"I don't want to talk about it." Matilda said flatly, trying to avert her gaze and stare at anything besides the woman with the long curly red hair.

"Alright, then let's talk about you smearing poop on the walls."

" I did NOT smear poop on the walls!" Matilda snapped. "They made it sound like I took my own poop and smeared it around inside the building! Someone didn't pick up after their dog, and I stepped in it! There weren't any sticks outside or grass to rub it off. I took my shoe off and scraped it clean using the bottom corner of the brick building."

Matilda conveniently left out the part where she had stepped in it on purpose in order to track it inside for the janitor to clean in order to cover the smell of her own accident.

"Your mother's concerned about this apparent shift in behavior. She said it was very unlike you to act out in such extreme ways. You're not in trouble, Matilda, but we need to get to the bottom of this."

Matilda said nothing.

"Did something happen at this day care that upset you?"

"It's an afterschool club, not a daycare." Matilda said icily. "I hate it there. It's just a bunch of snobby rich kids, like Nigel."

"Why though? Jennifer said you were so excited about it and said you had a blast the first couple of days, so she went ahead and prepaid for the rest of the summer."

"I changed my mind."

Mrs. Reinfield let out a small sigh.

"Alright, Matilda, that's it for today, I'll see you here next week at the same time." Matilda got to her feet and headed for the door. "Would you mind if I spoke to your mom for a few more minutes before you leave? I still need to apologize." The woman winked, but Matilda left with the same blank expression she had worn coming in.

"Please tell me you have some idea about what's going on?" Jennifer asked after lightly sitting on the couch and resting her face in her hands.

"I have some theories."

"Tell me!" Jennifer urged.

"I think a good first place to start would be with you."

"With me?" Jennifer said, raising her head in alarm.

"Yes, I think a good first step will be to manage your expectations."

"But-"

"Yes, I can see where you've been coming from. Yes, she's intelligent, yes, she's mature…for her age. She isn't an adult. Her brain isn't even close to being fully developed. She doesn't yet have the ability to think logically in the face of extreme emotions. Let me ask you something, Jennifer. You've told me she likes to 'punish' people, who in her opinion, have wronged her. Did you really think she was missing? "

"YES!" Jennifer nearly shouted.

"Or were you hurt that she felt you needed to be punished?"

Jennifer opened her mouth before closing it again. Had she known she was under the table the whole time? No, it was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Did something else happen yesterday? Before she went missing? Did you get in a fight at all?"

"N-no, it wasn't a fight, but she did throw quite the tantrum yesterday morning. I told her to eat some cereal for breakfast since I was too tired to cook and wanted to sleep in some more. She knows she isn't supposed to use the kitchen appliances, I've told her so many times it's too dangerous, she's only six, but she went behind my back and made pancakes. I found her eating them at the table when I came down."

"And how did you react?"

"Well, I told her I wasn't happy about her breaking the rules."

"And how did she react?"

"She threw a plate of them across the kitchen. Her behavior has been so out of control. She's deliberately breaking all the house rules, picking fights with people, back talking. It's just so not like her."

"From what you've told me about her past, this behavior isn't surprising."

"But she wasn't like this before!"

"The thing you have to understand about a young child coming from a neglectful home, is just because you remove them from the situation, it doesn't mean everything's going to be fine. Neglected children are some of the hardest to raise. From the time they are born, until around age five, a babies brain is developing and learning from social cues. From what you both have told me, Matilda never bonded with her biological parents. She never learned how to rely on other people for the things she needed. Now that she's in a safe environment, her brain may not be capable of turning that programming off. It's fully wired and ingrained in her that if she needs something, she has to do it herself.

I've seen several cases of attachment disorder; it doesn't matter if they are regularly fed three full meals a day, it's still common to see things like food hoarding and binge eating. Their brains are telling them that if they don't eat or hide away food, they may never eat again, and this can be a lifelong challenge."

"But why now? If that were the case, then wouldn't I have noticed this sort of behavior before?"

"There's been a lot of large changes that would set most children back. You've recently moved into your aunt's house."

"My fathers house." Jennifer corrected. "I'm almost done purging the house of her." She was one week, and a fresh coat of paint away from it being like she was never there at all. If only she could wash away the memories like she had washed the cigar smoke off the walls. "It was supposed to be a colossal improvement to our living situation but…" It felt more like all it had done was drive a knife in between their relationship.

"She's talked about you not allowing her to see her friends." Jennifer gritted her teeth.

"She can see her friends! I've offered to take her to Lavender, I've offered to have Lavender over, or anyone else, except…" The therapist raised an eyebrow. "It was for her own good. It's like everytime those two get together, Matilda gets hurt in some way. Everytime I'd go to pick her up, i'd have to take her to the hospital."

"Then what if you supervised them?"

"I'd just feel better if Matilda spent more time with kids her own age. The friend she wants to see is twice her age and size. Isn't that kind of weird? An eleven year old wanting to hang out with a six year old?"

"So your concern is more about what this other girl gets out of their friendship?"

"Well, yes and no. I mean, she's not the greatest influence. She has a reputation for causing trouble at school. I don't need Matilda picking up those habits. She's enough of a handful as is. The two of them together could tear down the school."

"Did Matilda's behavior begin to change before or after you separated them?"

"Before. I think." Jennifer said. She tried to remember. There was a day in particular that stuck out to her. "It was the very beginning of summer. We were shopping, Matilda was riding in the cart and she, well, she soiled herself." Jennifer said with a frown.

"Was she sick?"

"No, that's what was so bizarre. I mean, she's had issues in the past of wetting, but that was because of a physical issue."

"It's not unheard of, she's only six. She could have just put it off too long."

"No, it wasn't like that." Jennifer explained. Her eyebrows creased in concentration. "I've seen her wet her pants before. There's tears, apologies, and she panics like I'm going to punish her over it. She makes a much bigger deal out of it than I do. It would be different if she just waited too long out of laziness, but it's never been the case. Like when she first started living with me, it was difficult for her to tell me when she needed something, like if we were out and about. So for her to have a much worse accident and not react at all. The whole situation was very strange."

"So she was uncomfortable coming to you with her needs? Has this improved?"

"Yes, and I've learned to read her cue's, like when something is bothering her or she's not telling me something." Miss Honey twisted her hands together. "I don't know what to do."

"Well, a good place to start might be to unenroll her from the daycare."

"I've tried, but they won't give me my money back and they want to charge extra to pull her out. She can't seem to give me a straight answer as to why she doesn't like it. Everything she tells me turns out to be a lie. I don't know if she really doesn't like it or is saying it to frustrate me."

"I do think there is something deeper going on. It may not be as Matilda describes, but it's something. Between the personality changes, the tantrums, soiling herself, there's something going on. She could just not be able to articulate it, or maybe she's scared or embarrassed to tell you, but the idea that she's doing it on purpose to anger you is unlikely."

"Well, i'm not sure whether to be relieved or worried."

"I know you're not thrilled by the idea, but what if you invited her friend over to your house instead of Matilda going over there. She might be more willing to open up to her friend about what's going on."

"I'll think about it."