Kylie seated calmly by the toilet, with its lid propped up against the tank.
Kylie stared deep into the toilet bowl, and Sadie swallowed nervously.
“Kylie?”
The little girl jerked around in surprise at her mother’s entry. She bit her lip as she looked up.
“Problems,” she announced matter-of-factly.
Sadie felt a growing hysteria. “What kind of problems, Kylie?”
“Grandma’s ring.”
Sadie’s eyes widened. “Her wedding ring?”
“The volcano took it—just like Malibu Ken’s leg!” Kylie stated this with an indignation that indicated that all of this was the volcano’s doing and that five-year-old girls were merely innocent bystanders to this type of injustice.
“KYLIE!”
She looked up with enough innocence to charm the saints. “What, Mommy?”
Sadie got down on her hands and knees and held her hair off her neck as she stared, along with Kylie, into the toilet bowl.
“What were you doing with Grandma’s ring?”
Kylie frowned at her as if grown-ups shouldn’t be asking those types of questions. “Kylie tried to put it up her nose.”
Sadie’s gaze snapped from the toilet to her daughter.
“You what ?”
Kylie sighed. The tediousness of adults. “Jasper said that canninabals”—Sadie quickly translated this to cannibals— “wear rings in their noses. Kylie wanted to be a canninabal.”
“Kylie, you’re not a cannibal!”
“But Kylie wants to be! Jasper said that maybe the canninabals took Malibu Ken’s leg!”
“When Jasper gets here, you can give him to the cannibals. Tell him Mommy gave you permission!”
Sadie rolled up the sleeve of her beaded mesh top as far as it would go and plunged her hand into the commode, glowering as she felt along the toilet’s basin and attempting not to think of all the things that had been in this dark hole before.
Kylie watched her with fascination.
“Mommy, you look pretty.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
“Can Kylie do that next?”
“Do what, baby?”
“Stick her arm in the volcano?”
“ No .”
“Do you wanna hear a joke, Mommy?” Kylie grinned mischievously. “What did one volcano say to the other?”
Sadie bit her lip and strained her fingers, desperately hoping to feel the smooth circle of her mother’s wedding band. “What?”
“I lava you,” Kylie sang out.
Sadie smiled faintly at this. Just then, the doorbell rang.
“Oh, thank heavens! Kylie, that’s Jasper. Go and bring him up here.”
Kylie scrambled to her feet and thundered from the bathroom as Sadie continued to explore the inner realms of the toilet’s interior. She couldn’t feel a thing but cold porcelain. This did not rank up there with life’s most pleasant experiences.
“Kylie! Bring Jasper up here! Tell him Mommy needs help!”
She began mumbling to herself, a personal tirade that involved a lengthy description of what she thought about Malibu Ken and Jasper, as well as a few choice details on nose-piercing cannibals and the island paradise that was otherwise recognized as Sadie’s bathroom.
“It’s not Jasper, Mommy.”
Sadie shifted, with her arm still submerged in the toilet, to see Kylie standing in the bathroom doorway and Dmitri Velichko towering behind her.
Sadie gulped and pulled her hand from the bowl. It dripped water across her skirt and onto the tile.
“Uh…hi there.”
Can life get any worse at this present moment?
Dmitri smiled with pure amusement. “Hello,” he responded. “Kylie mentioned something about volcanoes eating Mommy’s hand.”
“And Grandma’s canninabal ring,” Kylie added.
Sadie reached for a towel but found she didn’t have the strength to stand. Her knees were weak with mortification.
“My mother’s ring,” Sadie attempted to explain. “Kylie attempted to stick it up her nose because Jasper”—here she made a face of extreme annoyance—“mentioned something about cannibals, rings in their noses, and Malibu Ken’s leg. So apparently the ring fell into the volcano, er,
Frankie Blue
john thompson
Alaina Stanford
Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright
C.W. Gortner
Helena Newbury
Jessica Jarman
Shanna Clayton
Barbara Elsborg
James Howard Kunstler