Mimi's Demons

Chapter 23: How to Play with Barbies

Serena was beginning to wonder if she liked traumatized kids.

Healthy, normal kids were the annoying ones. They feared nothing and you always had to keep an eye on them or yell at them or figure out tricks to make them obey. Getting them to be grateful was like pulling teeth, then there was all the other things you had to teach them so they'd act like sane human beings.

Traumatized kids, though, they'd had the fear of God struck in them. It was all, "Yes, ma'am," and "Thank you, ma'am," and they never complained about what they were fed. They obey because they know why they're being told such things, having lived on the other side of adult protection, and they'd been burned enough to know not to touch the stove so you didn't have to constantly watch them like a hawk.

Or, maybe, she just liked this kid. This was a bit kinder to Serena's conscience, but Serena had never been all that kind to herself.

The chit, or 'Mimi,' still tried to act tough. She quickly showed her whip-like wit and asked for medical books—medical books! Not toys or videogames or movies, medical books! More specifically medical history books on the development of surgery and battlefield first-aid.

Sure, Duke was more than happy to have some peon dump a cartload of the most popular girls toys on the girl's bedroom floor (a bedroom with bars over the windows and a guard at the door 24/7), but the girl had merely looked at them, sniffed, and turned back to her book. Serena wondered if the girl was old enough to understand that nothing in the world came for free and that's why she kept away from the toys.

After a few days of this, followed by the chit getting more withdrawn after the processing of her name change, talking to the Brain Doc, and getting through some standardized testing, Serena decided, peaceful and easy as the girl was, it wasn't healthy.

"Do you even know how to play with toys?" she asked one afternoon as she set out the girl's juice and snacks. She was getting paid extra to be nursemaid alongside a reduced cleaning schedule. Apparently the girl had liked the other cleaning ladies even less than Serena.

"I'm practically a teenager," she'd said from her place on her bed, not looking away from her open book. In one hand she flipped the only thing she'd brought from the street, a folded, scrimshaw pocket knife, from one side to the other. Serena hadn't tried taking it, knowing better than to take a street kid's defense, but she had told the boss and wondered why he hadn't done anything yet. At least Serena hadn't seen any new cuts yet, at least.

"Right. You're birthday was three months ago. You're barely eleven."

"Creep," she chirped, as she always did when Serena popped out information Mimi had never told her. It's almost like she expected Serena to not have eyes or know how to read.

"I can always just take back the juice and snacks."

"You're glorious and magnanimous, thank god for making you," said Mimi in the flattest tone.

Serena took only a moment to be impressed by the girl's vocabulary.

"Okay, that's it." She reached over and closed The Breath of Life: A History on Lung Medicine.

"Hey!"

"Ass on the floor. We're playing."

"Most adults would celebrate a kid reading, what's your deal?"

"You're the one being a creep. A kid's work is play. If you don't play you're going to grow up into a crooked, lonely adult."

Mimi's adoptive father and Serena's employer was a perfect example of that.

Thankfully, being a broken kid and all, Mimi didn't rebel, so when Serena came back with a case of Barbie dolls with way too expensive clothes (she'd cried inside when Mimi didn't so much as look at them, glittering and probably spun with real silk), Mimi was still sitting there, the scrimshaw pocket knife back in hiding.