“TILE, baby. Look! You were *right*. At the marketplace… just like you said.”
“Yeah, me *big* now. 12.” She kept her grin while opening her hands to display 10 fingers and then not flashing the additional, needed 2 to complete. Psychic, if not the brightest.
“You sure are, Pumpkin,” Cloris Bleachman said, trying to overlook the miscounting; scrub it from her mind. Perhaps 12 is sometimes 10 in this new math they teach at school these days, she rationalized. But not far underneath the fake shiny surface she knew this was a lie. Poor Betty. Good thing she has this psychic ability or else her life would be ruined. And maybe she’ll turn out to be a looker later on, able to use her body for material gain if not her mind. Attract the right kind of husband, Cloris meant here of course. One with green in his pockets.
“See here?” she called to gain her child’s attention again. “Red, blue, yellow… just like you said,” she tested.
Betty stuck out her arms and twirled around in place, reciting back, “red… yellow… *blue*,” with the “blue” making her come to a stop again, arms all wrapped up around her before dropping by her side once more.
“And…?” Cloris encouraged. “Come on, Betty. You said it before. Look here.” She resorted to pointing. “What’s this in this here, er, dish? The last one.”
Getting on her tippy toes and taking a gander, Betty heard a hissy “Am I nothing?” in her head and decided not to answer, also seeing the face. She knew not to cross it unless to mark out of existence. And she wasn’t ready for that. She enjoyed her powers and didn’t want to relinquish them… to him.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 