(scene opens in min-van)
Gamma: Mom? What’s your favorite character in the Shadow and Bone books?
Me: Genya.
Gamma: (slightly disappointed) Oh.
Me: If you could be any Grisha, what type would you want to be?
Gamma: (without hesitation) Heartrender.
Me: (not surprised in the least) Good choice.
Gamma: What would you be?
Me: Tailor.
Gamma: (more disappointed) Oh.
Me: Maybe Inferni. It’s hard to choose.
Carrot’s Inside voice: Don’t lie, you’d be a Durast.
(scene opens in dining room, Carrot wincing as she ices the sole of her foot. Husband enters from kitchen.)
Husband: (expansively) You picked the best weekend to go camping with the Girl Scouts tomorrow!
Me: (wearily) Oh yeah? Heat index out of control?
Husband: No! Its because I have to be up all night!
Me: (suspicious) Why?
Husband: Sandman drops today and I have to binge watch!
Me: (outraged) Not without me!
Husband: I’ll watch it again a dozen times over!
(camera swaps between Carrot’s Murder Face and Husband’s look of Chaotic Glee a half dozen times)
Me: (sighs, checks watch) All the kids are in bed by 8. We’re pulling an all nighter.
Husband: On the big T.V.?
Me: Of course.
(scene opens in dim foyar)
Gamma: (skipping downstairs) Mom! I lost a tooth!
Me: (frazzled) Well, give it to me so I can put it in the Tooth Fairy Box.
Gamma: (stops, startled) I don’t know where it is.
Me: What do you mean? Go back upstairs and get it.
Gamma: I woke up without it.
Me: You lost it in your sleep?
Gamma: Yeah, I think I swallowed it.
Me: Seriously. (suspicious) Did you go to bed with the tooth and wake up without it?
Gamma: (confused) No, I didn’t have it before bed last night. Maybe it’s down here.
Me: (headache starts) So, you wiggled it and it fell out last night before you went to bed. Do you remember where you were when it fell out?
Gamma: I might have been at school.
Me: Why do you only loose teeth at school? Did you drop it? Did you leave it in your desk?
Gamma: (vacantly) I don’t know. I think it just fell out.
Me: (flatly) It just fell out. It fell out of your mouth without you noticing.
Gamma: Maybe?
Me: Or was there suddenly this weird thing in your mouth and you just swallowed it?
Gamma: (disinterested) I might have done that.
Carrot’s Inner Voice: Child, I am seriously starting to doubt your intellectual capacity.
Me: (out loud) Well, I can’t help you then. Get your shoes on and let’s get to school.
Gamma: (recovered) I can just write a note to the Tooth Fairy explaining.
Me: You write a lot of notes to the Tooth Fairy.
(scene opens at cluttered dinning room table)
Alpha: (at laptop) Mom, how do you spell relativ….reali…rel
Me: Relativity?
Alpha: Relatively.
Beta: (hovering around for no reason) He’s looking for a word that rhymes with “orange”.
Me: R-E-L-A-T-I-V-E-L-Y. And “door hinge”.
(stunned silence follows, boys stare, Carrot drinks coffee)
Beta: (mimes mind being blown)
Alpha: Holy shit.
Me: Language.
Alpha: No. Mom. Holy shit. You rhymed orange. That’s insane.
Me: (raises coffee mug and shrugs) Maybe now you’ll believe me when I tell you I know a thing?
(scene opens in a narrow mud room)
Me: Alpha, I wanted to show you what I got and I hope I don’t embarrass you too much wearing it.
Alpha: (looks up from tying shoes to see mother in a Starfleet Letterman hoodie) Nice.
Me: Am I cool?
Alpha: Nerdy cool.
Gamma: What does that say?! (points to patch)
Me: Starfleet Academy. Ex Astris, Scientia. “From the stars, knowledge”.
Gamma: Can I go! I want to go too! I want to go to the Starfleet!
Me: (hugs her) I’m sorry sweetie, it doesn’t exist. Yet.
Gamma: (outraged look of betrayal) Why not!
Me: We haven’t met the Vulcans or developed the Warp Drive yet.
Gamma: What’s Warp Drive?
Me: A way to travel through space in less time.
Gamma: Time and space? Like Dr. Who? Or is that Dr. Strange?
Me: No. Starfleet travels through space, Dr. Who travels through time and space, and Dr. Strange is just magic.
(scene opens in crowded foyer, conversation in progress)
Gamma: I don’t want my toys to become voodoo!
Beta: No, your toys aren’t voodoo, there are dolls called voodoo dolls.
Gamma: But that’s scary! I don’t want voodoo dolls.
Beta: Your dolls don’t become voodoo dolls, they’re something totally different.
Gamma: But they hurt people! If you punch them don’t I get hurt?
Beta: I don’t know how it works actually.
Me: (rubbing forehead) It’s time to go, guys. Let me get my jacket on and I’ll explain sympathetic magic to you on the way to school, okay?
Gamma: Yay! Mommy is teaching us magic!
