Cassie twisted and took a look around. People’s ears burned when you talked about them. “Took a twenty dollar bill to bring the niceness out,” she said. “Maybe she’s not an A, but I don’t think she’s an L, either?”
“Then what?”
“I think she’s an M.”
I hadn’t considered there might be a third side. “Middle?” I asked, referring to the Tweeners’ less common nickname.
Cassie grinned. “No, dummy. Money.”
Not quite an hour later we had torn apart our chicken, and had plenty of leftovers for the next day. I don’t know how Amazons ever managed to breed or raise a bird that big but it’s a goddamn miracle. Delicious. Roasted to savory perfection, with just a dab of sweet sauce for a perfect flavor combination. The grease from the fries really hit the spot, too. More Yoga was definitely in my future, but that was a “tomorrow” problem.
“NO DADDY! PLEASE NO! NOT IN PUBLIC! NOT IN PUBLIC! NOOOOOOOOOO!”
I whipped my head around. The Amazons and not quite a dozen Tweeners eating looked up from their meals towards the entering family, and then went right about their business, tuning the pleading and screaming out. Everyone did that, save for me and Cassie. We kept looking…
An Amazon family, a fussy kid hanging over the man’s shoulder, entered the restaurant. Nothing surprising there. This was a mostly Amazon town. The kid was not happy. To Amazon eyes, it made sense. Slung over her Daddy’s shoulder, anyone could see the pretty yellow dress and the soaking wet diaper poofing out from underneath it. Her diaper almost matched the dress in color. Poor thing was probably about to leak.
A warning pat to her wet bottom was all that was needed to get her to quiet down. Then came the usual: Table for three. Yes they’d need a highchair. And then “Where’s the men’s room?”
That set the kid off. “PLEEEEEASE! LET MOMMY CHANGE ME AT LEAST! GIRL’S ROOM! GIRL’S ROOM! PLEEEEEASE!” Her last few cries came out in a bouncing sob. Like “PLE-E-E-E-E-E-E-EEEEASE!” and “NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-OOOOO! ”
That’s because this kid wasn’t a kid at all. She wasn’t a baby girl, just a Little one. It was hard to tell how old she was. She could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty for all I could tell. It was always hard to tell. Hair got dyed and pulled back into pigtails or cut into bowls. Freckles and blush got added with next gen cosmetics skin dyes- tattoos softer cuddlier cousins. Wrinkles were reduced with special creams.
Plenty of non-Littles think we age slower than the Amazons. Our morbidity is so compressed that it’s not until the very end that we start to look “old”. All you really needed to spot the lie was a daring eavesdrop in an Amazon beauty salon that “caters” to us, (or, y’know, just hang out with Littles that weren’t baby dolled up). We really were just dolls to them.
Cassie and I froze in place; Cassie remembering to wipe a dab of sauce off her mouth, just in case. It was almost nine on a school night. We thought we had come late enough to avoid seeing this. Captured Littles have early bedtimes.