The rest of the day passed slowly. Mommy made good on her threat to have me seated on the toilet every fifteen minutes, and it actually felt as if she were making the toileting trips happen even more frequently than that. And she was also true to her word about me not getting anything to drink, which was made worse by the fact that she allowed Elaine to have a soda during lunch.

I jerked upright in my chair as the long-awaited ring from the doorbell finally came late into the afternoon. Elaine and I remained in the living room at our school desks. Though I could hear mommy and daddy talking with at least two people near the front door, but I couldn’t make out what they are saying.

“Elaine, Annabelle, come over here,” daddy called out calmly.

I recognized the first of the two visitors instantly, as his uniform and the handcuffs and handgun on his belt gave him away as a policeman. I didn’t know what the woman who was standing next to him was supposed to be. A badge was stitched onto the woman’s otherwise nondescript jacket, with the letters “CPS” emblazoned on it.

“And you are homeschooling both your daughters?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” mommy said. “And we’re fully registered with the state to do so.”

“What grade are they in?”

“They are both in fourth grade”

“But I thought they weren’t the same age.”