Day 6 of 30 days of Fiction: “6) Write a scene with people talking, but without any actual dialog”

This is the direct sequel to Visiting the Neighbors.

My middle child was very persuasive.

I shouldn’t be surprised; she’s her father’s daughter as much as she’s mine. But she, the best and worst of both of us, was leaning every single bit of her not-inconsiderable inherited charm on me. Wheedling. Arguing. Bargaining.

My darling husband, who might have stood a chance, had ceded the field to me, claiming that this counted, in division of labor, as a “mom argument.” Bless him. And I, who was never the charmer they were, was stuck using cold hard logic against all the convincing powers a ten-year-old could put forth.

She wanted to babysit the neighbor’s newly-hatched baby. Not the Halflings down the road, or even the harpy-people, no, my baby girl wanted to babysit a baby dragon. And she was pouring on the pleases and promises and coaxing and sulking.

I’d been married to her father for twenty-five years. I stood there, the immovable object, telling her no. No. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t even feasible. How could she change a diaper she couldn’t touch? How would she deal with acid spit-up? The thing had a siren cry that made those harpies sound quiet. And her schoolwork was just getting really intense. She was going to need good grades now to get into a good academy.

Still she pled. She’d be good. She’d do the dishes. She’d give half her earnings to charity. It would be good for her applications, inter-species work. After-school job. Responsibility and civic duty. The baby was so cute.

Still I balked. It wasn’t safe, it wasn’t healthy, and she wasn’t equipped to handle the needs of a dragon infant. She might hurt the baby. She might get hurt. I might have a heart attack. She could start this Friday.

I mentioned she was very persuasive, right?

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