by Marina Martin
Katherine McCullough was a junior from the prestigious private college, Sparton, in Idaho. She was studying biology there, but really wanted to go into marine biology. Thankfully, the school had an internship program where for one semester in your junior year you would fly to Florida, stay with a host family, and work at a marine animal rehabilitation center with other educational exhibits as well, such as an invasive species room. Her job would be taking care of the larger animals at the center as well as the smaller exhibits and taking children on tours and out to seine for macro and micro-invertebrates that could only be found in salt water; this was an experience that was impossible to get in the Great Plains.
It really was a miracle that Katherine had made it this far in life. Her dad had left her mom when he found out she was pregnant with her, and her mom drank herself into oblivion. She found herself in the foster care system at the early age of six, and by age eight, she had to sneak out of her window each morning just to make it to school. Her foster family wanted cheap labor and nothing more. Punishment was lack of food or clothing and the word ‘play’ never entered a conversation. There was no time for play between trying to squeeze in homework and keep up with the chores she was assigned.
When she reached high school her biology teacher saw her potential and adopted her, but by that time it was too late. She had lost out on an entire childhood. She'd never had a birthday party, never played with dolls, never went to the park, was never grounded as she never had anything to be grounded from, and had never been spanked. That was probably the only decent thing about her foster family: they did not hit in retaliation. They just starved their children instead.
Under the new regime of Mrs. Hendrichs, her grades began to flourish and she put her complete all into schoolwork. No discipline was needed. She wanted nothing more than to please this woman who would take a teenager into her house and even give her advanced private lessons at home. By the time she graduated high school it was with honors, and she had a full ride scholarship to Sparton.
Now she waited nervously in the airport terminal. She'd already collected her larger suitcase (plus her carry-on bag) and was looking for her host family, the Meres. Supposedly the two adults were in their lower fifties, and they had three daughters, aged 8 (Sarah), 11 (Athalia, or Talie) and 12 (Chrystal or Chrys). It was a Saturday; the school wanted her to have a couple of days to settle in with her new family before having to start attending classes. She was nervous. She had never lived with a normal family with children who didn't work like sweat shop workers before, and didn't know how to respond to that. Suddenly, she saw a family of five moving toward her, a sign saying "Welcome Home, Katherine!" held by the littlest child. She grinned and after stabilizing her bag, waved to the group. They came and surrounded her.
"Hey! You must me Kathewine!" a curly redheaded Sarah exclaimed. The trouble with the "R" sound just made her sound that much more adorable.
"Hey, cutie. Yep. I'm Katherine. You can call me Katie though."
"Welcome, Katie," a very slightly plump Alice, their mother, said warmly. She brushed her brown hair out of her face and opened her arms for a hug. Katherine was caught off-guard, but quickly swallowed that and hugged her back. She hugged each of the other girls, Talie's hair was long and brown with a hint of a wave, and Chrystal's being long a blond, was tied up in a loose braid thrown over her shoulder. Finally, she shook hands with Lee who had a 9 o'clock shadow and was rather burly, but seemed nice enough. He immediately took her large bag from her and the family traipsed out the door into the hot Florida sunlight.
"So you want to work with marine life, do you?" Alice said as they walked to the van.
"Yes, I have for a long time. Ever since I learned about manatees, I vowed I wanted to save them. My adoptive mom took me to Florida once to see them and I not only fell in love with them, but with the environment as a whole and all their animals here, especially the marine life. I learned to snorkel and scuba dive while there on that trip. It was an awesome experience."
"Well you may even find that we have some manatees that come up to our dock looking for handouts... not that we ever give them any ourselves, though our neighbors sadly do. Especially as the weather grows colder, we live in a warm springs area, right off the river."
"Really? Wow!" Katherine exclaimed, suddenly more excited than she thought she could possibly be.
"Yeah, they're really fun to watch," Talie said. "I'll sometimes just sit on the dock for hours watching them swim around it."
"I bet I'd do that too, if I had time," Katherine admitted.
"When we get home will you play dolls with me?" Sarah asked innocently. Katherine hesitated.
"Sh... Sarah, we talked about this. Katherine is here to study, not to play, remember?"
"H-honestly I wouldn't know how," she said softly. By this time they had reached the van and were piling in. Alice waited until everyone was in and buckled before turning her head around and looking at Katherine.
"You... You wouldn't know how?" She asked. She wasn't sure what to make of such a comment.
"Well... I never got to play as a little girl. I never had toys or books, other than my school books, and I had to steal away to get to school from my foster family," she admitted, ashamed. "I never got to live the life of a little girl. I don't know what it's like."
"But it's so fun! How could they do that to you?" Sarah asked.
"Everyone I grew up with until high school were just bad people I guess. My dad ran out on my mom, my mom was a drunk and in my spare time I had to collect soda cans for extra money. I never had money for a doll or toy. Finally, I was put in foster care and they just worked us to the bone and if we didn't finish out chores or were bad in anyway we weren't fed."
"You weren't fed if you were bad?!" Chrystal exclaimed. "Man... I thought we had it bad with our spankings... I'd take a spanking over starving any day. You mean you've never been spanked? And you really never have played?"
"Other than a little bit at recess when I was away from my family, I never played, no... and no, I never got spanked. I would have far preferred that to what I did get."
Lee and Alice exchanged looks, but decided to change to topic. They started asking Katherine about her studies so far and what she expected to do at the Aquarium. "All three girl's classes should be visiting this semester for different levels of activities. It would be awesome if you could lead those days," Alice said.
"I'll certainly try. It would be neat... kind of like teaching a little sister."
The family got home and Katherine was shown to the guest bedroom. It had a view of the river to her great delight. With some luck she may even be able to see manatees right from her window.
"We'll give you a few minutes to put your clothes away... there are hangers in the closet, and the dresser is all for you. You also have your own bathroom. It's small, but at least you don't have to share with five others," Lee said. "We'll be back up in say, half an hour. Alice and I have something we want to discuss with you."
Concern caused Katherine's brow to furrow. "Oh no, sweetie, you aren't in trouble or anything. We just have a proposal - something we've thought about since the car ride." Having no clue what the man could be thinking of, Katherine shrugged and nodded.
"Sure... it'll feel good to get clean clothes on and get things put away. If I was only staying a week I'd live out of my suitcase but for a full semester... well..."
"Of course. We understand perfectly. Now get along and we'll be up in a little bit."
Katherine mused as she put her clothes and toiletries away, putting on a clean shirt that didn't smell of the old lady's perfume who sat right next to her on the plane. She found a clothes hamper and threw the blouse she'd worn on the plane in it. Why did little old ladies have to douse themselves in perfume anyway? While she was musing on that, Alice and Lee had come back upstairs and knocked on her door.
"Come in!" she called, going and sitting on the bed, hugging a pillow.
"Oh look, Lee, it's almost like she's making up for not having a stuffed animal," Alice whispered, her face soft and sad. He nodded.
"That will have to be rectified immediately if she accepts our offer," he whispered back.
"I'm sure you're wondering what brought us here with an offer," Alice said gently, sitting next to Katherine. She nodded, looking back and forth between each parent.
"I'd like to know what kind of an offer you could make already," she said. "You know so little about me."
"Ah, but we know plenty about one topic... your childhood... or lack thereof," Lee said. Katherine blushed.
"Look, it's no big deal. I got into college on a full ride scholarship. I made something of myself despite the conditions I had growing up."
"Oh, you certainly did, and we're proud of you for it, Katie," Alice said.
"I usually go by Katherine," she said.
"Yes, well, little girls usually have pet names, don't they?"
"I guess so, but I'm certainly not a little girl anymore."
"What if you wanted to be treated like one of our girls... we were especially thinking of Sarah. Let you experience childhood when you weren't working at the Aquarium. You'd have an adult life at the Aquarium, but once you came home you'd be dressed like a little girl and treated like a little girl. You'd have toys of your own and could share with Sarah. And if you got in trouble... late coming home... (We'd give you a later curfew... obviously you'll meet other interns there and they'll want you to go out with them for drinks some nights, and as long as you don't drive drunk or come home intoxicated, just having had one drink, we won't mind if you let us know ahead of time)... But add on talking back, cussing, not eating your vegetables, not keeping your room neat, not doing your schoolwork, basically anything a little girl could do wrong would earn you a spanking from Lee," Alice informed her.
"How bad it is depends on what you do, of course. And of course I'd have to go harder on you than I actually would Sarah because you're physically older and can take more. While at home we'd be your mom and dad, and Sarah, Talie and Chrys would be your sisters. What do you think?"
Katherine blinked in complete surprise. "I wouldn't even know how to begin acting like a child," she said, bewildered.
"Let Sarah help you. She can start games of make-believe with you, take you outside to climb trees and play on the playground equipment we have here, and anytime we go to the park all three girls will likely be willing to help you get into the act of playing.
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.