This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Crayons
Mabel draws the watcher, his car and his plate in crayon and sticks it on the fridge; on her first day of kindergarten the same man waits at the fence with a balloon, saying her daddy sent him.
Mabel didn't wake anyone up.
In her first life, nobody had ever come when she called at night.
So she took Linus's box of crayons off the shelf and sat on the floor by the window.
She drew the man in the doorway.
Long grey coat, collar up. Black knit hat. A white paper cup at his feet.
She drew the pack of cigarettes in his hand, red and white, because she could see it every time he lit a new one.
At two in the morning a dark blue car pulled up beside him.
He leaned into the window for a minute.
Mabel wrote the license plate under her drawing in big careful letters.
Then the car left, and so did he.
She climbed into bed with the drawing under her pillow and slept.
At breakfast, Hank was reading the paper and Fern was flipping pancakes.
Mabel climbed onto her chair and stuck the drawing on the fridge with a magnet shaped like a lemon.
"There was a man watching our house last night," she said. "From one o'clock to two. He smokes a lot. A blue car picked him up."
Fern's spatula stopped in the air.
Hank lowered the paper.
They both looked at the fridge.
The man had a face like a potato, because Mabel was five and her hands didn't work as well as her head.
But the plate number was perfect.
Hank folded his newspaper in half, then in half again.
"Why didn't you wake us up?"
Mabel blinked at him.
The honest answer was, because nobody ever came.
"You looked tired," she said instead.
Fern set a stack of pancakes in front of her so hard the syrup bottle jumped.
"Sweetheart. If you ever see something that scares you, you wake us up. Any time. Even if Dad looks tired. Dad always looks tired."
"It's my face," Hank said.
"It's your whole personality," Fern said.
Linus looked at the drawing for a long time.
"You got the plate," he said.
"I'm very smart," Mabel reminded him.
At seven-thirty, someone knocked on the door.
A young man in a Chicago police uniform walked in, kissed Fern on the cheek, and stole a pancake off the stack.
He was tall and freckled with a big easy grin.
"So this is the new boss," he said, and crouched in front of Mabel. "I'm your brother. The good-looking one."
Mabel stared at him.
He was the cop.
A real, honest police officer was her brother.
"Hello," she said shyly. "I drew you a criminal."
He laughed. Then he turned around and saw the fridge.
He stopped laughing.
He walked over and looked at the plate number for a while, chewing slowly.
"Can I borrow this?"
"For the station?"
"For the station," he said gravely, and peeled it off the fridge.
Hank and the cop exchanged a look over Mabel's head.
It was a very short look.
Fern had found her a place at the kindergarten two blocks away with one phone call.
Mabel had no idea how anyone found a kindergarten place in January with one phone call.
She decided it was because Mom was so nice.
Linus was in the same class.
He walked her there holding her mitten, and he walked on the street side of the sidewalk.
The classroom had a carpet with the alphabet on it, a fish tank, and twenty children with runny noses.
Mabel had been sixteen yesterday.
She sat on the letter M and tried to remember how five-year-olds acted.
"Who can count to ten?" asked the teacher.
Mabel put her hand up and counted to ten.
She remembered just in time not to keep going to a hundred in French.
At snack time, a big boy took a little girl's apple slices and laughed when she cried.
Mabel watched him eat one.
In her first life, at every school, there had been a boy like that, and teachers who looked the other way because his father gave money.
She stood up, walked over and took the apple slices back out of his hand.
She gave them to the little girl.
The big boy's face turned purple.
"Hey! Those are mine!"
"They're hers," Mabel said. "You can tell the teacher if you want. I'll tell her too."
He opened his mouth.
Then he looked past her and closed it again.
Linus was standing right behind her.
He wasn't doing anything. He was just standing there with his dark eyes on the big boy, not blinking.
The big boy went back to his own table.
The little girl gave Mabel one apple slice to say thank you.
Mabel ate it slowly.
It tasted better than anything at the Aspen party.
At three o'clock the parents crowded at the fence to pick up their kids.
Mabel came out holding Linus's hand, looking for Mom's cream cardigan.
Instead she saw a long grey coat.
A black knit hat.
The man from the doorway stood at the gate, smiling, with a pink balloon on a string.
"Mabel?" he called, and waved. "Hi, sweetheart. Your daddy sent me to get you."
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