Greasy Fingertips

When her father came home with his supposedly long-lost half-brother, Cedra was hard-pressed to tell him to put it back where he found it.

She, a young woman of twelve who, by virtue of nefarious child neglect, had absorbed enough content from the World Wide Web to consider herself learned in these matters, distrusted the man immediately. She narrowed her eyes at his hesitant, hello-there-little-one wave and conjectured that her father was probably being duped by a conman. 

She stood in the doorway, trying to signal her father to step out for a private talk, but he was hopeless in the sub rosa art of subtlety and blew her cover by asking if she needed to go to the bathroom or something.

Cedra huffed at the simple-mindedness of adults, deciding to undertake the third-degree herself. She cooly glanced at the man from over her nose, a remarkable feat considering the height gap and strode over, circling her arm around her alleged Uncle's and commanded her father to prepare pizza toast as she led the man to the couch.

"I don't know how you can stomach those things," her father said, following them, lips twisted in a grimace, "they're terrible."

"I don't know why you think 'terrible' and 'fine cuisine' are interchangeable, father, we've been over this," she threw over her shoulder, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and prompting the man to do the same. Her father grumbled all the way to the kitchen, but Cedra ignored him in lieu of knitting her hands together and assuming a dignified and uppity air. She continued to look at him from over her nose, reminding him exactly who had more power in this setting.

"Er," the man started, in tones of one who was utterly unversed with navigating the social dances of tiny people. 

"Hm," Cedra hummed, in tones of one who knew they were causing pain and rejoiced in it.

She tilted her head and considered asking him about his political stance but held back because she wasn't supposed to play with sharp things. Instead, she started with the never-failing icebreaker that was:

"My grandfather is a bastard."

"What?"

Cedra noted that, like her father, he was displeased with the swearing but denied nothing, "Apparently you and dad shared the same father your entire lives without knowing it, so I think that checks out a lot of boxes from the Are-you-a-bastard? checklist. I also have my personal grievances with him, on account of his general creepiness. But, as they say: per angusta, ad angusta, i.e. when he finally croaks, we'll feel less guilty about splitting his money three-ways instead of following his foot-long will."

Her uncle seemed incapable of even another What? and just sort of opened and closed his mouth silently a few times. Cedra was briefly horrified by the implication that she might have fish ancestry circulating in her gene pool, if he was really her uncle, of course.

Cedra plowed on, "I wanted to keep this little conspiracy strictly between me and dad, but apparently you're family, so," and she shrugged her shoulders in a 'what can you do?' gesture. And thus she set the perfect trap, waiting for the conmen inherent in him to peek out in response to look, shiny money.

He cleared his throat, cat finally releasing his tongue as he awkwardly laughed. Cedra didn't think this was particularly funny but was interrupted from saying so by him asking her, "And what do you plan on doing with your third, huh?"

"Well," Cedra, secretly thrilled by the question, tried not to inject too much enthusiasm into her voice as she narrated her plans, "the only proper thing to do would be to become a sultana. Yes, I reckon I shall. Buy a large enough patch of land and let enough homeless folk live with and depend on you, and suddenly you have a big enough following to overthrow the government and establish your sovereignty. And I quite like the life of a sultana with rubies and twelve dancing boys and everything."

He politely refrained from utilizing her father's favourite, 'you're describing a cult' argument and focused on the most insignificant part of her plot. "Fond of dancing boys, are you?"

Cedra balked by the sudden veering of the conversation into the no-man's land of assuming she had any fondness towards boys. She was twelve, not a cretin. "No! It's- it's the principle of the thing!" she shouted back, "Because, really, if- if a sultana doesn't have a dozen exotic dancing children, could she truly be considered a sultana? This is a question for the philosophers, surely." Cedra was distantly aware that she was descending into hysterics and solidified that idea by going on to sing loudly: 'The only man that I love is my dad!'

"Is that a reference to-"

"Yes!" Cedra shouted again, throwing her hands up and jumping off the couch, backing away, "Truly, you are a paragon of contemporary culture. Actually, my pizza toast should be done now, I must eat or I will have hunger pangs, adieu!"

Cedra fled into the kitchen and collapsed onto the linoleum, whining into her hands. Her father mercilessly prodded her dying person with his toe, before sliding his back down the cabinet next to her, balancing the warm plate on his knees.

Pulled out of her histrionics by the aroma of tomato sauce, Cedra sat up, crawling over to her father and resting her head against his chest.

"Well?" Her father asked, carding fingers through her short hair, voice hopeful and searching like the hopeless dupe he was.

Cedra took a slice of pizza toast as she thought it over. She'd have to keep this man within sight to uncover any duplicity, a claim was only as sound as the evidence and this man didn't even fall for her grandparent-with-deep-pockets trap. Yes, the only way was to keep him close and under scrutiny.

"It can stay in the backyard," Cedra mumbled at last into her lumpy, cheesy toast, already trying to find a way to integrate this new uncle into her future empire.