"Is that what your father taught you."
"Yes. Servants are lazy. That is their nature."
"How did he show them that he was in charge?"
"By cursing them. Striking them."
"Did you curse and hit them too?"
"No. I never talked to them."
"Would you have said Thank you if they had done something nice for you."
"No. It was their job to do nice things for me."
"And Granny and me? Do you think of us as servants?"
"No. You aren't servants because my father does not pay you. You are not my parents because you do not yell and scream at me."
"Are we your friends?"
"No. Friends are people my own age. Like Pablo and Mathias. I do not know what you are."
"Do you think that we're nice to you?"
"No. You make me do things I don't want to do."
"Like sewing your own clothes?"
"Yes. That is a servant's work."
"Clearing the table? Cooking food for yourself?"
"Servant's work."
# # # # # # # #
The P.E. class came up to the outside deck this afternoon. It would be gymnastics. Granny told Kashmira about somersaults and showed her some examples on the Internet. Afterwards she watched as Kashmira tried to do some of her own. The class did not go well. The deck was too hard and Kashmira was definitely not interested in lying down on the hard deck and rolling around on it. They tried putting sofa cushions on the deck, but that only prompted some early-warning climate-change signals. Granny decided to cancel P.E. class for the day – she wouldn't have wanted to do somersaults on the deck either.
Granny and Kashmira ended up sitting on the re-cushioned sofa in the living room, sipping hot chocolate. On Doc's mind-messaged advice that they must not put Kashmira into a position where she thought she was being a servant to them, Granny made sure that both she and Kashmira brought the cushions back to the living room. Both she and Kashmira took turns stirring the hot chocolate pot; both she and Kashmira took turns pouring the hot chocolate into the cups – Kashmira doing Granny's cup, Granny doing Kashmira's cup. They sat and sipped slowly – Granny making sure to warn Kashmira about not taking too much hot chocolate into her mouth at a time. Chocolate was common in this part of the world; however marshmallow froth was not.
"This is better than doing somersaults, isn't it?"
"Yes. Those somersaults were not pleasing for me to do."
"I wouldn't have liked them either."
"Why did you make me do them?"
"I'm trying to find a physical exercise that you would enjoy."
"I don't like physical exercise. It makes me tired."
"I noticed that. Do you always become tired when you are up and doing things?"
"Running, always. Walking, sometimes."
"I saw that you became tired last night when you and Doc were doing the dishes. Were you sleepy tired, or tired in your arms?"
"Both."
"After the dishes, you went to bed."
"Yes, I always go to bed right after supper."
"And do you fall asleep right away?"
"Yes."
"And do you sleep right through the night without waking up?"
"Yes. Of course."
"How long do you normally sleep?"
"Why are you asking? These questions are not pleasing to me."
[Narrator: You may be wondering why Kashmira doesn't just say, "I like these questions" or "I don't like these questions." Instead she says, "These questions are not pleasing to me." You may have noticed that Kashmira has used that awkward construction repeatedly in situations where natural English speakers would say, "I like." That's because the most common Spanish expression for "I like" is "Me gusta." When "Me gusta" is translated literally, it means, "It is pleasing to me." That's why she uses that construction in English. She thinks that it's the correct way to say, "I like.” For Kashmira, English is a second language, and despite small quirks like this, she speaks it very well. Her ability to learn English is a much better measure of her intelligence than the fact that she didn't know about the earth and the moon.]
"I'm trying to find out if your bed is comfortable enough. Also if you're getting tired in your arms, we want to make sure that you are eating enough. The food that you ate last night for supper – was that your normal amount?"
"Yes. That's the amount the cook always gave me. That amount of food is pleasing to me. I am always full afterwards."
"And you wake up about when?"
"When the maid knocks on my door in the morning. Sometimes I don't hear her, so she pounds on the door until I tell her that I am awake."
"That would be about...?"
"8 o'clock. School starts at 9:00. Some mornings I am very tired and it takes me a long time to wake up. That's why she bangs on the door at 8:00."
Doc, that's 13 hours of non-stop sleep and she's still tired. Were you expecting that?
Yes. That fits the pattern.
# # # # # # # #
"I hear you had some hot chocolate with marshmallows," Doc said as he was winding up Kashmira's school for the day. They were sitting at the kitchen table.
"Yes. It was very good."
"Do you know how to make it now?"
"Yes. Stirring is very important."
"So it is. Since you know how to make hot chocolate, you could make some for yourself any time you wanted to, you know."
"I could?"
"Sure. You know where everything is. You could make your own lunch too if you wanted to. You don't have to wait for Granny or me to be in the kitchen."
"Huh."
"You could always eat more food if you wanted to. If you were hungry, you don't have to wait for us to cook your food."
"Why would I want more food? I am always full after I eat. I don't want to become fat like you and Granny."
# # # # # # # #
It was Doc's turn to cook dinner, so he was at the stove. Kashmira was at the sink learning how to peel vegetables. As far as Kashmira was concerned, Granny had disappeared into her cabin. Granny was actually in the living room – watching and listening. Granny and Doc were trying to determine which of them had the best chance of developing a close relationship with Kashmira. Granny's money was on Doc. Doc's money was on Doc too.
"You had a cook in your home. Is this what she did all the time? Be in the kitchen and cook meals?"
"I don't know. I was at school."
"But on weekends? Holidays? She worked seven days a week, right?"
"Yes. But she only had to cook for my father and me. She and the maid didn't eat my father's food. They went home and cooked their own."
"Who did the food shopping?"
"The cook. But she never had any of my father's money. She picked out the food and brought it home, but the store told my father what he had to pay them. I'm finished peeling the carrots. Now what?"
"Peel three potatoes please. So she cooked all the meals. Did she do anything else?"
"She would cook for my father's parties and clean up the kitchen afterwards. It would be late so she'd sleep over. She had a bedroom on the second floor."
"Did the maid have a bedroom too?"
"Yes, because she had to help out at my father's parties and it would be too late to walk home. She had to go up to her bedroom when she had no work to do."
"Maid's bedroom upstairs. Cook's bedroom upstairs. Anything else upstairs? Your bedroom?"
"My bedroom was on the main floor where I would be closer to the safe room. My father had his bedroom on the second floor. When he was married, his wife had a bedroom up there too. But he had no wife in the house when I was growing up."
"The cook and maid would work during the day and go home at night to their family. Sounds like a good job to have."
"Yes, they were lucky to have the job."
"Did they have lots of kids?"
"I don't know. Probably. Every woman in our church has big families
."
"The maid and the cook came from your church?"
"Yes, of course. My father would only take servants who the paterfamilias recommended. My father was taking a big chance letting the cook and the maid into the house. He had to be sure that they'd be loyal."
"And if they weren't?"
"If he thought that they were working for a rival crime boss, or if he suspected that they were disloyal in other ways, everybody in their family would die painfully."
# # # # # # # #
Doc and Kashmira's stew was a big hit. Kashmira had a teaspoon of stew and some lettuce to begin with. A second teaspoon of stew followed soon afterwards.
"I've never had stew before," she said. "The gravy part is very pleasing to me."
"Kashmira made the gravy, Granny."
"I didn't know that. It's very good."
"Lots of stirring," Kashmira said. "I know how to stir now."
"You can have more stew if you want, you know." Granny wanted to see what she'd say, but knew ahead of time that she'd turn the offer down.
"I'm full."
"When we have a big meal like this, sometimes we have what's left in the pot for the next night's supper," Doc explained. "Other times, we eat it for lunch. What would you like to do with what's still in the pot?"
"I can choose?"
"Yes."
"Have it for lunch. This is way better than a jam sandwich."
"I wouldn't mind having it for lunch also. How about you re-heat the stew tomorrow for lunch and I'll do the dishes?" Doc again.
"I don't know what this re-heating thing is."
"You'll be doing a lot of stirring."
"OK."
"Well, that was a good meal thanks to the two of you. I'll take care of the dish duty. Doc, why don't you play a game with Kashmira?"
Granny was too late. Kashmira was already trudging down the hallway to her bedroom.
Do you want help with the dishes? We only have 15 minutes before Hank and Yolanda check in for our meeting.
That's OK, Doc. You can do all the talking in the meeting. You know my feelings.
# # # # # # # #
In the mind-message conference that followed dinner, Wizard, Mathias, Winnie, Reese, Yollie, Momaka, and Stu were all invited to respond to the Directors' question: Should Kashmira be adopted into the family? Stu declined to participate because he had already given his observations to Doc. Momaka also declined, saying that she didn't know Kashmira well enough yet.
Each of the remaining Wilizy told the directors what they knew about Kashmira. Each of them spoke in private with the Directors. All four directors knew that there could be some dissension if the conversations were all public. They were especially sensitive about the possibility of Winnie and Mathias having different views on the question. Before the meeting, Yolanda had asked Winnie if Mathias had a crush on Kashmira. Winnie claimed that she didn't know anything about the two of them. The reader will know that this was clearly a lie. Yolanda had asked Yollie about the possibility of a love interest as well.
"Duh," Yollie had answered.
"You mean they like each other?"
"Yeah. Duh! Of course they do. How can you not see that?"
"I haven't actually seen either of them." Yolanda was a little defensive; usually she was on top of these things. But since Yolanda had to rely on Winnie for her inside scoops now, and since Winnie was uncharacteristically non-nosy right now, Yolanda was left out in the cold.
"Mom, Mathias is actually talking to a girl! Doesn't that tell you something?"
...
Wizard spoke about Kashmira from the perspective of the Wilizy protecting their investment in her. He could offer no insight into the girl herself, other than she was small and had a good voice. This was a typical wizardian reaction. My female readers may think poorly of him as a result. You shouldn't. He can't help the way he thinks. My male readers may wonder why anybody would think poorly of Wizard for having that kind of reaction. You can't help what you think either. So carry on with your reading and ignore all this stuff about love crushes and other unnecessary emotions.
...
Yollie and Reese had conflicting opinions. Yollie was against adopting her into the family. "I wouldn't want to live with her. She's mean and nasty. Mathias doesn't know what he's in for."
Reese hedged, but that was part of Reese's make-up right now. He had been burned by thinking fondly of Annika; he wasn't going out on the limb again. "Kashmira's colours are almost pure white, blindingly so in places, but I'm still learning about these colours."
...
That left Doc and Stu to tell everybody what they had found in their TiTr'ng research. Doc asked Stu to present the information because he could do that more objectively. Stu started with Ramon's visit to the little village and ended with Ramón's trip to Manila. He did not tell them how Kierra had died. He did tell them how she had been beaten and raped by two different people in El Patrón's attempts to provoke a spontaneous abortion.
"Tell them what Kierra was like," Doc requested in the quiet that followed.
"A beautiful girl. Perhaps 15? Nice bubbly personality. Wonderful face. She used to walk around the house singing." Stu clearly liked Kierra.
"How tall was she?" Doc asked.
"Slightly taller than El Patrón. Noticeably taller than the two servants."
# # # # # # # #
Doc waited for the directors to compare the two pinky-ring photographs he had just circulated: Kierra at about 15 and Kashmira at her current age, which everybody thought was about 14. Stu had taken Kierra's picture during their TiTr'ng.
"The family resemblance in these two pictures is very strong," Doc stated the obvious. "Kashmira shows no signs of her father's contribution to her gene pool. She is the spitting image of her mother; but, she's a miniature image."
Doc continued. "I had wondered why Kashmira was so skinny. I had observed that she has no flesh to speak of on her fingers. Granny saw most of her body one afternoon. She is scrawny in the extreme. In terms of her sexuality, Granny says that she is under-developed. Part of her thinness is because she eats very little. Because of that, she is fatigued easily. She sleeps 13 hours a night, and at times, cannot be wakened easily. I wanted to know if her mother were tiny too. We know now that she was not. That suggests that Kashmira's diminutive stature is not because of genetics. But something else is clearly at play."
"I had a number of theories as to why she is so small. Deliberate starvation by her father to punish her was one theory. But he had virtually no contact with her. He ignored her, wished that she had never been born, and was planning to sell her as soon as he could get a good price. It would not have been in his interests for her to be undeveloped sexually."
"That left the cook and the maid. The cook decided how much food to give her. We've heard directly from Kashmira how small these portions were. We've seen for ourselves how little she eats. Kashmira told me that this had always been the case. The maid delivered the food, so she'd know how little Kashmira was eating too."
"Both servants are middle-aged church-going women with large families. Large families are the norm in Maasin City where birth protection is frowned upon. I believe that the two servants were habitually giving Kashmira small portions of food so that they could smuggle food home to their families. In doing so, they have been starving her to death."
# # # # # # # #
The Directors had a few questions.
Yolanda asked: "If she's starving, why doesn't she eat more on the ship when she has the chance? Why didn't she raid the fridge at home?"
"This has been going on for at least 10 years. Her stomach has shrunken to the point where it can't take more than a few teaspoons of food at a time. She didn't raid the fridge before because she was raised in isolation. She lived, by herself, in her bedroom with no contact with anybody except at school. She didn't know what a fridge was."
"The difference in Yollie's and Reese's assessments?" Hank asked.
>
"Both assessments are right. Kashmira has been raised in such a way that she was bound to become exactly what Yollie has seen. She has no concept that servants are people or should be recognized as such. She doesn't know how to deal with Granny and me because we aren't servants. She can't understand why we would be nice to her. Nice has never been part of her environment."
"I believe Reese's reading is based on what Kashmira is like inside. His reading ignores her upbringing and doesn't reflect the biases she has been taught to believe in or the behaviour she has been influenced to use. Reese's white colour is what Kashmira could be. Two different forms of reading; two different assessments. Incidentally, Winnie can't read Kashmira. She is blinded by Kashmira's white, bright light. That suggests that Reese's reading is accurate."
"Your recommendation, Doc?" Hank with the focus.
"I recommend that we adopt her into the family. Granny and I will raise her. This is now a personal mission for us. Kashmira's mother died in horrible circumstances. We don't want Kashmira to end up with the same fate."
"Personal mission?" Yolanda asked. "Do you know what you're getting yourself into, Mom?"
"I raised one problem child; I can raise another."
"Thanks, Mom."
"You're welcome, dear."
"Seriously, Mom."
"Doc said it. It's personal for us."
"Your plans to improve her health, Doc?" Yolanda took charge at this point because she was especially sensitive to the plight of undernourished children given Winnie's premature birth. Nobody had expected Winnie to live. She had been tiny since birth.
"We'll use vitamin injections to start with. Plus we'll promote a gradual increase in how much she eats during the day. We'll have to do this slowly. Her stomach has to have time to adjust to an increased workload. There's a chance that her internal organs could already be seriously compromised."
"Meaning?"
"Having healthy kidneys, pancreas, and liver are critical for life. Everything in her digestive system could be close to failing right now. Her body isn't producing enough energy to live on."
"She could die?"
"Yes. Thirteen hours of sleep a day is a big red flag. I'll see some warning signs when an organ starts to fail. Whether I can keep it going it or not... I don't know. Even if she survives, her reproductive system could be compromised. She may never be able to have children."
"Other risks?"