Baby Greta

12:58 AM

Greta's eyes flickered from one pair of dark eyes to the other.  Their faces were young, innocent, and reflected an earnest desire to help.  She wasn't fooled for an instant.  These were the enemy, and they had vastly underestimated her abilities.

She could read the label on the prescription bottle from which they had poured her 'medicine,' and it was not the harmless cough syrup they pretended.  Although her muscles were not yet fully developed, her mind was -- and it was far more powerful than they feared.  She reached out with that mind now, touching theirs, feeling the mistrust and fear.  She reached out beyond the walls, and down the hall.  She could feel the presence of her father.  She poked his mind tenderly.

Ambassador Charles Thorndyke awoke with a start, crying out her name.  He jumped from bed and rushed into the hallway.  "Greta?  Are you okay, Sweetie?"  He ran toward her room.

Greta's siblings rushed to hide the evidence, wasting the contents in their hurry, and quickly covering up the spill with a blanket.  They backed across the room, then walked toward her, rubbing their eyes.

Charles entered the room.  "Joshua, Sarah ... what are you two doing here?"  His voice was stern.  He'd had to interrupt several of these little charades before.

"Hi Dad.  We heard a noise, and came to check on Greta.  Are you okay, Sweetie?"  Sarah leaned close to her in wide-eyed innocence.

Greta waved her little fists around, banging them into the stuffed jester that hung on a cord across her crib.  It jingled wildly.  Greta was fluent in Latin, Greek, French, Norwegian, German and Tagalog; but tonight, she wasn't saying a thing.  She'd give them a little more time, then they'd trap themselves with undeniable evidence.

But, just so they'd know what she thought of them, she crossed her eyes and pushed: a fluttering sound erupted into the room, accompanied by an unmistakable odor.

"Oh, Ewwww!"  The two siblings rushed from the room, leaving Dad standing there with an amused grin.

He leaned toward her little face.  "What were those two up to, my little genius?  Were they being mean to you?"  He grabbed a diaper from the shelf near her crib, and began the task of changing her.

At four months old, Greta was the youngest self-proclaimed genius in Pantskwawkiville, Iowa, or in any other town to which her father's job brought the family.  She loved to recite the Iliad at top speed while being changed, to see if she could finish before the last tape was applied.  Tonight, since it was Dad doing the changing, she gave him a break and recited it in German.  She still beat him, but not by much.

Baby Greta had become famous a few months previously, when she solved a baffling break-in and theft from the U. S. Embassy in Norway.  Her father brought her home for a special interview -- her first ever -- in which she admitted that she is bored with life, and can't wait for her motor skills to develop enough to explore her world.  Perhaps she'll stick her wet fingers into light sockets and knock baby food off her high chair.  Her most immediate goal is to sit up, and she craves the day when she can be more mobile.

Her least favorite activity is spitting up, although she'd had to resort to that defense the day she discovered her siblings' plot to kill her.

When the lights were off, and the house was quiet once more, she practiced her psychic powers.  These had saved her life many times, already.  She reached out with her mind, and 'felt' the family.  They were all asleep.  She sent them a feeling of calm, of peace.

Now, for the next phase: she understood the principles of physics, so it seemed that sitting up should be a simple matter of inertia.  The problem is, she didn't have the muscles to throw her mass into motion.  She'd been working on them, but they came slowly ... and this damned jester was driving her crazy with his bells.

But, wait ... Oh, Wow!  Why didn't she think of that before?  She was trying to do things the hard way.  She mentally scolded herself.  What she needed wasn't inertia, but leverage.  Pulling herself near the bars of the crib, she rolled over, and worked her arms beneath her -- she sat up.  Oh yeah!

"Look out, world, here I come."


4:42 AM

Greta's eyes popped open, her mind instantly alert.  Something had awakened her, but she had no idea what it was.  She reached out with her mind to check on the family, but they were all soundly asleep.  She listened in the darkness ... the house lay in deep stillness, like the silence before a storm.  Since she required less sleep than most children, Greta found herself fully alert, and with nothing to do.  She stared up at the barely distinguishable silhouette of the jester and considered giving him a bat, just to make him jingle.  Then she decided against it, because that would disrupt her ability to hear any faint sound.

To pass the time, she ran quickly through the multiplication tables and the table of elements in her mind.  She recited the Iliad in three languages, then decided to stretch herself a little further by reciting it backward, in Tagalog.  She was about a third of the way through it, when the storm broke.

KaBoom!

The concussion raced through the structure of the house like a resonating guitar string, dust spurting into the air from recessed areas.  Smoke began to filter up the stairs, and Joshua and Sarah rushed into Greta's room shrieking in terror.  They attempted to hide, but there was nowhere to do so.  So, they just stood in the middle of the room and wailed.

There were voices downstairs -- angry voices -- in a language she didn't understand.  As she strained to study the syntax, the noise of her terrified siblings became too much to bear.  "Shut up!"  She cried in her small voice.  It had no effect.  Although she seldom did anything so openly rash, Greta resorted to a mental command.  In order to be noticed above the uproar, she had to shout with her mind.  "Hush!"  The result was instantaneous: terrified eyes turned upon her, and their tiny faces filled with fear, then rage, then returned to terror.  "Quickly, my crib," she implored.  "Let down the side."  They ignored the thoughts, and ran toward the door -- right into the arms of a huge man with a machine gun.  With a look of loathing, he thrust them into the hallway, where other hands grabbed them and dragged them toward the stairs.

The huge man came and peered down into the crib.  Greta met his gaze with cool detachment, probing his mind for some common thread of thought, so she could reason with him.  The muzzle of the weapon slowly ascended until it was pointed at her head.  Even as she listened to the voices in the background, assimilating the language, she was studying the huge man before her.  The language was Arabic.  She was struggling to understand it, but these men spoke roughly, abusing the syntax.  In horror she found no point of reasoning in the man's mind.  His hatred was like that of a rabid dog.  These were terrorists.

Greta's eyes changed to curiosity.  She sent the curiosity to his mind, and his tensing trigger finger relaxed.  He looked baffled.  He shouldered his weapon and picked her up.  Greta breathed a sigh of relief.  He shouted in Arabic as he carried her down the stairs.

Greta was relieved to see that her parents were unharmed, as yet, but were bound, as were her siblings.  A man with angry eyes was shouting questions at her father, but the Ambassador was silent -- resigned to his fate.  The man with the angry eyes was furious for being interrupted.  "Kill her!"  He commanded in Arabic.

Acting quickly, Greta pushed for all she was worth, and in a fluttering blast, liquid feces ran down the man's arm.  He dropped her with disgust while the others roared with laughter.

Because there was no time, and because there was little else she could do, Greta struck the leader with her mind.  It was a thunderbolt.  The man screamed and clutched his head in agony, falling to his knees.  The henchman forgot Greta and rushed to his aid.  In that moment, she sensed his private fear.  Only though this fear could she stop what must surely follow if this scenario continued to be played out.

Reaching out with her mind, she found them: tiny life-forces hiding in every corner, every crevice.  She called to them, looking from corner to corner.  They were simple creatures, and willing to obey.  They scurried forth enmass -- spiders.  Spiders of every size and shape, moving too quickly to be stomped upon.  They sought concealment in pant legs and sleeves, rushing to do the bidding of the mind that had called them.

The terrorists dropped their weapons and slapped, screaming, at their legs and arms, performing a strange dance of stomping and running in circles.

It seemed only moments until a heavily armed marine force arrived, their weapons at the ready.  None of the terrorists held a weapon to offer resistance.  They were marched away while tiny heroes scurried to their crevices, with the thanks of the mind that had called.

Greta rolled over and found leverage for her hands.  She sat up and looked into tear-filled beautiful eyes.  "Momma!"

Mariah Thorndyke gushed with pride and relief.  "Oh, look at my baby Greta.  She sat up.  She's growing up so fast."  She picked Greta up and hugged her.

Greta stuck her tongue out at her siblings as she nestled her head against her Momma's shoulder.

Dallas D'Angelo-Gary 03