Mad Goldilocks

Copyright © 2009 by Chuck Heintzelman
Cover art copyright © Wessel Cirkel/Dreamstime.com

The psychologist sat in the overstuffed, leather chair, one leg crossed ankle to knee, his notebook balanced on his thigh. I sat in the small sofa across from him. A coffee table separated us.

He idly scratched the side of his head with the back his pen. “Tell me why you are here.”

“I shouldn’t really be here,” I said. “My Mom thinks I’m not adjusting well to the seventh grade, but she’s wrong.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.” I couldn’t meet his eyes, they were too intense, like he could see right through me.

He scribbled something in his notebook. “Why does your mother believe you’re having problems adjusting?”

“Ask her yourself, why don’t you.” I focused on breathing calmly. Getting angry wouldn’t help my cause.

Again, he wrote in his notebook and looked at me, waiting.

“You really don’t have to do this,” I said. “I mean the head shrinking thing. We could just sit here until the hour’s up, nobody the wiser.”

His pen went back to the side of his head and he continued watching me.

I sighed. “You’ll still get paid don’t worry.”

He put his pen in his notebook, closed it and sat it on the coffee table. “Okay then.” He uncrossed his leg and leaned forward, clasping his hands together across his knee. “What do you want to talk about?”

He thought he was pretty smart, but I wasn’t falling for any of his tricks. “I don’t care. What do you want to talk about?”

“How about the three bears?”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. Adults don’t expect cute kids like me to say words like bullshit.

He tugged at his ear. It appeared like he was trying to suppress a smiled. “What do you mean?”

“Have you even heard the story?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Well,” I said, “the story you’ve heard isn’t even true. The bears were people, not animals. And there were two of them, not three.”

“And you think you’re Goldilocks?”