CHERUB GONE BAD, a memoir

The early development of a devilish little trickster.

It all started out innocently enough, Saturday afternoon, the family in the backyard, baby of two years, mother, father, and dogs. There were jobs to be done, weeds to be pulled, plants watered, leaves cleaned up. The backyard was a relatively safe environment for a young daughter to roam, except for a couple of exceptions, a few prickly cactus plants and a small rather shallow frog pond.

 

Working feverishly on yard work, mom and dad momentary lost track of where their daughter Dailyn was located. The search was on. There were several calls of Dailyn’s name, beginning with a calm, loving voice, and quickly ratcheting up to frantic screams. There was no reply, only silence and the bewildered stare of the two family dogs. Where could she have gone? Instantly, dad took the worst-case scenario and immediately jumped feet first into the goop filled the pond and madly began thrashing around the bottom with both arms, no Dailyn! Back to the yard search, calls of “Dailyn” repeated over and over as they roamed every corner of the yard. Both parents are dumbfounded and on the verge of hysteria. Dad again jumps into the thick pea soup water of the pond, which now smells like a toxic waste dump since the putrid organic matter that had been at the bottom was now in full bloom at the top do to the first attempt to rescue Dailyn. No Dailyn!

 

Dad raised his head in bewildered disbelief only to see his cherub like daughter lying in a lounge chair, toes pointed and legs squeezed together, arms tightly folded, and the most entertained and self-satisfied expression on her face. What a sense of power she must have had. To know that all she had to do to create the scene she had just witnessed was to temporarily disappear.