This is a Jack Donegal Mystery, in the same series with Action Men with Silly Putty and Action Men and the Great Zarelda.
Part 1
“So,
what do you think, Uncle Andy?” Bronwyn Byrne, my “niece” only by
my close brotherly association with her actual Uncle Jack, stepped
out of the dressing room, held her arms out and twirled around.
I
sighed, expressing relief. “Ah. It's fine.” I'd seen plenty of
“Nos” on this shopping trip – the skintight leggings, the
too-short skirts, some darkly themed band T-shirts of questionable
taste. The outfit she was wearing with the pink shirt bedecked with
cupcakes and sprinkles was something to which I could say “Yes.”
This was how little girls should look, all pink with cotton candy and
unicorns and glitter.
“It's
fine? Just fine?” She drooped her arms down to her sides.
Somehow,
the girl had translated “fine” as “barely passable.” “Yeah
… right. I mean it's … cute.”
“It's
cute?” She groaned. “In other words, I look like I'm seven.”
“Nah.
Nah. You look your age. You look like a cute ...” I was not good at
this. I've never been a dad, and here I was acting in the role of
one. I was out of my element, standing here with my arms loaded with
pastel-colored shopping bags, not to mention Bronwyn's little purse, covered in emojis, dangling from my elbow … not exactly the manliest
of accessories.
“Where's
Uncle Jack?”
That
was a very good question. Why couldn't Jack be here to handle these
delicate girly issues with his own niece? “He got an important
phone call on his cell about the event tomorrow, so he went to look
for a quiet place to talk.”
I
turned myself around, Bronwyn's little purse swinging like a flag in
tribute to my manliness. I spotted a boy, around 12, skulking in a
corner behind a clothes rack with his Nintendo DS, probably the
unfortunate brother of a shopper in this girly store. “Hey kid,”
I said. “Come here.”
He
looked up and lifted an eyebrow.
“I
need a man's opinion.” This seemed to get his attention. I hoped
Bronwyn would appreciate the opinion of a boy her age. She was
already starting to notice members of the opposite sex.
When
the kid approached, I put my hands on his shoulders and pointed him
in Bronwyn's direction. “See there? That's my niece. Her outfit
shows good taste, right? It's cool, hip, da bomb … Is da bomb still
a phrase?”
“Uh
… That would be a no,” said the kid. I noticed he refrained from
rolling his eyes at me … unlike Bronwyn.
“Well,”
I said. “The outfit. She needs some affirmation. She looks good,
right?”
The
kid was now giving me a nervous side eye. “Uh … yes?” The boy
either had a young person's habit of ending every phrase as a
question or he was terrified of disagreeing with me. He shrugged a
single shoulder. “Sure. Whatevs. It's cool … for her.”
He said this as if he wanted me to be sure he wouldn't wear it
himself.
A
little while later, I met Bronwyn in her regular clothes, the trial
outfit draped over her arm. She spoke to me through her teeth. “Can
you get any more embarrassing?”
“Uh
… do you really want to know the answer to that question?”
“Probably
not.” Her comment was accompanied by another eye roll.
“So,
you're not taking it?” I asked, pointing to the pile on her arm.
“No,
I'm taking it,” she said.
Moments
later, we were hitting the halls of the mall, and I was relieved of
half of the baggage. Walking along the halls and the crowd, a thought
came to me. Maybe the thought came to me out of boredom from shopping
at Girly Outfitters and Forever 13 or maybe my blood sugar was
dropping and addled my brain. My nose was picking up aromas of
Cinnabon and freshly baked cookies, but, up to this moment, I had
refrained from indulging. I decided this was a good time to hone her
self defense skills.
I
steered Bronwyn away from the main mall traffic. “Hey,” I said.
“Check out the mannequins.” I directed her towards a side
entryway, sandwiched between Old Navy and another tween girl's
paradise. The mannequins in the window display were set up like a
step by step dance tutorial. I was beginning to think like Jack,
imagining photos from the line-up, left to right, put together into
an action flipbook.
Bronwyn
stood mesmerized, and then came the sneak attack. I slinked up behind
her and seized her around the middle, pinning her arms. “Now,
suppose I'm a bad guy,” I said, “what do you do now?” We'd gone
through this exercise a few times back at our apartment. This was the
first time I'd attempted it in public. Looking to my left and spying
a mall cop giving me the stare down, I surmised it was probably my
last time doing this in public.
Mr.
Mall Cop Guy was glaring at me as if I were Ted Bundy. “I'm her
uncle,” I said, loosening my grip on Bronwyn's waist. Biologically
speaking, this wasn't the strict truth, but, emotionally speaking, it
was. “I was impersonating a bad guy and – apparently – doing
too good a job of it.”
Mr.
Mall Cop Guy looked from me to Bronwyn and back again, perhaps
looking for a sign that she was okay or that I was telling the truth.
I pointed to him. “You, Sir, are doing an excellent job of
protecting young girls from creeps like me … well, no, not
literally creeps like me … creeps like the bad guy I was
impersonating. I, for one, salute you.”
I
put out my arm for a fist bump, and he took a couple of steps back.
“Aw,
c'mon. I didn't swing at you. If I wanted to swing at you, I'd do a
better job than that.” This was my day to stick my foot in my mouth
over and over again. I was going to have to head over to Starbucks
for one of those frappuccino things to wash out the taste of foot.
“Not that I'm in the habit of taking a swing at fine upstanding
security personnel.”
Bronwyn
reached over and gave me a squeeze around the middle. “Uncle Andy
is completely harmless,” she told Mr. Mall Cop Guy.
“I
am not completely harmless ...” Just like Bronwyn had understood
“cute” as babyish, I understood “harmless” as milquetoast.
Then, I looked at Mr. Mall Cop Guy and thought I'd better change my
phraseology. “Except to kids. I'm harmless to kids.” I gave
Bronwyn a firm pat between the shoulder blades and rubbed my knuckles
into her scalp.
Mr.
Mall Cop Guy shrugged and shook his head in a way that made me think
he was still assured that I was a weirdo but just of the “harmless”
variety.
To Be Continued ...
To Be Continued ...
