Strangers

Mommy?"
        "Just teasing," Jorja confirmed.
        "Oh, no, I'm not!" Kara Persaghian said. She came through the doorway, onto the front walk, a grandmotherly woman in a housedress and apron. "A coal necklace… and maybe a set of matching coal earrings."
        Marcie giggled again.
        Kara was not Marcie's aunt, merely her after-school babysitter. Marcie called her "Aunt Kara" from the second week she knew her, and the sitter was obviously delighted by that affectionately bestowed honorary title. Kara was carrying Marcie's jacket, a big coloring-book picture of Santa that they had been working on for a few days, and a plate of cookies. Jorja gave the picture and jacket to Marcie, accepted the cookies with expressions of gratitude and with some chatter about diets, and then Kara said, "Jorja, could I speak with you a moment - just the two of us?"
        "Sure." Jorja sent Marcie to the car with the cookies and turned inquisitively to Kara. "It's about… Marcie. What's she done?"
        "Oh, nothing bad. She's an angel, that one. Couldn't misbehave if she tried. But today… well, she was talking about how the thing she wants most for Christmas is that Little Ms. Doctor play kit-"
        "It's the first time she's ever really nagged me about a toy," Jorja said. "I don't know why she's obsessed with it."
        "She talks about it every day. You are getting it for her?"
        Jorja glanced at the Chevette, confirming that Marcie was out of earshot, then smiled. "Yes, Santa definitely has it in his bag."
        "Good. She'd be heartbroken if you didn't. But the oddest thing happened today, and it made me wonder if she'd ever been seriously ill."
        "Serious illness? No. She's an exceptionally healthy kid."
        "Never been in the hospital?"
        "No. Why?"
        Kara frowned. "Well, today she started talking about the Little Ms. Doctor kit, and she told me she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up because then she could treat herself when she got sick. She said she never wanted a doctor to touch her again because she was once hurt real bad by doctors. I asked her what she meant, and she got quiet for a while, and I thought she wasn't going to answer me. Then finally, in this very somber voice, she said some doctors had once strapped her down in a hospital bed so she couldn't get out, and then they stuck her full of needles and flashed lights in her face and did all sorts of horrible things to her. She said they hurt her real bad, so she was going to become her own doctor and treat herself from now on."
        " Really? Well, it's not true," Jorja said. "I don't know why she'd make up such a story. That is odd."
        "Oh, that's not the odd part. When she told me all this, I was concerned. I was surprised you'd never told me. I mean, if she'd been seriously ill, I ought to've been told in case there was a possibility of a recurrence. So I questioned her about it - just casually, the way you coax things out of a child - and suddenly the poor little thing just burst into tears. We were in the kitchen, making cookies, and she started to cry… and shake. Just shaking like a leaf. I tried to calm her, but that only made her cry harder. Then she pulled away from me and ran. I found her in the living room, in the corner behind the big green Lay-Z-Boy, huddled down as if she were hiding from someone."
        "Good heavens," Jorja said.
        Kara said, "Took me at least five minutes to get her to stop crying and another ten to coax her out of her hidey-hole behind that chair. She made me promise, if those doctors ever came for her again, that I'd let her hide behind the chair and not tell them where she was. I mean, Jorja, she was in a real state."
        

    ***
        
        On the way home, Jorja said, "That was some story you told Kara."
        "What story?" Marcie asked, looking straight ahead, barely able to see over the dashboard.
        "That story about the doctors."
        "Oh."
        "Being strapped in bed. Why'd you make up a thing like that?"
        "It's true," Marcie said.
        "But it isn't."
        "Yes, it is." The girl's voice was little more than a whisper.
        "The only hospital you were ever in was the one where you were born, and I'm sure you don't remember that." Jorja sighed. "A few months ago we had a little talk about fibbing. Remember what happened to Danny Duck when he fibbed?"
        "The Truth Fairy wouldn't let