“Pway wuffie wif me, Auntie Dewi!”
“It’s bedtime now, sweetie. Auntie Dewi’s tired. I played wuffie with you earlier. We can’t play wuffie all the time.”
“Why not? Wuffie fun!”
“I know it’s fun but it scares people who don’t know about it. You have to learn when you can and can’t play wuffie. People will get hurt if you play wuffie at the wrong time. Maybe even you.”
Bebe went quiet at that, even though Dewi knew she was still awake.
“Wanna be wuffie,” Bebe finally said.
“You are a wuffie. You’re just like Auntie Tam. Same kind of wuffie.”
“Will Maisie pway wuffie wif me?”
“Maisie’s a baby, sweetheart. She’s way too little for us to know if she can play wuffie yet.”
Another period of quiet. “Dania’s a wuffie.”
“You think so?”
“Mean wuffie. She growled at me and took da ball that day at Gramma’s.”
Wow. That’d been a few weeks ago. “I thought you loved Dania. She’s your cousin.”
“I do when she’s not growlie.”
“Well, we don’t know yet if Dania can be a wuffie for real or just for play. And we can’t show her that you’re a wuffie yet, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t want her to feel bad if she can’t be a wuffie, right?”
Long pause. “No.”
“But you know, if sheisa wuffie, that’s kinda cool you figured it out first, huh?”
Bebe’s little tail wagged. “Yep!”
“Sometimes, it’s better to know something someone else doesn’t know. Especially if it’s about something you can do. That’s the good kind of secret to have.”
“Like what?”
Like making an asshole punch himself in the nuts.
But Dewi didn’t say or thinkthatto her and instead sought a more child-friendly, age-appropriate example.
“Like part of my job is to protect our family. And you know how I can understand what you say now, right?”
Bebe nodded.
“Okay. Well, it’s thegoodkind of secret that we don’t tell people that I can do that. Or that Gampa Bada and Gampa Dunk can do that. Because sometimes we have to find out if a person is lying so they don’t hurt someone in our family. So it’s a good secret that only people close to us know. Just like it’s a good secret that only people close to us know we’re wuffies.”
Bebe didn’t respond at first and Dewi wondered if she’d punched a little too high with that analogy.
But then Bebe surprised her. “So bad guys can’t know we’re wuffies?”
Close enough.“That’s right.”
