“What exactly would helping involve?”
The child answered before anyone else could.
“You can be Queen of the Surface.”
Annie looked down at her.
“Is that elected or hereditary?”
The girl frowned.
“Birthday.”
“Of course.”
Ten minutes later, Annie stood behind the craft table wearing a plastic tiara and supervising eight children decorating seashell frames.
She had accepted the role with surprising seriousness.
“No,” she told one girl reaching for the glue gun. “The Queen of the Surface cannot authorize that.”
“Why?”
“Labor laws.”
The girl considered this and chose stickers instead.
I filled a plastic pool near the rinse station while pretending I was not watching.
Annie knew how to hold a room.
She listened to every child as though opinions on mermaid-tail colors were urgent policy matters. She remembered names after hearing them once. When Lexi became upset because her frame looked different from the example, Annie declared it an “exclusive coral design” until three other children wanted one too.
It was not just charm.
It was practice.
I wondered again what kind of successful singer required professionally managed toothpaste.
Then Lexi stuck a silver star to Annie’s forehead.
Annie crossed her eyes trying to see it.
“Is this part of the uniform?”
“You look beautiful,” Lexi said.
“Then yes.”
I stopped wondering.
The next forty minutes involved a treasure hunt, a relay race, and repeated attempts to prevent Captain Pancake from eating cupcakes.
He managed one.
Annie caught him with blue frosting on his nose.
“Captain.”
