Chapter 10

Eight years and nine months after the great lingerie shopping expedition, Mary said, “Time to wake up.”

A small hand emerged from under the blanket. It signed, “Let me sleep.”

“You have to get up. You have school today,” Mary said.

The little hand signed, “I don’t want to go to school.”

“You have to go to school. You have a spelling test today,” Mary said.

“I hate spelling tests. They are a stupid waste of time. They are never going to ask me a word that I don’t know how to spell.”

Growing up in a household where fingerspelling was as common as speaking, learning to spell was not an issue. She could spell more words than most high school students. It was just a matter of being exposed to it all of the time.

Mary said, “Your parents are in the dining room waiting to have breakfast with you.”

The little girl slowly got out of bed. She was wearing pink bunny pajamas. They were her favorite pair of pajamas. She signed, “Did Mom wash my pink dress?”

“Yes.”

“At least I have something nice to wear today,” the little girl said with a sigh.

She looked around her room. There were shelves packed with electronic and mechanical toys neatly lined up. Her bed was covered with a handful of stuffed animals. She had a doll house with a couple of dolls and hundreds of little outfits. She ignored the shelves and smiled at seeing the dolls. “Maybe I’ll get a new doll today.”

Five minutes later, the little girl wandered into the dining room. She was wearing her favorite pink dress, little pink socks, and black shiny shoes. She even carried a little black purse over her arm. There was a pile of presents on one end of the table.

Sherry said, “Happy Birthday, Otterly.”

“How’s it feel to be eight?” Alex asked.

“Like it felt when I was seven,” Otterly answered.

Sherry said, “I made your favorite breakfast.”

“Blueberry pancakes?”

“You bet,” Sherry said.

Otterly sat down at her spot at the table. Unlike most kids, she was more interested in eating than opening her birthday presents. She glanced over at the big package and said, “Let me guess. That’s a robotic dog.”

“How did you know?” Sherry asked disappointed that Otterly wasn’t surprised.

“Don’t you remember, you were taking one apart in the workshop when I went out there the other day,” Otterly said while pouring some syrup on her pancakes. “You and Daddy wanted to see if you could install your software in it.”

Feeling a little embarrassed about having spoiled the surprise, Alex said, “I forgot about that.”

Sherry asked, “That one is still out in the workshop. We put it back together. Do you want to go out there and take it apart to see how it works?”

“Not really,” Otterly answered shaking her head.

“It’ll be fun,” Alex said.

“Not really,” Otterly said.

Alex and Sherry looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

Sherry said, “Your Grandmother wants to take you shopping after school.”

Sitting up excitedly, Otterly said, “I love shopping with Grandma. She really knows how to shop.”

“I know. She lives to shop,” Sherry said with a sigh.

“We’ll go to the dress stores, the toy stores, and have some pastries,” Otterly said.

“I’m sure you’ll have fun,” Sherry said.

Alex said, “You can stop in at the electronics store and see if they have any gadgets you might like.”

“We spent four hours down there last Saturday,” Otterly said rolling her eyes.

“That was fun,” Sherry said.

Otterly said, “Not really.”

“Oh,” Alex said.

At that point the conversation died. The three sat around the table eating their breakfast. There wasn’t much talk except for asking to get something passed around the table. When they finished eating, Sherry pointed to the presents and let Otterly know that she could open them. She was hoping that Otterly would like what they had gotten for her.

Otterly opened the biggest package first. As she had expected, it was a robotic dog. The box boasted that it had more realistic behaviors than any other robotic dog on the market and could recognize up to ten people. Otterly removed it from the box and placed it on the table. She rapped it with a knuckle.

“It’s kind of hard,” Otterly said.

“It’s actually made of pretty solid plastic,” Sherry said pointing out what she thought was a good feature of the produce.

In agreement, Alex said, “It won’t break.”

“It’s not very cuddly like a real puppy,” Otterly said.

“You really want a puppy?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe we should get two puppies,” Alex said with a grin.

“We could take one apart and see how it worked,” Sherry said making Alex laugh.

Otterly said, “That’s not funny.”

“We’re sorry,” Alex and Sherry said together.

Otterly opened another package. It was the latest portable computer. It was about the size of cigarette package. It had a projection keyboard and a video projector with a battery life of two days. It had built in wifi and 6G networking. It was personal computer and a cellphone all in one.

“It’s a computer,” Otterly said.

“You can take it to school with you,” Alex said.

Otterly said, “We aren’t allowed to use our own computers at school until the sixth grade.”

“What are you supposed to use?” Sherry asked.

“The computers at the school,” Otterly answered.

“Those old crates. They must be two years old,” Alex said with a frown.

Otterly said, “Dad. I’m in second grade. We don’t do much with computers.”

“Why not?” Alex asked.

“We are learning how to read and write and do math. You don’t need the computer to do that. We have books and pencils and papers,” Otterly explained for the thousandth time.

She had grown up in a household without paper. While other kids had coloring books, she had a graphics tablet. While other kids had real books, she had ebooks.

“How about the internet?” Sherry asked.

“There’s too much porn for us to get on the internet. It’s the Rule 34 ban,” Otterly said.

Rule 34 was that if it exists, then there is porn on it. In essence, any subject on the internet could be turned into something pornographic. A lot of schools had a Rule 34 ban that made it forbidden for students to access the internet while on school property until the sixth grade. By that time, they’d have seen most of it on television, anyway. It was actually a pretty useless policy since most of the kids had cellphones or portable computers that allowed them to browse the internet anyway.