tell me about it

Marley smiles at me, and damn if she hasn’t got the cutest little gap-toothed grin I’ve ever seen. I should recognize that angelic smile by now – it’s the I-didn’t-do-nothing-wrong look, patented by Marley and dragged out every time she knows she’s butt-deep in trouble. Her brown eyes are huge. She makes them as wide as possible and stares at me with a gaze of calculated innocence.

Sweet little Marley. She learned how to talk when she was barely thirteen months old and I haven’t been able to hush her up since then. My mother thinks it’s incredibly funny because apparently I couldn’t shut up myself as a kid. Retribution, she calls it, but of course she says it with a great deal of affection. Marley may be able to talk your ear off but you can’t help falling in love with the little tyke. How could you not? Just that sometimes I look at her pacifier with wistful longing and wonder why on earth she ever had to grow out of it.

If you’ve ever heard the term ‘devil in disguise’ you know the creator probably had a Marley of his or her own. She gets into trouble with the greatest of ease. I can’t explain it. She must have been born with some sort of magnet inside her because no matter where she is, she’ll figure out how to break something – or someone. Chor Ling from down the street won’t bring her Bobby over to play anymore, not after we spent that harrowing evening in the A&E when Marley slammed her bedroom door on Bobby’s fingers. That’s when I found out that the worse the sin committed, the sweeter Marley’s patented look is. After smashing Bobby’s fingers in the door she’d toddled to the kitchen and given me a real whopper of an angel face.

This time, judging by the expression she’s wearing, I’m absolutely certain I’m going to be needing an extra-strength aspirin in a couple of minutes to deal with the headache she’s put in my way this time.