Finely Disciplined Thoughts Read Free

post-punishment fatigue set in. Stress told on other parts of her body, as well.
    As she raised her head to shift her stance slightly, the glow of the Christmas tree on the other side of the room caught her attention. And suddenly she was 10 years old again at Christmas. A very, very naughty 10-year-old.
     
     
    Armed with the newfound knowledge that Santa Claus amounted to a lovely legend, Nika wasted no time in sharing the information that elevated her to the level of the grown-up world with her 5-year-old sister. Andee was entirely disdainful of such heresy to begin with, so Nika redoubled her efforts to convince the little girl of the fact. She was sure of her success, and horrified by the results, when the preschooler burst into disappointed tears. Not until that moment had she considered the potentially disastrous consequences of her actions. But one look at her mother’s face when Andee finished sobbing out the cause of her distress let the big sister in the family know she had blundered badly.
    Nika sought to make herself scarce, but her mother had an unerring sense of location and, having put a stop to one set of tears, she made haste to bring on another.
    “What you did wasn’t a mistake or an accident, Monika Jo Lambert. You meant to hurt your little sister. Well, you succeeded, and now I think you need to hurt a little bit, too.” With that, Nika’s mother grabbed the surprised girl and pulled her into an iron grip that left her bent over and helpless, while a maternal hand lit a fierce fire in her backside.
    Her initial reaction was intense surprise, since spankings were relatively rare in the Lambert household and Nika had not been on the receiving end for a couple of years. Then her defensive mechanism kicked in, and between squeals and sobs, she protested the innocence of her actions. But somewhere deep inside, once her mother had made her distress clear and left Nika alone with her thoughts, she heard a voice remind her of the satisfaction she had taken in delivering the life-changing information to her irritating little sister.
    Nika was still nursing hurt feelings in her room when darkness fell late that afternoon. Soon after she put on the little pink ballerina lamp by her bedside, the door opened and her father stepped in to her room. She huddled miserably on her bed, the picture of dejection and unjustified suffering, since she was sure her mother would have already primed him with her view of the situation.
    Charles Lambert sat down at the foot of his daughter’s bed. He simply stared out into the blackness beyond her window for a moment, and then he turned to her with a sad smile.
    “One of the things that happens as you grow up, is that you find out some favorite parts of your life are not exactly the way you thought they were. You found that out about Santa Claus. But you’re a big girl now, and you also found out the rest of the story — the happy part about Mommy and me loving you so much we wanted you to have this wonderful pretend time for a while, and then we wanted you to understand that there’s as much joy in giving as there is in receiving. I suppose it was sort of an exciting thing for you to know — that grown-up secret a lot of other kids haven’t found out yet. The thing is, Nika, when Mommy and I talked to you about it, we asked you to do something important. Do you remember that?”
    Nika wanted to deny it, but her guilt and the inescapable truth prevented her from doing anything but nodding her head.
    “What did we ask you to do?”
    “You said — you said to let that be our secret until Andee was a b-big girl, too.”
    “Why do you think we asked that of you?” he asked in his calm, quiet voice.
    She shrugged, reluctant to admit anything that might rebound to her discredit.
    “I think you do know. Andee’s not old enough to understand things the way you do. What you did hurt her really bad. She’ll be sad for a long time, and she’ll never get to have the same