Lie Detector

As soon as I had them alone I crossed my arms over my chest and faced my five year old twins.  “Who did it?” 

Yasmine intently studied the toe of her shoe, her sister, the wall, anywhere but me.   Laken unwaveringly met my gaze with what I’d come to call her ‘I’m-trying–hard-to-lie-look’.  Her eyes bulged and her lips puckered as if the effort to keep the truth contained required so much exertion that the truth was literally bursting from her seams.  Or if she’d accidently eaten a bug.

I’d never confess my ability to ferret the truth out of them this way.  Same as I wouldn’t admit I could see their reflection in the television when they were in the kitchen.  How I knew when they thought they were sneaking and I didn’t actually have eyes in the back of my head as I claimed.

 “It’s not my fault.”  Both chimed in unison.

Ahhh, the old stand by for everything in the world that is generally their fault.  To this day, I’ve yet to figure out just whose fault it really is for all the wrongs that the twins have taken the fall for. 

“Laken, did you call 911?”  I turned my own ‘mother stare’ up to challenge her ‘trying-to-lie-look’ as I saw her wavering in her resolve.  “You did, didn’t you?”

Wavering…wavering…cave!  The girls had yet to learn I’d been a master at the staring contest back in the day---they didn’t stand a chance.

“We didn’t think the number would really work.”  Laken blurted, looking immensely relieved to be rid of the effort involved in maintaining the lie. 

But the number did work.  Unfortunately this was the consequences of learning about emergency services in kindergarten. 

“Whose idea was it?” 

“Everybody’s.”  Yasmine rushed in defense, apparently not willing to take the rap alone.

“We didn’t think they’d come.”   

But the police did come, but it was to the neighbor’s house where the girls were playing with their kids.  Unfortunately their grandfather was babysitting and was quite surprised to greet the policeman who came to their door for their ‘emergency’.

Usually they call the house to validate if there is indeed an emergency, or if the call was a mistake.  Unfortunately, when dealing with a group of four children ranging from five to eight years old who, like most children (and some adults)… panic. 

The girls went on to confess each time the call came back to validate the emergency, it was answered---and hung up on.  Although their utilization of ‘ignore or avoid and it will go away tactic’ wasn’t successful since the police could identify the location of the call and make a personal visit.  Luckily the policeman must’ve been having a slow day and used this as an educational opportunity to expand upon proper use of the emergency system. 

Although I doubted the probability of ever reading about my girls being touted a heroine someday for enacting the emergency system if there was a real crisis.   Surely they’d spend the entire time as I’d lie writhing in pain or unconscious as they’d try to determine if this was, indeed, the proper time to make the call---rather than face down an intimidating policeman again.