The Gift

Lynn and Rita Loud thought they wouldn’t have any more surprises in their marriage, at least not when it came to kids. After nine children, they thought they had seen it all. Yeah, they had a big family. So what? They loved every single one of them, and it wasn’t in their plans to really stop anytime soon. What they loved the most about their children was how different they all seemed to be from each other.

Lori, at thirteen, was such a responsible girl. She was the one that embraced her older sister role the most, always checking on all her younger siblings, always worried about what they were doing. She tried to help with the chores and wasn’t afraid of scolding her younger siblings if there was ever the need to do it. She was the first one to start showing signs of becoming a teenager, and the parents thought that this was going to be their first experience in dealing with a teen, but certainly not their last.

Leni, now twelve years old, was as childish as they came. She loved cartoons, she loved giving hugs out to everyone, and she loved playing with her siblings. She looked up to Lori so much… She was like her sidekick. Admittedly, she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but the way she behaved, her innocence, her maternal instincts and her predisposition to help in any way she could had won their heart right from the start.

Up until then, Luna was probably the “gifted” child in their family, even though she hated being called like that. But “gifted” and “prodigy” were the only words that came to one’s mind after listening to the eleven years old girl playing piano or cello. Even since she was a kid and they bought her a xylophone, it was clear that she had some kind of gift. When she got old enough to talk, she wasted no time in learning how to sing lullabies along with her mom or Lori. As she grew up, all she ever asked for were new instruments. And even though they were kinda expensive, just seeing their daughter becoming an expert player in a matter of months was delightful enough for them. It always put a smile on their faces.

Of course, when it came to making them smile, Luan’s name was always the first one to pop into their minds. Right from the day she was born, Luan loved smiling and laughing. A decade later, she was the funniest girl they have ever known, with so many incredible talents such as miming and coming up all kinds of routines. Lynn Sr was especially happy with the path she was clearly starting to follow. After all, his sense of humor was definitely one of his best traits.

At nine years old, Lynn Jr was hands down the most athletic member of the family. She could play with absolutely anything that was round and bounced. Ever since Rita was pregnant they joked about her turning out as a soccer player, given the powerful kicks she gave before even being born. And she grew up to became that and much, much more. Tough and a little stubborn, she sometimes played too hard with her siblings, especially with her little brother, but she loved them all, and she was the first one to go to their assistance whenever they got hurt.

Speaking of Lincoln, he had been nothing but a miracle for the family, and the seven years old boy was both the most normal and the most unique of their children. He was the most normal since he acted and had the same tastes as a regular boy his age. And he was unique because he was the only boy in the house. Everyone in the family pampered him a bit more, even though they all tried to act like it was no big deal that he was a boy. But there was no doubt that the sisters kinda fought over who spent more time with little Linky.

Then it came Lucy Loud. At four years old, she was still a little shy and didn’t talk too much. She was certainly a surprise for the parents. They had never had a daughter so introverted, so silent and calm at all times. She always seemed so unexcited about everything… They thought there might have been something wrong with her, but doctors said she was a healthy young kid, and all her siblings –especially Lynn and Lincoln– loved her the same, so there wasn’t much they could do about it.

If there was something they were missing was definitely another kind of pregnancy. A little after a year Lucy was born, Rita got pregnant again, this time with twins. They looked exactly the same. Their little voices were the same. But even though they still acted like a couple of regular two years old babies, there were already some differences in temperament between Lana and Lola. It was easy to tell them apart.

With so many children, with so many different kids, the Loud parents thought that there wouldn’t be any more surprises for them in the future. They thought they had seen it all, that life couldn’t give them anything new. After nine kids, they had nothing new to learn.

That’s it, until little Lisa was born.

They were so immersed in the happiness of having a new member in the family and helping Lynn Sr –ten kids, but the man would still pass out at the moment of birth– that they didn’t realize it at first, but they would later see that Lisa had been special from her first breath.

Unlike most kids, she wasn’t immediately crying as she entered this world. She was born with both eyes open, and she simply stared at everything around her. When the doctors handed her to her mother, all Lisa did was focus her eyes on her, analyzing her features. Rita was so jubilant she thought Lisa was just a quiet baby. Lucy had also been relatively calm when she was born, so she didn’t think much of it.

Even when all the kids, Lynn Sr and even Pop-Pop entered the hospital room and had their time with Lisa, the baby wouldn’t even blink. With every new person that cradled her in their arms, she would thoughtfully check them out from head to toe, and then she would look at them straight in the eye.

She acknowledged their presence. She knew they were there.

Of course, she was a newborn, so as soon as she got hungry she started to cry and Luna, who was carrying her a the moment, had to give her to Rita. Even though she was crying, Lisa had her eyes open with her hands on her stomach. And when Rita started to nurse her, the girl was quick to understand where the source of her food was. After that first night at the hospital, she wouldn’t cry again for food. Instead, she would call someone’s attention and point at their chest.

That was, of course, one of the multiple signs that indicated that something was special about Lisa Marie.

Even the kids started to notice something was off about her. She didn’t cry as much as one would expect from a baby. Even Lucy had had her tantrums and moments where she would just cry for no apparent reason. It was extremely weird, though, to hear Lisa crying and not knowing what she wanted. She was specific, abnormally specific about what was bothering her. If she was hungry she would point at her little mouth and to the chest of whoever was around her. If something hurt her she didn’t just cry and let the mother figure out what was going on, no, she would indicate the exact source of her pain. Even stranger was when her older siblings tried to play peek-a-boo with her. She was definitely not amused by the game. They would swear that she was looking at them like they were idiots, and after a while, she would grab their wrists when they covered their faces and then she would spread them. It was like she was saying “Please, stop embarrassing yourself.”

So yeah, at first everyone thought Lisa was kind of a strange kid. They didn’t know how to deal with her. They didn’t know how they were supposed to play with her. She didn’t like any of the hand-me-down baby games that the rest of her siblings had enjoyed!

It was Lincoln who figured out the truth.

Little Linc had always been a curious little boy, with a wild imagination and unparalleled creativity. He loved playing with his LEGO bricks. He would spend hours playing, either alone or with some of his sisters, creating from a simple house, to what he imagined to be a giant medieval city where he would use his toys to recreate epic battles.

One time, he was playing alone in the living room. Everyone else was busy doing something, but that wouldn’t keep him from playing and having fun. He was seven years old, after all, and he could entertain himself with pretty much anything. Lori had been kind enough to help him Google and print a picture of a fantastic spaceship you could build with your regular set of LEGO’s, and now he was trying to follow the instructions. They were challenging, but he was determined to follow them through and finish the spaceship! What’s more, he even had enough bricks to maybe build two of them! He would just have to keep them safe from the baby twins and Lynn. She was really fun to play with but she could also be too rough, and his LEGO spaceship needed to be treated with care.

He had spent ten minutes trying to find the right way to connect the final piece of the first wing, so he didn’t hear a baby crawling near him. When he was done with that piece, he looked at the first wing of the ship, and he started to giggle with excitement. He turned around to grab the instructions, and then he noticed Lisa staring at the paper with earnest.

“Lisa!” He was still excited about being a big brother to his baby sisters since he had been too young to make a good job when Lucy was born. But now he was trying his hardest to be the best big brother in the world for Lola, Lana, and Lisa.

The little kid was still looking at the instructions, but she acknowledged Lincoln’s presence by looking at him in the eye for a couple of seconds.

“You like the pictures, don’t you?” Asked Lincoln, crawling closer to her and petting her head. “They’re really colorful and pretty! Do you want to play with some blocks, too?”

She looked up at him but didn’t say anything. That was perfectly normal, of course, she was just three months old. Lincoln grabbed some of his blocks and gave them to Lisa. To keep her from tearing apart the instructions, Lincoln grabbed them and put them right in front of him, turning his back on his sister.

He continued to build up his model, focused on his task. Fifteen minutes later, he was still trying to figure out how to do put together those pieces. Man, he should’ve asked for some of his big sisters to help him, this was very hard. He didn’t know how to combine the pieces he had in the instructions, so he decided that maybe he could make some changes. He turned around to grab another block, and that’s when he noticed it.

Lisa was grabbing the blocks and building the same spaceship he was trying to do. But in fifteen minutes she was already adding the final touches, while it had taken him an hour to finish only one of the wings. He stared at Lisa and the spaceship for almost a minute that felt like a century, until she finished the model and looked up at him.

She raised the spaceship, showing her work proudly, and for the first time ever, she gave him a warm smile.

Lincoln started to scream. He backed away as fast as he could, breaking down his own progress on the model and then he ran upstairs.

“LORI! LORI! LORI!” He screamed, running down the hall, trying to find his sister.

She didn’t answer, but one of the doors was opened, and Luna, combing her long brown hair, peeked out.

“Lincoln, what’s wrong?” She asked, looking at him with worried eyes.

“Luna!” He said, stopping in front of her, sweat running down his forehead. “Where’s Lori?”

“Dad took her out to the m– Hey!”

“You gotta see this!” Lincoln interrupted her, grabbing her wrist and pulling her in the direction of the stairs.

“Lincoln, what’s going on?”

“It’s Lisa! She did something amazing!”

“Lisa? What did she do?”

As they walked down the stairs, Lincoln quickly filled her in. Luna gave him a suspicious look.

“Linky, are you sure you saw right? I mean, she’s a baby, there’s no way she could– “

By the time they got to the living room, Lisa was already finishing repairing Lincoln’s model, and she also took the liberty to complete it and finish it for him. A complicated eighty-seven pieces model, and she had finished two in less than half an hour after seeing the instructions once.

The rest of the family were told about this discovery. No one believed it at first, but as soon as they gave Lisa something to do, she’d do it. She built a model of the Eiffel Tower, a representation of their house, she solved one of Lynn Sr’s five-hundred-pieces puzzles in twenty minutes, and even made Charles in origami with a piece of paper she found on the floor.

The parents didn’t know what to do. This was beyond their comprehension. So they took her to a doctor that derived them to a special clinic, where they could find the right answers. After only one day of tests, the results were evident. Lisa Marie Loud had the highest IQ ever recorded in the United States of America. Professionals told the parents that this was a case unlike any other. There were no explanations. Her mind was simply developing at an unheard rhythm.

Everyone had so many questions… They had to break it down simply enough for the rest of their kids: Lisa had a gift. She was a gifted child. A genius. Simple as that. Doctors and child psychologist gave them some pointers about how to raise her, how to stimulate her imagination and intelligence, but given the lack of precedents, the best thing they could do was simply let her develop her instincts on her own. There was little they could teach her beside behavior and social rules.

It was an odd situation for everyone. But there was someone that took it the hardest.







“Honey, I need to take the kids to the doctor”, Rita said, finishing combing little Lola’s hair and making sure Lana didn’t ruin her overalls by playing in the mud again. “Today’s their fourth annual checking.”

“And then ice-cream!” Excitedly said Lola, waving her feet in the air as Rita finished her hair.

“And then ice-cream”, their mother repeated, before looking at Leni. “Are you sure you can stay alone and take care of Lisa for me?”

“Like, yeah!”

“Alright, it won’t be for too long. Lori will be back in two hours or so. Just… you know, make sure she doesn’t use any sharp tool.”

“But what if she breaks her pencil?” She asked, sounding worried.

“Pencil? What does that–? Oooh. Alright, she can use her sharpener, but nothing that can hurt her!”

“Got it!”

“And… Listen, honey, if you think you’re having troubles, or you don’t know what to do, call one of the neighbors and ask for help, ok?”

“Why would I–?”

“Just in case”, Rita quickly said, grabbing Lola and Lana by their hands and moving to the door. “I’ll leave my phone on the table in case you need it. It’s brand new so don’t break it, and please, take care of Lisa.”

“I know!”

“Alright, take care sweetie! Love you!”

“Bye Leni!” Said the twins.

And then they left the house, leaving Leni and Lisa alone in the living room. The now two years old genius was busy trying to fix Luan’s video camera, which had fallen from the stairs after a fight between the comedian and Lori. No one liked asking favors for Lisa since she was still a baby, but when there was something like a broken computer or camera, they knew they could count on her. She seemed to enjoy fixing things and playing with circuits more than she did talking –which, in fact, she almost never did, she was a quiet toddler.

“Hey, Lisa, do you want me to cook something for you?” Asked Leni with a smile, bending down to be more at eye level with her baby sister.

Lisa limited herself to look up from the open circuits of the video camera and nod in agreement.

“Great! I’ll cook something totally delicious for us!”

On her way to the kitchen, Leni spotted her mother’s phone on the table. She grabbed it and stared at it. ‘Just in case’, her mother had said. ‘Just in case’, she thought, should mean ‘only if’, and Leni was pretty sure that most of the time that was supposed to indicate something that wasn’t expected to happen, right? Like, ‘Here’s the fire extinguisher, use it only if there’s a fire going on’. But who would be actually expecting to create a fire? Those were accidents, and even though you should be prepared, like carrying another set of shoes in your purse just in case the ones you’re wearing get dirty, you’re confident about them not happening.

Why, then, she felt like her mother was totally expecting something to go wrong while she was alone taking care of Lisa?

Okay, granted, she wasn’t smart at, like, stuff. Sometimes it was hard for her to understand things. But she was fourteen years old, she should be able to stay home alone from time to time. But they never trusted her. They would trust Lori, of course, since she was the oldest. But Leni was their second daughter, shouldn’t she be the next one to trust? And yet, whenever Lori couldn’t take care of the house, their parents would ask Luna to be in charge. They wouldn’t go as far as leaving Luan in charge, but every time Leni was supposed to be the sister all siblings should listen to, her parents would start giving her instructions that they didn’t give to the other girls.

Today they had absolutely no choice. Lori was hanging out with friends, Luna was going to some kind of rock concert, some Swagger dude. It was funny, Luna into rock? She was more into violin and piano kind of music, whatever that was called. Luan, Lynn, and Lucy were with Dad, and Lincoln was staying with his friend Clyde.

Leni had a responsibility, and she was determined to show them that she wasn’t only fashion-smart, she could also be smart enough to babysit Lisa! She’d cook something for her, she would read her a bed time story and she would put her to sleep. It would be perfect.

And if she did a good job, maybe at least her family would stop thinking of her as a dumb girl.

She decided to prepare some pasta. Babies could eat pasta, right? Everyone loves pasta! She started the low fire to prepare the water, got some noodles and, after a couple of minutes, she put them in the almost boiling water. She had to wait now, but she decided to maybe make some kind of sauce in the meantime, so the noodles would taste even better for little Lisa.

She grabbed some tomatoes and other ingredients, a cutting board and one of her mom’s knives, and started to cut them in really small pieces. She wasn’t dumb, she knew babies couldn’t eat big portions. She was halfway done with the second tomato when she heard some sounds from the living room.

Fearing that Lisa might have hurt herself, Leni started to run, before remembering that she shouldn’t run with a knife on her hand. So she just walked as fast as she could.

“Liz, are you okay?!” She asked as soon as she got there.

It turned out that Lisa was simply giggling, apparently content with her efforts on the video camera, filming herself. Leni sighed, relieved that she was okay. But then she spotted the screwdriver on the floor. It was a long, metal thingy and it had a sharp edge. That was not okay.

“Lisa, be careful with these things,” she said, sitting beside her baby sister. She left the knife on the floor and put the screwdriver besides it, before grabbing Lisa and sitting her on her lap. “It can be dangerous and you can hurt yourself, and I need to show mom that I can take care of you!”

She played with Lisa for a bit, trying to make her laugh, but unlike all her younger siblings when they were babies, it was hard to make the little genius smile. Leni was a bit disappointed when the little girl only stared at her with a bored expression. She suddenly remembered that she needed to finish her sauce and watch out the saucepan on the fire.

“Alright, take care, Lisa! Call me if you need anything!”

Her hand grabbed what she thought was the knife and quickly got back to the kitchen. She checked the noodles and saw that they needed to be on the fire for a little longer, but she decided to maybe finish cutting down the ingredients for her sauce first. She grabbed a little bit of onion and tried to cut it, but it was really hard to do it. She took a closer look at her cutting tool.

“Well, this is a funny looking knife!” She said laughing at the oddly shaped knife.

It kinda looked like that screwdriver Lisa was playing wi–

“LISA!”

She dropped the cutting board to the floor and ran as fast as she could to the living room. She accidentally hit her hip against one of the corners of the table in the dining room, but she barely felt the pain. She didn’t even hear the sound of something falling to the floor. All she could do was plea to God, Jesus and the Tooth Fairy that her baby sister hadn’t hurt herself with the knife she had stupidly left on the floor.

When she entered the living room, her heart stopped for a second. There she was, Lisa, holding the knife with one of her tiny little hands, inspecting the object. Leni let out a sharp scream and practically jumped there, roughly grabbing Lisa’s wrist to keep her from moving the knife and cutting herself. The rough movement hurt Lisa, who started to cry as soon as Leni grabbed the sharp object and threw it away from her sister.

She was immediately relieved to see that Lisa hadn’t hurt herself, but now the baby was crying.

“Hey, Liz, it’s okay, you’re okay”, she whispered, shooshing her, trying to calm her down. “Listen, don’t worry, you’ll be okay, you’re not hurt! It’s alright, stop crying, will you?”

But Lisa kept crying. She kept crying, she kept moving her arms and legs, and Leni was starting to get really, really nervous. This shouldn’t be happening, they were supposed to be having fun, this was supposed to be a great day! She was cooking for Lisa, she was making a–

The pasta! It was gonna overcook!

“Lisa, stay here!” She said, quickly leaving her on the carpet and running to the kitchen. She knew, though, that she should pick up the knife. She couldn’t leave it on the floor, otherwise, Lisa might grab it again. She quickly spotted it next to the table. She bent down to grab it, and as she was standing up again, she noticed something else on the floor. Something black and shiny, kinda like… like…

The world seemed to stop along with her heart. She forgot how to breathe. She felt cold sweat starting to form on her forehead. There, on the floor, lied Rita’s brand new phone, with the case and the battery spread on the carpet. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening to her, not today, please, no…

She left the knife on the table and with trembling hands, she grabbed the parts. Maybe she wasn’t good with puzzles –although last month she had finally found out where the fourth piece of her six-piece puzzle went–, but she knew where to put a battery on a phone. It was simple. She quickly put it in place, added the case, and pressed the power button.

Then she waited.

And waited.

And then she panicked.

“No, no, no, no, no”, she kept repeating in a whisper, trying to put the battery again. “Please, not mom’s new phone, please, not today….”

She did all that she could to fix it, but the damn phone just wouldn’t start. Leni was positively terrified. This was definitely the worst thing that could happen to her today. She was supposed to show her mom that she could be responsible, that she could be trusted. Breaking her new phone was definitely not on her to-do list.

She kept trying to turn it on, but the minutes passed, the food was overcooked, the kitchen floor was a mess of ingredients and the phone was definitely dead.

Leni gave up. She let the phone on the floor, crawled to the closest wall, hugged her knees to her chest and she started to cry.

This was supposed to be her chance to prove everyone else that she could be trusted. She was supposed to take care of Lisa, to be the older sister she knew she could be. Not just the dumb girl that others would make fun of in school. She just wanted to be taken seriously. Was that too much to ask?

She felt a tiny hand on her knees, and she looked up. Lisa was staring at her with a bored but yet slightly intrigued expression. Her head was tilted to a side, and her tiny eyes were fixed on Leni’s. The older girl knew poor Lisa had nothing to do with this, but she was the only one there to listen to her, and she had a lot of things to say.

“Why, Lisa?” She asked, sobbing as hard as her lungs would let her. “Why do I have to be like this? W-Why did you get to be so… so smart, while I’m stuck being dumb?”

She couldn’t keep looking at her baby sister. She buried her face in her arms, soaking her beautiful summer dress with her tears.

“No one ever trusts me! T-They don’t think I can be trusted! They… they’d rather have ANYONE else in charge instead of me. And you know what? They’re right! I can’t be put in charge!” She exploded. “I can’t do anything right! I let you alone with a knife, I ruined the food and I broke mom’s new phone! The kids at my school are totes right, I… I really am stupid...”

She didn’t look at Lisa, but she knew she was there. Probably just staring at her dumb older sister, thinking how it could be possible that she was so dumb. And just thinking about that made Leni feel even worse. A baby… a BABY was smarter than her. Yeah, granted, she was a genius, but still… Lola and Lana were probably smarter too.

“N-No wonder… no wonder no one likes m-me.”

By now, her crying had become too strong for her to handle. She couldn’t really speak, she was just letting out all her sadness and worries. These sensations, these fears, they weren’t new. She had been living with them for a long time by now, always feeling rejected, always feeling like the cute girl everyone felt sorry for. They would always speak slowly whenever they tried to explain something to her, they always tried to use simple words, always with an air of condescension on their voices.

And she always pretended that she didn’t care! She always did her best to keep her smile on her face and act like it was nothing. Like it didn’t bother her. Like it didn’t make her feel incredibly bad. Like she didn’t hate herself for being so stupid. Like she didn’t know everyone hated her for being so stupid. Her family, of course, didn’t hate her. She knew that they loved her and that they tried so hard to not be bothered by her ignorance…

And that only made her feel even worse about herself. She wished she could be smart, if only so her family wouldn’t have to bear with her. They deserved better.

She kept crying for several minutes, so she didn’t notice what little Lisa was doing. She didn’t hear the tools, the plastic, the paper or the marker. She was too focused on her own misery, on her self-loathing. And she could’ve stayed like that for a long time, but then she heard something new, something she couldn’t remember hearing ever before.

“Le-ni.”

She opened her eyes and looked up. Lisa was crawling closer, with something on her hands. But Leni was too dumbfounded to take a good look at it. Lisa had talked before, of course, but for the most part, she was a quiet kid. Hearing her talking was an impressive act on its own, but what really surprised her was the fact that she had called her by her name. It was the first time.

“L...Lisa?” She asked, quickly rubbing her forearms against her eyes.

As she was wiping her tears away, she heard yet another sound that made her heart stop. A digital sound she knew all too well. Not without some effort, she looked back at her baby sister and saw that she was now sitting right next to her, and she had both hands extended, inviting her to take the object she had on her hands: her mom’s cell phone, now on, with the bright screen showing a picture of her ten children.

She was so quick into leaning forward and taking the phone from her sister’s hands that Lisa got scared and jumped back a little. Leni stared at the phone. It was working. The screen was intact, all the buttons seemed to work. Oh, God, she was SO relieved, Mom wasn’t going to kill her after all! And all thanks to…! All because…

Very carefully, Leni left the phone on the carpet, extended her arms and lifted Lisa, hugging her tight, yet softly against her. She gently stroked the toddler’s back, her tears still falling down her face. A two years old baby had just fixed up her giant error. She was supposed to take care of Lisa, to watch over her, to make sure that she didn’t hurt herself or did anything bad, but as luck would have it, it all turned out to play the opposite way.

Of course, that was sure to be expected.

She was Leni, after all. The dumb girl of the family.

“At… At least one of us is responsible enough”, Leni sadly said. “Mom probably knew that you would be making sure I didn’t mess up and not the other way around.”

Lisa started to move, but Leni didn’t pay much attention. She was still thinking about how irresponsible she was, how stupid she was most of the time, how everything she did always end up wrong. No wonder the twins and Lucy didn’t like spending time with her. No wonder Luna and Luan were always acting politely condescending around her. No wonder Lori didn’t like to leave her alone to do anything and always forced her to be with her at all times. She couldn’t be trusted to do anything.

“I’m sorry, Lisa”, she finally let out, hugging her even tighter against her. “I-I wish I could be a better sister. I wish I wouldn’t be this dumb. But I guess I’m just a burden for y--”

“Here.”

Another word. Leni had to draw away from Lisa a few inches so she could realize that there was something she was handing to her. A piece of paper. With confused eyes, Leni grabbed it.

She kinda wanted to start crying again, but this time it wasn’t because she felt like a burden to her family, oh, no. It was because she was now holding in her hands the most beautiful thing she could ever remember seeing. A handmade drawing made by her two years old baby sister. Granted, she wasn’t as gifted with art as she was with science, but the quick sketch she had drawn in under five minutes was astonishingly well done. It was simple, yet touching, and outright beautiful. It showed Leni and Lisa, smiling and hugging each other.

At the top of the page, written with a perfect calligraphy, three powerful words.

“I love you.”

Leni stared at it in silence for some solid five minutes before finally looking back at her sister. Lisa was still sitting on her lap, and she… Was that some blush on her cheeks? She was trying her hardest to look at Leni with a bored, serious expression, but it was obvious that she couldn’t do it. With a little bit of effort, Leni realized that for someone as smart and unordinary like Lisa, a kid who was always so serious and seemingly emotionless, drawing that and giving it to Leni must have been quite a challenge.

And that only made it all the better.

Leni had always been a girl who could go from one end of the spectrum of emotions to the other in a matter of seconds. Some people found it annoying. Some liked it. She went from being crying against the wall thinking that she was nothing but a stupid kid to once again grab Lisa and this time she gave her a kiss on her little forehead.

“I love you too, Liz”, she told her. And to her utter surprise -how many more surprises were left to have on that day?-, Lisa smiled at her at extended her arms, asking for a hug. And Leni happily obliged.

Maybe she wasn’t the responsible girl she should be. Maybe she was a little insufferable. She might not have been the sharpest tool in the shed, but Lisa’s gift, that little drawing, was the living proof that her family loved her nonetheless. And that’s all that mattered.

As she was hugging little Lisa, she heard an unmistakable sound. She had been surrounded by babies for as long as she could remember. She knew what it was. She raised Lisa up enough for her to smell it.

“Aw, did Lily-Wily make a poo-poo in her diapey-diapey?” She said, with the warmest of smiles and that funny tone she always used when she talked to babies. She received Lisa’s unamused expression in return, along with a shrug of her little shoulders. “That’s okay, I can totes change your diaper! I know that’s Lori’s job, but I bet that it’s, like, easy as pie!”

Unfortunately, her baking wasn’t as polished as her sewing. Fortunately, she had a gifted child who not only loved her, but that was also willing to walk her through the process of changing a diaper.

She got scolded by her mom when she got back home and found out she had ruined the food for the night, but that didn’t matter. Not really. The only thing that mattered was that that day had settled the base for a very unique relationship in the house. One that, as the years passed and they all grew older, became a strong yet discrete bond. But even if Lisa wasn’t fond of showing her emotions, Leni knew that she loved her.

The proof was taped inside her wardrobe as one of Leni’s most priced possessions: Lisa’s gift.