Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

She brought me some iced Kool-Aid and pretended to be worried about my wound. “You should have shown me that.”
    Next, Mr. Kull talked to Heather. She admitted being disciplined by standing in the corner, squatting, and running laps. She said Mrs. Moss had not paddled her, although she had put hot sauce in her mouth. Her brother, Gordon, revealed that he had lived with the Mosses for eighteen months now and liked this home better than the others.
    “Are you punished much?” Mr. Kull asked. Gordon shook his head. “Not ever?”
    He admitted he sometimes had to run laps and squat. When pressed further, he confessed that he had been forced to swallow hot sauce and pepper.
    “Why do you get those punishments?”
    “Because I say a lot of bad words.”
    I was so close to Mrs. Moss, I could hear her teeth grinding.
    When it was Toby’s turn, his lips formed a rubber-band grin. “I like it here!” he said loud enough for anyone within ten feet of the trailer to hear.
    “Do you get punished when you are naughty?” Mr. Kull asked.
    The smile remained pasted in place. “Sometimes I stand in the corner.”
    “Anything else?” Mr. Kull prompted.
    “I run laps with the other kids … or squat.”
    “For how long?”
    “Five or ten minutes?” came out more as a question than an answer.
    “Have you ever been paddled?” Toby shook his head. “Given hot sauce?”
    “Maybe one little mouthful if I cuss.”
    “Who gives it to you?”
    “Mrs. Moss,” he mumbled.
    “When was the last time you got hot sauce?”
    “The day before yesterday.”
    “What kind is it?” Toby pointed to the Crystal bottle on the table.
    Mitchell claimed the Mosses’ home was better than some of his previous foster placements, yet he confirmed that he had to squat and run laps. He denied that the Mosses ever spanked him and claimed they never gave him hot sauce, only black pepper.
    Mandy whispered that she had only run laps twice and that they had never forced her to squat.
    “What about hot sauce?” She shook her head. “Did anyone else get hot sauce?”
    “I—I’m not sure,” she stammered.
    Luke kept bobbing his head and shouted “Nope!” to every question he was asked.
    “Were you forced to drink hot sauce or swallow pepper?”
    “Nope. I ate it on my own!” He glanced over for my approval.
    Mr. Kull asked Mrs. Moss if Clare could speak. “Sure, she’s smart for her age.” The investigator asked the toddler if she liked it there, and she said, “Yeth.”
    Her endearing lisp tore into me like a dull saw. Unexpectedly, I burst into tears.
    Mr. Kull asked, “What’s wrong?”
    Mrs. Moss elbowed me. I looked up. Her glacial eyes made me shiver. “Ashley has something to say to you.” At first I did not understand her scheme, so she prompted me. “You wanted to tell him that you exaggerated, right?”
    “I guess,” I said slowly as I tried to puzzle out what would happen if I stuck with the truth. If the men did not take me away that afternoon, I would get an even worse punishment than I had before.
    “It’s okay,” the deputy urged. “Just tell us what happened.”
    “It didn’t h-happen the way I said it d-did.”
    “You weren’t hit?” the deputy asked. I shook my head. Tears flew in every direction—not because I was sad, but because I was outraged that nobody was ever going to see through the woman’s manipulations. “Then what did happen?” the deputy asked sternly.
    “I j-just fell,” I said between sobs. “It w-was an accident.”
    “This one tells stories,” Mrs. Moss said between pursed lips. “Been through a lot of trauma … saw her grandfather shot…” I was furious that she was twisting my story to save her skin, but now she had caught me in her trap.
    Mr. Kull checked the inside of my cheek again. “This needs medical attention,” he said to Mrs. Moss. “Shall I transport her to the doctor now or will you?”
    “I’d be happy to,” she replied.
    We left for the doctor as soon as