"Come on, Evie, trust me. This plan is going to work!"
Bella was trying very hard to convince her little cousin that her self-described "perfect plan" to break into her caregivers' candy stock would work without them getting caught.
"I can't do it when I'm by myself," she went on, "but with the two of us, I can lift you up onto the kitchen counter and you can reach the top shelf of the cabinet."
"Why can't I lift you up?" Evie asked, feeling as though being the one on the counter was much more at risk of getting into bigger trouble.
"Because, Evie, I'm taller and stronger than you."
Bella was right. Despite being a relatively average human size, Evie often felt as though Bella's over-six-foot-tall frame towered over her. Yet still her cousin's height was minuscule compared to their Colossi caregivers.
"But-... but-," Evie stammered nervously.
"But what?"
"What if we get in trouble?" Evie looked up at Bella with anxious eyes. As stubborn as Evie could be, she did not like getting into trouble.
"That's the beauty of the plan, Evie. We won't get in trouble because we can't get caught. All we have to do is sneak past the dining room where the adults are sitting, and the kitchen will be ripe for raiding."
Evie's little mind couldn't come up with any objections, despite her significant effort to find with one. The plan seemed like a strong one. And, not to mention, candy sounded really good right now.
"Okay fine. Let's do it."
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While the girls had been devising their kitchen candy heist, the Colossi adults sat in the dining room. Though they were well within earshot of the playroom from which Evie and Bella were conspiring, the girls whispered quiet enough so as to not raise alarm from the adults.
Plus, they were well-engulfed in conversation about boring adult stuff. Mainly, Camilla and Lucia talking about the memories they had already made with their beloved little. Adrian and Marcella were so happy that their best friends had finally found their little, and that her and Bella had grown to be such good friends so quickly.
"Bella's made a couple of friends at Little's School, but there hasn't been anybody she's connected with as well as she has with Evie," Marcella explained happily.
"How is she liking Little's School?" Lucia asked.
Her and Camilla had discussed the possibility of giving Evie the option to attend Little's School. It wasn't a traditional school with different grade levels or tests. It was more a daycare-type environment where the littles were divided by the age which they typically regress to and looked after appropriately.
"She likes it but I think having to go Monday through Friday is a bit much for her," Marcella answered. "By the end of the week you can tell her social battery is drained because she just clings to Adrian and I. It's sometimes hard to get her to go to school. We're trying to get our work schedules shifted so that she won't have to go every weekday."
With that, Lucia's phone buzzed on the table in front of her.
"Ugh, speaking of work," She said with a huff, "My boss is calling me. Do you guys mind if I take this?"
The group gave a collective shake of their heads before Lucia made her way through the kitchen and out the front door onto the porch to take the call.
Camilla resumed the conversation, "We've considered sending Evie to Little's School, just for her to be able to socialize with other littles. But since Lucia works from home we figured it's better to save the money."
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Crouched stealthily, the two littles made their way out of the playroom. They could hear the voices of their caregivers from the dining room so they knew they hadn't been spotted. A moment prior, they had heard the front door open and shut but thought nothing of it and continued on with their plan.
Bella led the way, peaking around corners and gesturing with her hands when she wanted Evie to move or stay. Evie felt like she was a secret agent in a spy movie, and it took all of her energy not to giggle with devious excitement. She knew that one sound could give away their position. And if that happened, they were in deep doo-doo.
Weaving nimbly through the rooms of the house, the pair finally arrived at their destination, the kitchen. Out of the sight of the chatting caregivers in the next room over, the two littles were careful to remain silent as they stepped up to the counter that suddenly felt as though it towered above them.
Nonetheless, they continued with the plan. Bella squatted down, cupping her hands so that Evie could use them as somewhat of a stair to climb atop the counter. Much to Evie's surprise, it worked. Before she knew it, she was looking out over the kitchen below her, feeling as though she herself was Colossi.
That's when Bella motioned for her to get on with the heist, and Evie quickly turned towards the cabinet and carefully opened it. Revealed before her was a stash of candy unlike any she'd ever seen outside of a candy store. Chocolates, gummies, hard candies, anything you could think of seemed to be on that shelf. It was a goldmine of sweets, and the two mischievous littles were successfully ransacking it.
Evie carefully lowered package after package of sweets down to Bella, who collected them in a cute pink tote bag that she found in her closet. After a few minutes of thievery, the shelf was nearly empty and Evie could not rid herself of the grin that was plastered on her face. She didn't believe Bella initially, but it turned out her cousin was, in fact, a genius. Maybe an evil genius, but morality is all subjective, right? Whatever Bella was, she was making Evie rich with candies and sweets.
"Umm, excuse me?"
One small sentence was all it took for Evie's ecstatic heart to drop to the floor. Freezing in place, her back turned to the kitchen behind her, the girl instantly felt her bottom lip start to quiver. After what felt like an eternity frozen in place, she turned from her place on top of the kitchen counter to see her Mommy standing there, arms folded and eyes glaring daggers straight at the red-handed littles.
Before Evie could even blink, she was picked up off the countertop by her Mommy and placed on the floor beside her beleaguered counterpart. Bella stood there, arms also folded in frustration with eyebrows furrowed in the anguish of failure. Meanwhile Evie looked up at her Mommy, looking as though she would burst into tears at any moment.
"What happened?" Camilla asked as she walked into the kitchen from the dining room, Marcella and Adrian hot on her heels.
Lucia kept her authoritative glare on her guilt-ridden little, "Do you girls want to explain what happened?"
With that question, Evie finally broke down. Tearful sobs broke out in droves as she succumbed to the guilt that had been nagging her from the very beginning of the heist.
"I sorry, Mommy!" She shouted sorrowfully through her sniffles and sobs. "I sorry!"
Evie reached out and grasped onto the woman's waist, looking up with begging eyes in the hopes that she would be picked up and provided with the solace of her Mommy's arms. But such sanctuary never came as Lucia's arms remained folded like a glaring stone statue.
Despite their little girl having clearly broken the rules and expectations set for her by climbing atop a counter and stealing candy without permission, Lucia and Camilla both found it difficult to resist the urge to scoop Evie up into their arms and comfort her through the distress she was showing at that moment. However, they knew that Evie, and Bella, could not get away with something so disrespectful, disorderly, and downright dangerous as robbing the candy stash of Marcella and Adrian.
"Bella, do you care to answer your Aunt Lucie's question?" Marcella asked the taller of the littles who was clearly in an older headspace than the distraught girl beside her.
Much to everyone's surprise, Bella admitted plainly to the crime, "It was my plan for Evie to climb onto the counter. I helped pick her up so that she could. It was all my idea."
The girl spoke with a bratty tone, as though resigned to her fate, but also with a tone of protectiveness toward the "younger" little next to her.
"And you thought that was a good idea?" Lucia asked in response.
Bella only nodded. She might be giving attitude but at least she was being honest.
"It would've worked if Aunt Lucie hadn't walked in," she continued with a stomp of her foot. It was clear Bella would not accept defeat without a fight.
Evie, meanwhile, had finally broken through Camilla's willpower and found herself in her Mama's arms. Camilla was still clearly upset with her little girl, but she could not find it within herself to leave Evie alone on the floor.
The two pairs of caregivers agreed that they would dish out discipline to their respective littles separately, and soon enough Evie found herself strapped back into the carseat and on her way back home.
The ride home was silent, save for the sniffles that still escape from Evie's sorry little body. Once home, Evie spent thirty long minutes standing in the corner, left to stare at the empty living room wall with nothing but her apologetic thoughts.
Afterwards, it was explained thoroughly to Evie just how dangerous and disrespectful her and Bella's little stunt was. But Evie knew that. She knew that before they even attempted the heist how bad it was. But she did it anyway, and found it very hard to forgive herself as a result.
By the time her early bedtime of 7 PM came around, Evie felt as though she had cried every single tear from her body. The shame she had felt for her wrongdoing had been relieved by the tender love of her Mama and Mommy, who had spent much of that night assuring her that they were not mad, and that she had been forgiven.
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Camilla and Lucia climbed into their bed later that night, exhausted by the day's harrowing events.
"Hey," Camilla said, suddenly remembering, "What did your boss have to say on your phone call?"
"Oh my god, I completely forgot about that," Lucia replied with a tired chuckle, "they ended up shifting my schedule so I'm going to have to go into the office to work twice a week from now on."
"Shit, what are we gonna do with Evie?" Camilla asked worriedly.
"I guess..." Lucia hesitated, "We're gonna have to send her to Little's School."