Sophie Creeps Me Out #1

We were at the library today, because Sophie loves books and I am trying to instill within her the knowledge that libraries are awesome AWESOME AWESOME. Generally our approach is to swing quickly through the "New Releases" section, where I grab one or two books whose covers look interesting (since she is impatient and won't let me stand in the aisle for more than fifteen seconds), and then we are off to the children's wing, where she plays with puppets and puzzles and looks out the glass wall at the garden outside and grabs random books off the shelf for me to read to her. Last week, her favorite was a kid's biography of Malcolm X. Today it was an English to Hebrew picture dictionary. Sophie's tastes are wide and varied.

So today we are laying on the alphabet carpet and she is opening flaps on a Bob the Builder book, minding our own business, when this weird little boy comes over and sits next to us. Now, believe me when I tell you that I don't use the word "weird" to describe many children, other than my own, of course. Children are by their very nature just a little bit off, and more power to them there. This kid, though: dude. It wasn't just the combination of his Hitler youth cheekbones and doll's eyes, Tom Cullen haircut (M-O-O-N spells "home schooled") and Village of the Damned thousand yard stare that raised the hairs up on the back of my neck. No, what really did it was his opening statement to the two of us:

"Casey's dead," he said, in a flat, monotone, Ediphone wax cylinder-sounding sort of way. "She's up in heaven, protected by angels."

Creepy number one.

Sophie doesn't even look up from her book at him. "She's buried under the window," she says.

Creepy number two.

She's going to end up being that kid nobody wants to sit next to in home room, right? Or the next David Blaine, which really is just as bad.