By Keara Dougherty
“Sorry, kid. I can’t be bought.”
The child didn’t listen as they grabbed the piggy bank off of their dresser. They struggled with the cap until it finally gave way with a satisfying POP.
“Name your price,” they said. Their eyes were narrowed, calculating. Clearly the child of lawyers.
“Your money means nothing to me.”
Their stare persisted.
I sighed. “100 million dollars.”
“Here.” The child stepped forward, fist extended. I uncurled my claws to receive crumpled bills and coins. “You’ll get the rest later.”
I slithered back under the bed and the child, my child, crawled back under their covers.
Serious typo on line 1. “kid” should be “kids.” If it’s not a typo, it’s misleading.
??? how so? It makes perfect sense to me? My only quibble with it is the use of ‘they’ so as not to have to pick a gender for the child (singular)
I don’t understand this, and the use of they, their etc. In some cases it’s warranted, but here I’m afraid it sounds clunky. Biggest bugbear though is ‘off of’. Really, my whole focus when reading was the grammar. Sorry.
Great lesson on negotiating with a child. I have the same observation as David Berger. Using the plural pronoun instead of a singular pronoun to avoid assigning gender is confusing and detracts from the great story as the reader tries to figure out what is going on. Why not use nouns instead of pronouns?
But what or who did the child buy?