“One of the tinies went missing today,” Jewel said, her eyes fixed on the day’s reports. She slurped the soup from her spoon without regard, and looked up at her daughter across the table. “I certainly hope you had nothing to do with that. It’s a rebellious little one, not someone you want to get caught up with.”

“Him, not it,” corrected the girl across the table, “and I can understand why he’d become rebellious. It’d suck to be born at that size.”

“But we give people like him a place to live,” Jewel replied, “there’s no reason to be discontent with living modestly.”

“Yeah, but then they get sold to someone who doesn’t treat them as well.”

“Not all of them are sold, dear. What do you think we’re eating tonight?” Edith looked down at her soup: some sort of chicken-vegetable soup with tiny children swimming in it, having fun. She paused before finding a chunk of chicken and scooping it up. Clinging to it were several small children, climbing or resting after the long swim. She lowered the spoon from eye-level to her mouth, and took the food in. She chewed softly, while trying to think of her next point.

“Okay, I can understand why you don’t bother with all of them. But why can’t I care for just one or two?”

“Because the others will start to get jealous. Then they don’t want to be sold to anyone else, they just want you to take care of them. And that’s not a trait most buyers are looking for.”

“So you only care about them because your buyers do.” Edith’s eyes were beginning to water now, but she refused to dry, despite her mother’s stubbornness.

“I really do care about them, Edith. But some people care more.”

“You only care about money!” Edith burst out, slamming her fist into the table. She tried to avoid wincing, to show her resolve, but her mother barely gave her a glance as she continued reading the reports.

“Honey, you know you shouldn’t yell. It upsets the children.” She had forgotten about the tiny kids swimming in her soup. She didn’t really care about them; she had never met any of them and had no reason to think of them as real people. Still, it would be cruel if they died thinking that she was a mean and angry person. She took her next spoonful and blew gently on it, giving the kids a fun and cooling breeze before sending them to their ends.

“I still don’t think it’s right…” Edith grumbled. “What if I kept him separate from everyone else? Then no one could become jealous because they wouldn’t know.”

“Darling, we’ve had this conversation a dozen times before since you were eight.” The woman patted a napkin to her lips before resuming. “If you kept him alone, you would become his only friend. And I don’t want you making friends with anyone who’s under you. It’s degrading and embarrassing to everyone, yourself included.”

Out of arguments, Edith lifted her bowl up to her lips and drank all that remained. Without saying anything else, she excused herself from the table and made her way upstairs to her room.

Her manners and word choice are becoming rather unrefined, Jewel thought as she quietly slurped her soup. It must be her fraternizing with those tinies. Perhaps I should consider sending her off to boarding to school to teach her some manners.