Little My Rainbow

       Little My made an honest attempt at distraction. Terrorising Sniff was the obvious choice. She found him in his cave, fussing over his parents' button collection—half of them rainbow-bright, the rest varying shades of off-white, yellowed with age. Little My plucked one, oblong as a beetle larva, and gnawed it experimentally. "Oi! Those are Mum's!" Sniff fretted, glancing back at a wedding photo taped to the button box. The picture showed a daintier, tidier version of Sniff in a cream dress, veil, and—crucially—a necklace of pale buttons. Little My's grin widened. "D'you know what these are really made of?" She held her pilfered button to the light. "Um. Precious gems?" "Nope." Little My scraped it with a sharp pebble. "Scratches easy, see? Dead folk's teeth and bones. And look—" She jabbed at the photo. "Wedding dresses are s'posed to be snow-white. That's yellow. And the cut's a hundred years out of fashion—ask Snorkmaiden if you don't believe me. Your mum's a grave robber. That dress? Stitched from a burial shroud. The buttons? Well..." Sniff squeaked, dropping an innocent black button. Little My pressed her advantage: "One day, the ghosts of the corpses she looted will come for your teeth as payment!" Whimpering, Sniff fled—predictably—to Moominhouse. Little My gave chase, arriving just as he babbled her lies to Moominmamma, who was ferrying lemon biscuits from the kitchen. Sniff had embellished. "Worse yet!" Little My interjected, swiping a biscuit under Moominmamma's reproachful gaze. "Those bones are hers. She's a century-old ghost who ate your dad's soul, and you're next!" Sniff choked on his tea. Moominmamma thumped his back. (Pity his fur hid whether he'd gone as pale as his buttons, though his eyes were saucer-wide.) "Don't fret," Moominmamma soothed. "Even if true, no mother—ghostly or not—would harm her child. She'd protect you." Sniff's ears twitched as if brain cogwheels were turning under that stupid fawn fur. Then—"Wow! So ghosts are all my relatives? Brilliant! I could inherit the grave-robbing trade!" Little My kicked the table leg. Her perfect horror story had backfired spectacularly. The idiot didn't even notice he mixed two different, mutually excluding versions! "I lied! They're elephant ivory—probably from beasts that died of old age! That dress was always white, it’s just the picture paper going yellow with time. And the next spectre will gobble you guts-first!" Moominmamma poured tea to Little My. "Something troubling you, dear?" Her voice was syrup-sweet. "If you need a distraction, there’s your mother on the terrace with your siblings, you may play and talk with them." Little My groaned into her biscuit. Real family was always a complicated matter. "Not 'til I've eaten every last one."