Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

Cecily made her big-eyed face at Lettie, and it worked—as it always did. That face had made Lettie laugh since she was a toddler, and even now at the ripe old age of ten it still had the same effect.

"If you ever do that face in front of my friends, Mother—"

Cecily made the face again. "Then they'll all pity you and think you're so brave to have survived being raised by a crazy mother."

"They already do," said Lettie.

"Then they can't have any of the snickerdoodles when they come over."

"It's Saturday and none of my friends are coming over today."

"See? My punishment of your rude friends will be complete. They will get nothing from me, speaking cookimentarily."

Mark came back in. "Why do you bother arguing with her?" he asked. "She just does it to keep you talking."

"I argue with her because I'm right and she's wrong," said Lettie.

"She's right," said Cecily. "My children are all so much smarter than me."

"Are you even watching, Mother?" asked Mark. "Look at her fingers—they're covered with cookie dough. She's been snitching right in front of you."

"I was not snitching," said Lettie. She launched into her adult-intellectual imitation. "I was preemptively rescinding Mom's decision to deprive my friends of their share of the snickerdoodles."

"So what are you going to do?" said Mark. "Wait till you pass the cookie dough out your butt, form it into little balls, cover them with cinnamon sugar, bake them, and take them to share at school?"

"Mark," said Cecily. "That is a nauseating idea."

"I was just interested in how snitching cookie dough now will somehow get her friends the cookies they were being denied."

"I never said I was getting the cookies for them," said Lettie in her snootiest fake-professor voice. "I was merely removing from the common stock of cookie dough that portion which would have gone to my friends, so that the community does not profit from my friends' deprivation."

"I wish you kids would occasionally speak at grade level."

"We always do," said Mark. "Just not necessarily the grade we're in."

They settled down to forming and rolling the snickerdoodle balls and laying them out on the cookie sheets. The phone rang.

Mark said, with mock impatience, "It's probably the President again."

It was. Or rather, the chief of staff, Nate Ogzewalla. "Can you come in?" he asked.

"I'm baking cookies," said Cecily, sticking out her tongue at Mark and Lettie.

"Go out to Langley," said Nate, "and we'll get you in by chopper. No reason for you to fight the traffic."

"It's Saturday, and the traffic won't be that bad, and I want my car with me so I can leave whenever I want."

"Have we ever held you prisoner in the White House?" asked Nate.

"It's a waste of taxpayer money to send me in and out by chopper."

"It saves the President an hour of waiting for you," said Nate. "That's what that particular budget is for. Just pretend that all the money paying for the trip comes from some corporation that you particularly hate."

"I keep thinking it comes from the taxes paid by some small businessman who can't hire two employees he nee

ds because he's so grossly overtaxed."

"That's stinkin' thinkin'," said Nate. "You need to get back in your twelve-step program."