Yesterday I went to visit my sister and her kids. She lives in a clean and sober house with several other people and some of them also have children. While we were visiting, I was watching with curiosity, my four year old niece Zoey, interact with another little boy named Trey who lives in the house also. Here an account of what I observed;
Zoey approached Trey, hands behind her back and out of the chaos she asked in an almost inaudible voice, "Trey... do you still like me?"
"... You smell like fire" he answered
I could see the confusion and insecurity on her little face. " What does fire smell like?" she asked hopefully.
And with all the matter-of-factness of a little boy, he replied " I don't like the way fire smells... its stinky." All the while waving his hand in front of his nose and exaggeratedly scrunching up his face as if someone had just ran over a skunk and he was smelling it now for the first time.
Horrified and embarrassed, my niece flailed into a fit and stormed out of the room telling everyone to stop laughing at her (when in fact we were laughing at trey's passive aggressive answer to a question he was bound to fail answering.)
My nephew, Liam, told trey that what he had said wasn't nice, and to go apologise. Obediently, Trey went to find Zoey, who was on her way back to the room anyway, and apologised.
Minutes passed and I had gone back to what I was doing when I noticed that Trey had apologised again, and Zoey and he were hugging. Then Zoey, who cant leave well enough alone, said to Trey; "Smell me."
Then they each, in turn, leaned towards each other and sniffed.
She then asked; "What do I smell like?"
Trey looked up, searching his young mind for something good; "Not stinky, NOT STINKY," he said finally and with enthusiasm. Obviously he had recognized his earlier mistake and vowed not to make it again.
But Zoey asked again; "Yeah, but what do I smell like?"
Trey smiled as if he just came up with the perfect answer and replied gleefully; " You smell like good!"
And that was that.
