"Are we almost there?"
That little girl, the one who is as sharp as a tack, still looked peaked even though she was now sitting in front. At breakfast, she had put up a fight about taking the Dramamine pill. "No. I don't want one. I'm a tough cookie!" (Her latest oft-repeated expression.) After the third roadside halt-event though, I gave her a new one: That's how the cookie crumbles.
"Are you doing okay?"
"Yes." Then in a weak voice, "how much longer is it?"
"About 30 kilometers."
She turned her head towards me. The fire was back in her eyes. "No! I mean, how much more time!"
"Well, we're driving along at about 80 kph."
She furrowed her brow and thought out loud: "So we can drive 40 miles in half an hour then ..."
"... if we don't have to stop again." I couldn't help myself and promptly got the look ~ the one that children give adults at a moment like this. I grinned.
"So ... that's 20 kilometers in 15 minutes ... and between 20 and 40 is 30 and between 15 and 30 is ... um ... 22 and a half minutes."
She grinned back at me. "22 and a half minutes, right?!"
"Even less now," I said, glad to see she had some color back in her cheeks and thinking that there just might be something to this mind over matter thing.
2 comments:
The pill handed over may have been Dramamine but the subsequent conversation carried the much more powerful comfort of rational thought. Who needs drugs?
I was a hard head, too (and still am. The headache has to be pretty severe before I'll cave and swallow an aspirin).
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