Ishigreensa

Larry frowned at the price, but if she was going to eat it, then he did say whatever she wanted. He smiled and let her be. She was still in the same area, and they could clearly see each other, so she was fine. He went on as usual, and finally brought the tray of sandwiches, the cookie, and the drinks over for her and himself to eat. "There you are," he smiled as he push her stuff to her. "Go ahead and eat, sweetheart." He wasn't sure what to say at the moment, so he just ate in peace and listened for her if she wanted to say anything.

Larry didn't know Sarah that well yet, and she did get a little upset earlier when he'd told her to stay under a ten dollar limit stating that it wasn't enough, and he told her to get what she wanted, so it wouldn't be until he saw just how much of the sandwich and cookie she was about to waste that he would start to realize how wasteful she could be, something she'd have to learn under his roof, that wasn't okay. Larry apologized to the customer after them. "I'm sorry. She's just kind of being picky. I think it's the first time she's ever gotten to pick food out for herself. Strange as that sounds, she doesn't seem to have been well taken care of before she came to me, so please, bear with us just this once." He saw they had two little kids. "How about I pay for their dessert for your patience with us?" "Oh, no, that's not necessary," the father said. "We have little kids out selves, and we let them pick things out for themselves all the time, and honestly, we could have been in front of you, and you'd be waiting not for one, but two excited young kids. We can wait. You just use your money to make your own kid happy." Larry smiled at him, a gratitude of respect in his eyes for the empathetic man. Their kids were definitely smaller than Sarah though, and Larry didn't know it, but one of them was ten and the other eight, and had he known their ages, he would have easily seen that Sarah was nowhere close to eleven years old, but would have had to be at least sixteen or seventeen, but he had rose colored glasses right now, and she never denied being thirteen and then younger than thirteen, always making him guess her age for some reason. Most kids would just tell you their age, but then she was hiding, as assumed, from abusers, so the less she told him about herself the less likely her old foster parents could be found. For all he knew, Sarah wasn't even her real name.

Larry walked her down the street a little ways. It was probably a good ten minute walk, and they saw Subway, Carl's Junior, and Wendy's. Though Larry was tempted to hold her hand, he had promised, as long as she stayed close, he wouldn't, so he kept having to tuck his hands behind his back to keep from reaching out towards her. He was very nervous of the area. Finally, they went in, and he relaxed a little bit as they started to order their sandwiches. "Get whatever you like," he told her. "A full foot sub on any bread and any stuffings you like, one side dish, a drink, and I think they have dessert breads or something here, if I remember."

Larry saw her go to the bathroom as she said she was going, but he couldn't understand why it was taking so long. Maybe she had pooped or something. He decided it wasn't worth talking about, and just got his things together and waited for her. When she says she's ready, he smiled at her. "Okay, this way, honey." He put a hand on her shoulder because he still worried a little bit about going out around there. They were not exactly in the high end of town after all. "Just stay close to me, please. I'll try not to hold your hand all the time, but I do need to be able to see you at all times and know you can call for me if you need me, that I can hear you."

Before he put up the cards, he did show her two other types of solitaire she could play when he couldn't play with her, and one was the clock where you try to get the clock face to have the right cards showing, all four in the suit, and then the kings in the middle of the clock face. He also showed her one called Free Cell. She can only take 1 card plus a number of cards equal to a maximum of 4 free cells on the top. When there isn't a play, then she could put a card on the top but that limits the free cells until they are all used up. Once he briefly showed her those solitaire games, he smiled. "Well, I think we'll just go get subway sandwiches today." He handed her the cards. "These are yours, now. I can always buy another deck when I or we need a deck to play with."

He took the cards and started to shuffle them. "Have you ever heard of Eukre?" he asked her "It's an easy game that can be played with 2, 3, or 4 players. When you play with four players, you usually play partners." He smlied at her willingness to try. "I'll show you this game, and after that, I'll show you two variants of solitaire that you can play by yourself when you don't have someone to play with." He dealt her 3 cards and himself 2, and then her 2 and himself 3 cards. But before he did that, he had removed all the cards that ere eights and below except for the deuces. "Now, you know the Jacks are usually lower in power than the queen, but in the suite that is called trump, the right Jack, or the Jack of that suite is the highest card. Then the other Jack of the suite that is the same color as trump is second highest, then the A, K, Q, jokers, 10, 9, and 2. The 2 cannot be taken by any card, but it cannot take another card either unless it is a trump card. Points are Jack-right, Jack-left, Ace, Joker-high, Joker-low, ten, and deuce of the suit that was bid in. There are 7 points in one hand. You bid on the suit you want to be trump based on how many you think you can take...." As he explained the rules, he was really getting into teaching her. There were some qualities of a teacher she could see, how he didn't let her just give up, but talked her through how to bid, and how to figure out how much was a solid bid for her hand. He taught her how to preserve her mid-high cards so that she could use them to the most advantage, and taught her to sacrifice a Queen if she had an A but didn't know if he had Jacks or not. They played to 21, but the first three times she made a mistake, and over-bid her hand, he let her keep the points she did take, but the fourth hand, let her see how bidding above what she couldn't take would set her back. He didn't notice her acting in anyway to give away if she was still having trouble, so he didn't say anything when they were done, and went to get ready to take her out for a cheaper meal for dinner.

And as he suspected, it seems kids don't need real things in their hands anymore and seem to just be immersed in the computer and phone very quick rewards like points for getting a card in place. "Well, it's not that hard to shuffle," he told her. There are three standard ways I know of, and there are a lot of other ways that people have picked up over the years. The easiest way to shuffle, is just cut the cards, and then place some of that cut deck on top of the rest, cut it again from the top half, and put those on top and so on. You can also just push some cards out from the side, and put them on top, or you can hold the cards sideways, and alternate letting cards fall in front or behind a point of origin." She showed her what he meant. "The real fun shuffle though, is like this...," and he shuffled the cards like you see in card tricks where you lay two piles on top of one another in alternating sequences, and then you bend them up and let them fall into your hands as the cards straighten themselves out. "This one takes a little practice though. Can I?" He reached for her hands to show her how to hold the cards. It wouldn't be easy to get the first time, but if she let him work with her once a day a few times, she should get the feel by the fifth or sixth time.

Larry relaxed on the other bed, and he watched whatever she was watching. Whatever her problems were, and he wasn't really sure what to think about it, he hoped that maybe the wetting was behind her. The child had been through way too much in his mind, and he knew that even an eleven year old child couldn't feel good about being wet all the time. "Do you know any solitaire games?" Larry asked her while they were watching television. "You know, card games that you play against the deck rather than other people?" While traditional games were a thing of the long past, he knew that some computers and smart phone programs existed that not only mimicked the traditional solitaire game and a few other versions of it, but also mimicked Vegas card games, by dealing for more than one person. Larry went and got a deck of cards from his things and brought them over to her. "I can teach you, if you like," he told her. "It's not the same as having an electronic device, but it is something that can be fun when you don't have an electronic device to play with."

Larry pulled her pants slightly down so he could look in her diaper, but hen he found it was dry, he hugged her. "Good girl. And you went potty, too. Maybe it was just the stress of not having a place for a while, but now you know you are safe at my place, we can probably let you take the diaper off, but it kind of feels wasteful to take it off right now, so as long as its not soaked in the morning, I'll let you go back to panties in the morning." He let go of the hug. "You can go do what you want for now, sweetheart."

"I don't know, sweetheart," Larry said to her. "But a lot of things don't make any sense to me right now, and I'm taking care of you, so I need to make sure. Maybe you'd feel like if I knew you'd peed your pants, that maybe it was too many times, and I just don't think you can get to the bathroom at all or something. Maybe you might think I doubted you being able to notice that you are wet or something. I don't really know. What I do know, is you've peed yourself now, three or four times." Larry frowned at her. "Just come here and let me see, sweetheart. I can't leave you in wet pants. That would not be comfortable, and I wouldn't really be doing my job." He reached over to bring her in front of him to look at her in the eyes. "Are you promising that you didn't wet or anything?" He knew that she was probably tired of him hovering over everything she did. "You look me in the eye and tell me you're not wet, and I'll drop it this time, but I'm keeping an eye on you, honey."

Larry smiled when she announced that she was dry, but that wasn't enough. She was caught wetting her pants a few times, so he had to check. "I'm sorry, but I need to see for myself, honey. You've been having too many accidents." He motioned for her to come and stand in front of him.

Larry saw her shift in her seat on the bus, and he sighed. There was nothing he could do if she was wetting herself again right now. The child probably needs to be potty trained or something. She definitely needs to see a doctor though, too. He stayed quiet for the bus ride, not wanting to upset her anymore than she already was. Preteen kids were hard to handle sometimes, especially when they were trying to prove they were big people, but kept making child-like mistakes. No one seemed to pay either of them any attention as they rode on the bus together, and before they knew it, they were back at the motel. On their way in, Larry looked over at her as he unlocked the door. "When we get in, I want you to go straight to the toilet, and then I want to check your diaper. I don't know what is going on with you, but I do know you are having accidents a bit much." He went in and started to put her things away that they got for her.

Larry shook his head at what she was saying. She was pretty willful. "Alright, look, let's just get you home," he told her. "You're right, I don't know a lot about you, but I do know you know some stuff that a preteen or even a young teen shouldn't know. I don't mind telling you that I don't like it." He let her be though, and walked with her, first to get the stuff he left at the claims counter, and then out to catch the bus. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there were a lot of things that was a little off about her. But he couldn't tell if that was just because of grooming or if it was something else.

When you pushed the half eaten plate of food away, I got even more worried. "Okay, sweetheart, we going to go see the judge. We will go get you checked out after that, and we'll talk to the doctors about how to make you healthy again. We'll do that after we stop and get you some decent clothes to wear, and some diapers so you don't have to worry about going potty in your pants, okay?" I hug you. I let you off with eating just half, but knowing you didn't hardly eat the day before, and that I didn't really give you that much, I know there has to be some health damage that was done. I take you to the bathroom, and encourage you. "Sit on the potty, sweetie, just to see if anything comes out, okay?"

He shook his head. Was someone grooming this child? She knew way too much for a little kid, and she just told him, though he twisted the meaning, that she wasn't even thirteen years old yet, and somehow, she doesn't think she's a child? He shook his head. She was so innocent, and though these were worst case scenarios? He really had to watch her now. The poor child must have either been on the streets way too long, or someone else had been grooming her to get her to run away. Whatever it was, he was her only guardian making sure she was safe now. He bit his tongue when she pretended that she didn't think of wearing lingerie. She wouldn't have brought it up if she hadn't thought of wearing it. He nodded and took her to the undershirts to make sure she had decent undershirts and some training bras. Then he took her to pay for the stuff. "Baby, I'm not mad you. You probably got confused because I did get a bit excited, but you shouldn't even know a term like lingerie. You are not ready for stuff like that, and anyone who said you were is not your friend." He hugged her as they waited in line, a sideways hug. "I'm just trying to watch out for you, sweetheart. You are still practically a baby, even if you don't want to hear that. You will not be meeting strangers anymore or wearing strange things to see people. I should not have let you go to the library alone, and I certainly would not have, had I realized you weren't even thirteen years of age or if I knew you had been exposed to lingerie or what it means." He rubbed her back. "I know this is all going to be kind of hard for you, being confused and now thinking I'm keeping you from something, but the things I'm trying to protect you from..., you'll thank me one day when you really understand what it all means, sweetheart. And Yeah, for now, I know you'll be disappointed, and you'll hate me for a while, but I'd rather you hate me than you get hurt, baby girl."