For Experimental Purposes Only

Chapter 4 (David)

"If you're ever considering fostering three kids at the same time... don't."

Zoe rolled her eyes. (Still smiling, because she's never not smiling)

"Oh come on, David, it's been three days. How bad can they be?" she said.

I was meeting for coffee with Zoe for what felt like the first time in forever. The kids were driving me insane. They either wanted everything at once or nothing... ever. I seriously don't think that I've seen Jason voluntarily eat anything.

"Okay," I took a deep breath, "Isa only wants to play 'princess'. The first day we met she called me a 'King'. And then she jumped straight to 'Papa'."

"Do you know how many Disney princess movies I've seen in the last three days? Too many! Way too many."

"That is so cute!" Zoe squealed. Her nose getting all wrinkly. I continued with the rant that I so desperately needed to have.

"Vee. That's right, she doesn't even want to be called Victoria. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that she's going to end up in jail in the next four years. No, I guarantee that she will end up in jail in the next four years.

"She kicked Jason. And not just out of anger, that's the first thing she did when she got out of that lady's car."

Zoe stopped smiling for the first time...kinda. She gave this weird half-smile. "It's just a phase," she said taking another sip of coffee. "She'll grow out of it. She just needs to know someone loves her. She's probably been in foster care for a long time."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm not so sure."

Zoe smiled again. "Okay, what about Jason?"

I leaned forward.

"What about him? He doesn't do anything. He doesn't say anything. He just agrees with everything. He's so quiet. I don't think I've heard him say more than three words a day."

"A lot of foster kids have PTSD. It's probably something like that. It's not that uncommon."

I took a deep breath and relaxed back in my seat.

"Maybe this was a bad idea," I sighed

"No, it was a good idea."

She was wrong.

"Listen," Zoe said, "I don't care how much you put yourself down about it, you had an excellent idea. It's gonna keep HUE in business."

"Yeah, but I can't work for them. Remember."

"Actually," she held the word out really long, "We want to offer you your job back. It turns out, that thinking of new stuff is hard, and you're really good at it."

"Wait, seriously?" I asked.

She nodded, still smiling.

"But won't that interfere with the experiment or something?"

"No, because you aren't going to be working on the experiment. We need you to do other stuff. And we'll pay double, because of your... current circumstances."

"Okay," I said almost immediately, "Not super specific, but okay!"

"Okay," she laughed back.

"Okay," I sighed looking for a clock.

2:45

Crap! It's the kid's first day of school. (And it gets out at 2:30)