Meaner'n a Snake

Every afternoon that I pick the girls up from Ms. Pam's I ask how their day went. Two little magpies usually pipe up from their carseats, "Fine." Today when I asked, all I heard was silence. So, I asked again, a little louder, thinking they could not hear me over the 'B-I-N-G-O' blaring from one of their CDs. Cate quietly said, "Ava was mean to me all day." I turned my rear view mirror down a half inch so I could see Ava's face and said (in my stern Mama voice), "Ava! Were you mean to Cate today?" -fully expecting great denial. She looked straight into that mirror and with absolutely no remorse, without blinking an eye, and replied, "Yee-ah. I hit hewr a lot. I kep hitt'n hewr."