I've been reading a story to Isla for bedtime called Gregor the Underlander by Suzanne Collins, the mastermind behind The Hunger Games. The latter was a little too violent for a four year old, so I decided on the former, a story about a kid from the projects in NY that falls down a vent in the laundry room of his apartment building into another world called the Underland that was colonized somewhat by the Earl of Sandwich some long time ago. In said underland there are giant cockroaches, bats who live symbiotically with the now translucent-skinned humans, giant rats, and giant spiders, so far.
(spoiler alert for people that HELLA want to read this book)
Isla LOVES this story. It's the first chapter book we've read together (since she's been able to communicate clearly - as an infant I read her parts of Dante's inferno, Soul on Ice, Hitchhiker's guide, and others - yeah, I'm that guy) so it's really awesome seeing her so involved in a story that isn't nicely wrapped up every night. She basically gets a cliffhanger every bedtime.
At this point in the story, the protagonist and his two year old sister are on a quest to find his father, aided by some underlanders, a couple cockroaches and some bats. The rest of the underlanders are engaged in a bloody war with the evil rats, who hate humans for obvious reasons. These rats scare the crap out of Isla, in a thrillingly exciting way - she doesn't lose sleep over it, or complain - she just gets WIDE eyed everytime they're mentioned, and can't stop talking about them after their appearance, interrupting the story to ask questions like "Well, what happens if the rats get thumbs and can use swords too?" or "Do they have poison on their teeth, or do they just bite really hard?" The rats are constantly ambushing our heroes and in the last battle, their leader, who has a wicked scar across his face, was pushed into the river, never to be seen again.
Back to the story: The adventurers have just escaped the clutches of some pretty terrifying spiders, and had just been given the news that their fearless leader, and the only adults in the party will be leaving them, mentioning that a guide will be assigned, when they hear a voice. Gregor points his flashlight, and we see the very rat that had pushed to his watery death, and.... chapter ends.
Isla grabbed my shoulders with both hands, looked into my eyes with the amazement that only a four year old in the grips of fantasy can achieve and whispered "Daddy - The rat came back from being dead!"
"Yeah, it looks like that's what happened."
"Is he a ZOMBIE RAT?"
"I don't know, We'll have to see tomorrow"
"Tomorrow we get to read chapter 19?"
"Yup"
At this point, Isla releases my shoulders and grabs my cheeks. She plants a delicate kiss on my forehead, a kiss of gratitude. A kiss of gratitude for possibly introducing her to zombie rats.
My daughter is cooler than anybody in the entire world.
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