So there we are. My three words of the day, unless you count the ingredients list on the bag of flour, and the green LED message Your beverage is ready glowing from the microwave when I reheated my coffee.

“Why?” I say, leading Sonia inside, trying to ignore the next pulse on my wrist. “Careful with your words.” This is more conversation than we usually have, but I’m desperate to know what news my girl’s brought home. I’m also desperate to keep her from blurting out more than she should—I haven’t yet checked the total on her counter.

In the kitchen, while I fix a mug of cocoa for us—our silent afternoon ritual—Sonia hops onto a barstool, thrusts out her left hand, and speaks one ear-splitting word. “Lowest!”

What the hell?

Then I read the counter on her red bracelet. They call them bracelets in school, at the doctor’s office, in the advertisements they show before movies. I consider this as I wet a paper towel and wipe the smudge of chocolate—what I suspect is Sonia’s prize—from her mouth and watch her create a new mocha-colored mustache as she spoons hot cocoa from the mug. Advertisements for electric-shock-inducing silencers: pick your own color, add some sparkles or stripes. They’ve got a mood-ring type that will match your clothing if you’re obsessive about being coordinated, a variety of ringtones, cartoon character designs for the younger set.

It’s everything I can do to keep from cursing the men who made these, or the marketers and their sinister efforts to persuade us we have any kind of choice. I suppose, if things ever return to normal, they’ll use that old chestnut of a line: I was only following orders.

Where have we heard that before?

I can’t be in this kitchen now, can’t watch my girl sip cocoa and study the white envelope on the counter as if it contained a fucking Congressional Medal of Honor. So I go somewhere else. I try to imagine her on the playground, skipping rope and playing alphabet games, singing “Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat” and giggling at the thinly veiled curse words. I see her lining up, whispering about the new boy in class, writing love notes and fortunes on paper she’ll fold into cootie catchers. I hear her speak thousands of useless, but precious, words before the first bell rings.

Another motor purrs, then growls, through the screen door of the back porch, and I’m out of my daydream. At least Patrick is home before the boys return from school. I don’t have anything to say to him, but I need him alone; I need to see what secrets Sonia’s mystery letter holds.

But I don’t, not really. Across the kitchen island, my daughter’s counter glows its horrid and up-to-the-second report.

Won prize! she said. Lowest!