"Come in here a moment, Rania," her father called from the doorway.

Turning from the stairway, Rania slowly walked into the den followed closely by her father. Tall and lean with a slim face and short curling hair, her father looked down upon her as though he were seeing her anew. "Would you mind explaining this outstanding ability Kent is interested in?"

"I dunno." How many times was she going to shrug her shoulders today? Rania wondered.

"She's a mindbender, Charles," her mother cut in from where she was sitting, tense, on the couch. "She can influence your mind just by gazing at you. How do you think she got that raise in her allowance last month? The one you were so adamantly against?"

"How long has this been going on?" Charles Jackson inquired, surprise filling his voice.

"Since forever," the mother responded making Rania stare at her in amazement. "I knew from the first moment I held her. That's why I named her Rania; it means to gaze."

"This is news to me," the father stated as he allowed himself to fall to the couch next to his wife.

"Look, Charles, Granny Cheevers was a mindbender. Even though she kept it to herself, the whole family knew about it. There was no getting around her with a lie because she knew what you were up to before you were up to it," Monique Jackson explained. "It runs in my family. It might skip a generation or two, but it always shows up sooner or later. Our little girl is a strong one. She's been working on our minds since she was crawling around in diddies."

This time it was Rania's turn to sink into a chair. All this time and her mother knew exactly what she was doing. It was all going to blow up in her face now. No more could she get away with getting her way. Everyone was going to know what she had been up to; her manipulative days were over.