They have a Muggle television. Her Ma likes to watch soap operas in the evening, the sound of bickering old women filling the house long into the quiet nights without their Father. One morning she presses a button and sinks down into the armchair that smells so much like him. Her siblings are scattered around the house, and it’s just her and the old cowboy movie that flickers to life on the screen.
Emmeline watches, captivated, as men in brown leather jackets fire Muggle guns at one another, doing daring stunts on horses. They walk with such determination, the shadows highlighting the ruthlessness in their eyes.
It becomes a routine.
She knows all the old cowboys by heart. She forces her sister to play with her, creating a rickety sheriffs badge from a piece of cardboard and a yellow marker. She dons a hat (two sizes two big for her) and torn up brown boots. It makes her feel strong, powerful.
“Why couldn’t I have been born a boy?” She asks her Mother, one day. She winces as her Mother tugs out another knot from her hair. She’d spent the morning trying to catch tadpoles down by the stream at the end of the street with some neighborhood boys who promptly pushed her in. Her Mother just laughs, braids her hair down her back and kisses her on the cheek.
But it’s a real question. She’s all of eight and so desperate for the world to take her seriously. She wants to make her mark, be treated with respect and authority. She vows to make a difference, to fight the bad guys and come out on top.
Years later she finds a beat up old sheriff’s badge in the bottom of a box, and it makes her smile.
