“Cal? Can I talk to you about something?”
Callen turned away from the show he was watching, slightly annoyed at the interruption until he saw the look on his little sister’s face. He paused the tv and focused his full attention on her. “Sure, squirt. Shoot.”
“Okay, you have to pinky swear not to tell mama or papa about this, got it?”
He smirked at her but held his pinky out all the same. “I swear.” He knew one half of that promise could be easily kept as their father never seemed to have time for talking to them, but he would wait to hear what she had to say before keeping his promise of not telling their mother. Stella had never ratted him out, so he hoped he could return the favor.
“So there’s this girl I know who stood up against a bully,” she sighed. Her face was scrunched up in concentration and he wanted to pinch her cheeks the way she hated more than anything, but instead he nodded and motioned for her to continue. “The bully is an older girl and she said something really mean to the other girl, but the other girl didn’t really know what she meant. Then the other other girl-“
“Hold up,” Callen interrupted. “I never thought I’d say this but this is too many girls.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “The bully told the girl she was a mistake. That she wasn’t supposed to exist.”
Callen sat up straighter and searched his baby sister’s eyes for any sort of signs. “This isn’t about another girl, is it Stell?”
Stella’s eyes suddenly filled with tears and she refused to meet his gaze. “Is it true?”
Anger boiled in him and he forced himself to swallow the swears he was so close to spewing. “Who is this girl?”
“You didn’t answer the question,” she pleaded softly. “Is it true?”
“Of course it’s not true,” Callen scoffed. “How could you even think that?”
“Papa doesn’t like me.”
“Papa doesn’t like any of us,” he instinctively snarked. He immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. “Stell, this girl is nothing but a brat! She doesn’t know what she’s talking about and she’s more than likely just jealous of you!”
She sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes stubbornly. “She said people call me ‘The Royal Mistake’.”
He was suddenly very glad that their father refused to let them have computers in the palace and that his sister was too young for a phone. He had never heard anyone refer to his baby sister that way, but that didn’t mean much. Everyone knew how close the two were and they would be idiots to ever slander her in hearing distance of him. “There have been a lot of Royal Mistakes Stella, but I promise you’re not one of them.”
She smiled softly and let out a sigh. “I’m not telling you who said it.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Can I give you some advice then?”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “I guess so.”
“Make sure she never says it again.”