Free Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen

performer.”
    The girl looked at the boy, then back at the man, then back at the boy. “Is that it? Is that all she can say?”
    “She can say more than that, can’t you, girl?” he said, winking at his female man.
    She scolded, “Hurry on your way to school, little children, before you are late.”
    The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! I love the way they talk. Can I bring my little brother over to play with her?”
    The boy said, “Well, I’ll have to ask my parents.”
    His female man quipped, “Well, maybe you should ask me. The answer is no. Goodbye now. Have fun at school, children.”
    The girl said, “That is soooooo cute! You are soooooo lucky to have her. She must be worth a lot of money.”
    The boy, sensing the shortening temper of his female man, who was known to bite on occasion, nudged his girl toward the door and they left for school.
    His female man was named Red Locks because of the red hair on her head, but often the boy believed they should have named her Red Mouth because of the sassiness with which she sometimes spoke to him—and the painful man bites she sometimes gave him.
     
    * * *
     
    When the boy came home he fed his man, and the harp was in her hand as he dressed to go out again. He promised her, “Tonight when I come home, you can play the song you created for me as many times as you like. I will listen.”
    “Will you?”
    “I promise.”
    “Will you?” said she who had been disappointed so many times before.
    “I promise, I promise, I promise,” said he who had disappointed.
    “Okay, I’ll try to wait up. If I’m asleep, wake me. An artist must have her sleep, you know?” She batted her eyes at him.
    He petted her head. “You’re still my favorite girl, okay?”
    That made her happy and she waited up well into the night for him, but when the hours grew too long for her determined but limited constitution, she fell asleep.
    She awoke with the next day’s sun and pouted as he dressed for school. “You did not wake me last night as I told you to.”
    “I don’t want to fight with you.”
    “Pinhead!” she called him.
    “Who is the man and who is the master!” he fired back.
    She shook her head from side to side and clucked her tongue with sadness as she set the small singing harp on her lap and played the song he hadn’t asked her to play: “The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is unclear. The way you treat me, the way you treat me, the way you treat me, my heart is soooooo unclear.”
    At the completion of her song, he sat down on the ground beside her. “That is beautiful,” he told her because he mistook the melancholy in the tune for cheer and he hadn’t really been listening to the words. “You are the best musical man in the whole wide world.”
    She smirked.
    “The best ,” he said with a wink.
    She said, “I have to be honest with you. I don’t like your girl and neither does Mother.”
    “Why not?”
    “Mother says that she is no good for you.”
    “What makes her say that?”
    “She is hungry. She thinks you can feed her.”
    “Oh, I see. But your mother is wrong this time. I am a poor boy. I can’t feed anyone. She is with me because she loves me. She is beautiful. Don’t you think she is beautiful?”
    “This girl is beautiful like a poisonous flower. Her beauty is there to draw you to the poison.”
    He shook with laughter. “Oh, but wait. This is my man and my dead man talking to me. Hahaha. What a pinhead I am! For a moment there, I was almost listening to you. I have to go to school now. Goodbye and thanks for the lovely song.”
    He reached to pet her head and she grabbed his finger and bit it.
    “Ouch!” he cried out. “Sneaky man!”
    “Listen to me!” she screamed.
    “You bit me! I should muzzle you!”
    She put her hands on her hips. “You will do no such thing, you big oaf! How dare you threaten to put the muzzle on me. Ask her about her brother! Mother said to ask her about her