The Pope's Hat

Empanada caught strep throat from the neighbour’s child, a sickly waif with a cowlick so big it looked like the Pope’s hat. When she complained that she couldn’t for the life of her see how someone could be so thoughtless as to allow their child free reign knowing they had the mumps and strep, she received such a harsh rebuke that she set fire to the neighbours car in retaliation, watching it burn like a Roman candle, the night sky sick with smoke and oil. Her great, great grandfather, had he had the opportunity to measure and calibrate the bumps on his great, great granddaughter’s head, would have diagnosed savantism, probably something to do with numbers and vectoring. As the DSM1V had yet to be written, simpleton or dullard were out of the question, so he stuck with savant, feeling it best described the majority of his family.