None of it really surprises me except that I am now five feet three inches and ninety-seven pounds, almost a hundred. It's been a long time since I've been measured or weighed.
The Doctor has no hair on his head. He shines lights in my ears and nose and mouth. He looks at my teeth. He listens to my heart and organs with a stethoscope.
"Do you have any pains?" he says. "Any part of your body that's hurting you?"
"No," I say. "Would you like to see me run?"
He bends down and looks into my vagina with his light. I explain menstruation to him and Miss Jean Bauer writes down some of what I say.
"All it really means is that a girl is ready for breeding," I say, "but I'm not to do that until I'm twenty at least and married."
"I see," the Doctor says, and says I can get dressed. "I'm very happy to report that you're an extremely healthy young woman," he says, "who's really taken care of herself."
"Father teaches me," I say.
The clothes Miss Jean Bauer gives me are blue pants that are too short and a blue buttoned shirt that is scratchy and doesn't match. There's new white underpants and white socks. All that is left are my black city shoes.
"I am also supposed to wear an undershirt," I say, but she doesn't seem to hear me as she walks ahead of me.
The next room is full of wooden chairs that have desks attached like a kind of arm on the right side. There are blackboards but no writing on them and no chalk in the metal trays. I sit down in the front row.
"Are any other children coming?" I say.
"No," Miss Jean Bauer says. "Just you." She hands me a pencil and a booklet of paper and then some scratch paper. "Can you read?" she says. "If not, that's fine. I can read it for you."
"Of course I can read," I say.
"I'll be just outside," she says. "If you need me."
The questions are sometimes like stories and then you have to mark what they meant or why someone did something or what they should do. Or simpler ones about what tools are for what or what is a shelter and what is not a shelter. It's kind of fun. It keeps me from thinking of other things. I want to get all the questions all correct in case that will help. The math hardly gets up to algebra but still I double-check my answers on the scratch paper.
After half an hour the door opens a little and Miss Jean Bauer looks in at me and I look up from writing and she closes the door without saying anything. After another half hour I am finished and I'm using the pencil to pull the snarls out of my hair which is now mostly dry and then the door opens again.
"How's it coming?" she says. "Are you taking a break?"
"I'm done," I say.
"Already? Are you sure?" She has three silver rings on each hand and she turns through the pages of the booklet.
"Yes," I say.
"Yes you are," she says.
"It's like homework," I say. "Only easier."
"When did you have homework?" she says.
"All the time," I say. "Is this place a school? For adults, maybe?"
"That's very smart," she says. "These are rooms where police officers sometimes get trained or take classes."
"How many rooms are in this building?" I say.
"I don't know that," she says.
"It's a big one, though," I say. "How many people are inside?"
"Yes," she says. "It's big."
"Am I going to live here?" I say.
"No," she says, and smiles. "Do you understand why you're here?"
"I would like please to be back together with Father," I say.
"Let me explain a few things to you, Caroline," she says. "So you'll understand. A person running in the park saw you last week, and it is illegal, against the law for people to live in the park but especially we had to check out the report of a young girl. To see if you wanted to be there, or who took you there, to make sure that you were all right."
"You chased us with dogs," I say.
"We're trying to help," she says. "We're trying to get a complete picture of the situation."
"The way we live is different," I say, "than how you are used to things being."
"Very true," Miss Jean Bauer says.
She looks at her watch and I see that it says four thirty and I look at mine which says eleven twenty. I think of my father somewhere with the same time on his watch.
"Let's see," she says. "You must be hungry. It's a few hours to lights-out and then tomorrow morning you and I can talk some more."
This room has a round table and on one side two bunk beds and on the other side a green chair and a plaid couch with sagging cushions and a television that two girls are watching. When they turn to look I see that one is Valerie from the Skeleton Family so I run over and touch her arm.