My Abandonment(21)

"That's not true," I say to her even if what she says makes me think that I do feel that way but I don't act that way.

"What's your problem?" she says.

"I don't have a problem."

"That's your problem," she says. "That you think you're so great and don't have any problems. And your watch is always the wrong time. Stupid."

"My problem is that I got taken away from my father," I say. "Obviously. And then I got locked in here where you're trying to argue with me."

"I can ask whatever I want," she says, "if you have a problem. Is it me? Is that what you're saying?"

"This is such a dumb conversation," I say. "I used to think we were almost friends and now we only talk like this, not saying anything at all."

Taffy sits watching the television and then turning her head, looking at Valerie and then looking at me. Listening. Her face is happy like she expects something.

"You think I'm dumb?" Valerie says. "You don't even have any friends."

"I do," I say. "I have a friend named Zachary."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"No," I say.

"Is Richard your boyfriend?" she says. "Do you think that?"

"Richard? No. He tried to give me a bracelet but I didn't accept it."

"Bitch," she says, standing close to push my shoulder. "Richard is my boyfriend," she says. "Don't you ever touch him. Don't even say his name again. What are you laughing at?"

"I was thinking about Zachary," I say. "He believes in Big-foot but really it's only Nameless."

"Whatever," Valerie says, and then reaches out to grab at me and tries to slap but is too slow and then she's chasing me around the table and is already breathing hard. She curses and picks up a chair and throws it over the table and I leap so it hits the wall and crashes down next to me. She comes around and I swing another chair loose from under the table and push it hard sliding so it hits her knees and knocks her down and right away I'm over her. When she tries to stand I push her back to the floor.

"Stop," I say. I put my hand on her neck.

"Bitch," she says, after a while, once she's crawled over the couch where Taffy's been watching. "Bitch," Valerie says, rubbing her neck. "I'm not talking to you again. I'm never going to be your friend now."





It is important to always remember that at any time you think of it there are people being kept in buildings when they want to go outside.





"I'm going to show you ten pictures again," Miss Jean Bauer says.

"Were there ten the first time?"

"Yes."

She pushes down the red button on the tape recorder.

"I didn't keep count," I say.

She takes out the blue box and a booklet and she is partly talking and partly reading to me.

"It will be easier for you this time," she says, "because the pictures I have here are much better, more interesting. You told me some fine stories the other day. Now I want to see whether you make up a few more. Make them even more exciting than you did last time if you can. Like a dream or fairy tale. Here's the first picture."

"There's snow all around a house," I say, "and the two windows are like round eyes since there's lights on where it's warm I think and it's cold outside and frozen and windy. And there you can see a black kind of ghost swirling over the roof by the chimney with two eyes and up there there might be another ghost but that might be another ghost or it could just be another cloud about to snow some more. It's cold. The snow there in the front is drifted and frozen up like a jagged kind of wing."

"Do you believe in ghosts?" she says.

"Yes," I say.

"Have you ever seen a ghost?"

"I don't know," I say.

"So," she says and touches my hand. "If a stick leaps up and strikes you or if you see a stone rolling uphill, is that a ghost that does that?"

"You've been reading my journal," I say. "That's not right. That's not a polite thing to do at all. Where is my backpack and my things?"

"You'll get them back," Miss Jean Bauer says. "And I'm being careful, I just am trying to figure things out. Your writing is beautiful. You should keep writing, Caroline."

"Most of that is homework, anyway," I say.

"We know," she says. "It's very impressive."

"And Randy?" I say.

"Who?"

"My horse," I say. "You shouldn't be reading my journal."

We sit still and not talking and our faces looking at each other without saying anything. I am not going to talk first. Miss Jean Bauer's mouth is smiling the smallest smile and at last it shifts and then moves.