My Abandonment(30)

"On that cassette tape," she says, "is a recording of the stories you told me when I showed you the pictures. Those were excellent stories. Sometime you might want to listen to them."

"Thank you," I say holding the bag against me. I have no radio or machine that will play a cassette tape but I don't tell her this.

Next to the bicycle Father squints. He kicks at the kickstand then sits on the seat. When he stands and pumps the pedals he whoops. He swerves out through the grass and all the horses startle away from the fence not sure what he is.





Today a lady riding a tall chestnut horse comes along close to me. Her hair is in a straight blond braid against her black vest. My black hair is in a ponytail which does not really look like the horse's tail.

"Hi," the lady says. Sitting on her horse, she is taller than I am where I stand on the fence. The horse turns a little, its head. Its eye is brown. It shifts its metal bit in its mouth under its tongue. Its nose and nostril look very soft.

"Hello," I say.

"Do you ride?" she says.

"No," I say. "I have a bicycle that I'm learning on, though."

"What's your name?"

"Caroline," I say. "What's your horse's name?"

"Boomer."

"Boomer," I say.

"Are you someone's girl?"

"Yes," I say.

I do not stay to watch her take off the saddle and brush her horse down. Instead I go into our house to study. I read one of the schoolbooks about the American presidents who I already knew about from Father teaching me in the forest park. These days he doesn't teach me but only says to read the encyclopedias and then for school to do whatever Miss Jean Bauer said to do.

In the L encyclopedia I am reading about lions who are large carnivores and live in Africa. They reach nine feet long and four hundred pounds and prey on zebras and antelopes. Their groups are known as prides. Below that I read about lipreading which is a way for deaf people to recognize words by the way you move your mouth. It was discovered after a war where there were deafened soldiers. This is so much better than before when I had only the dictionary when the definitions were so short and turned back on each other. Here's some of my writing from back then:

A chain saw is a portable power saw linked to an endless chain. Endless means boundless, an endless universe, an endless conversation. Continuous. An endless chain. A conversation is a spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions and feelings. A feeling is a tender emotion. An emotion is a state of mental agitation or disturbance, a feeling.



Father comes in the door and hangs his straw hat on a hook and his hair is sweaty and crushed down.

"Studying," he says. "Good."

"What if," I say, "people at school have heard about me before, like in the newspaper or something?"

"Well," he says, "that's part of it. They say you're going to have an ordinary childhood, but that's not so easy." He reaches out and touches my shoulder, then the edge of my ear. He says, "It's not so easy because you're not ordinary. Regular won't fit you."

"But what if the kids make fun of me?" I say.

"You're bigger than that," he says. "You won't even hear it. You've been in a classroom before, after all."

"Yes, but I can hardly remember that," I say. "You told me to forget that."

"Are there leftovers from last night?" he says. "That rice?"

"Yes," I say. I turn toward him but I do not make any noise when I say that yes.

"What?" he says.

"I was trying to see if you can read lips," I say. "I watched the ladies riding today. They were beautiful. Do you think I'll ever ride a horse?"

"Those aren't even real people," Father says. "And half of them are sent out here just to spy on us."

"Do you think Miss Jean Bauer is pretty?" I say.

Father unlaces his boots and long strands of grass fall out. His whiskers have a gray part under his mouth that is new. He leaves his boots by the door with the right one standing and the left one tipped over.

"I really have to take a shower," he says. "Did you say if there was any rice left?"

"I thought the rotors of helicopters made such a racket," I say. "I've never heard anything."

"They can make quieter ones now," he says. "If they can make a plane that takes off straight up they can certainly make a silent helicopter, Caroline. They can see at night, too, and even the heat of your body."

"What does that look like?" I say. "Do they see the horses, too?"

"The horses' heat is a different color," he says.





I stand on the covered back porch of Mr. Walters taking the straight pins and the stiff cardboard bodies out of the school clothes that Miss Jean Bauer brought me. There are still clothes in my dresser that I have never worn but I want to wash them so they'll be soft and not have creases when I first wear them to school. I think some days that I will like it there and that it's good that I'll have the same clothes as everyone.