My Abandonment (8 page)

"Gross," Valerie says. "You're getting your dirty feet all over everything."

"My feet are clean," I say.

"You act like you're better than everyone. Different."

"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.

"So far," she says, "you've really only described the picture. Remember, I want you to tell a story. What is happening? Are there people in this picture whom we cannot see, Caroline?"

I look at the picture on the card and I know that fighting with Miss Jean Bauer will not help me.

"There are two people inside that house who are sitting next to a fire and they're warm and maybe playing chess together. They can hear the whistle of the wind and maybe that ghost hugging down on the roof but they're safe in there. They get up and look out the window at the storm since it's scary and beautiful and everything that they need they have even if the storm keeps up. They are listening and trying to hear what the ghost is talking about and he is saying I wish I had fur all over my body and I was a person too who died and his words are all frozen and slick. Or it could be that the house is out in the storm and there are cold people lost in the snow and scared. Their feet are almost frozen off and their faces hurt from being cold and they are almost crawling because of the deep snow and one looks up at the lights and sees the house. But they see the ghosts too. Or what it is is that the first people look out, see in that window maybe that's someone looking out by the blurry curtain and see the frozen people crawling in the snow and they call out to them and maybe get a sled. By the fire their clothes melt until they can take them off and they get dry clothes. And soup. Even they can get up then and look out the window at the storm and the frozen wing in the yard."

Outside of Miss Jean Bauer's office I turn right, back toward the room with Valerie and Taffy but Miss Jean Bauer says, "No, Caroline, come this way."

We go down a long hallway, up a flight of stairs and around two corners, in a door and across a dark empty basketball court and into another hallway. I try to keep track of the turns to know the way back even if I don't want to go back.

"Wait here," she says. "One moment." She takes out a key and opens a door and goes in while I'm still in the hallway. I drink out of a water fountain and the water is so cold it hurts my teeth.

Miss Jean Bauer comes out holding something in her hand and that something is Randy. I don't say anything until he's in my hand and my fingers touch his shape that they know, the edges of his organs and his sharp ears and his numbers slightly raised up and sticky. I want to look at him but I don't want her watching me. I unbutton two buttons on my shirt and slide him inside and button it up so I can feel his plastic body against my skin there.

"Thank you," I say.

"We really want it to work out," she says. "We want to try something we haven't done before and we don't know if it will work so you'll have to help us. We can trust you to help us, right?"

"What are you talking about?" I say.

"I brought you a book to read, too," she says. "It's one I like. The first time I read it I was your age."

The book is small and blue with a dragon on it. I don't read the title since I'm watching where we're walking again, not back the way we came.

"Did anyone go back for my encyclopedias?" I say.

"I don't know," she says. "I don't think so, to be honest. I don't think you'll need them anymore."

"What?" I say.

"What would you think about going to a regular school?" she says. "In the fall, when it starts up again."

"Father can teach me," I say.

"But you can have friends your own age. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Sometimes I think so," I say, "and other times I think I wouldn't."

We pass an ax inside a glass window and a lighted machine for soft drinks. Miss Jean Bauer takes out another key and opens another door so I can go inside. She doesn't follow me.

This room is my own room. My paper and pencil and the sweater they gave me, the things from the other room have been brought into this small room. It only holds one bed and I go straight across to the window. Through it I can see over the rail-yard and all the trains and metal to the forest park. The sun is almost sliding behind it so all the thick trees are dark gray but still I know it and it's not so far away. In the morning I know the sun will be shining on it and then it will be green.

Also this window even opens, only five inches and there are metal locks but still I can breathe even if I can't get out so high above. I turn my head sideways and force it tight as far through as it will go.

"Hello," I say, softly, just in case. I close my eyes and think of the shadows in the trees and wonder again about the dogs and if they knew what they were doing and if they're sorry now.

I am not happy but I have Randy and the fresh air. I check the door and it's locked and then I sit down on the bed since there's no chair in the room. I take off my shoes and the scratchy shirt.
I am getting used to the smell of the soap they give me in this building and I'm not happy that I am.

The book that Miss Jean Bauer gave me does have dragons in it. It has strange weather and animals I've never heard of and spells that keep things from falling apart. It is about a wizard who I like and I copy out part of it on my scratch paper:

From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

It has been a long time since I read a book like this one, a story instead of a book of facts. It has maps in it of islands I've never heard of, like two called The Hands that look like hands. The boy in it starts out by talking to goats and then gets more and more power. He learns from trees and birds and animals, like I copied down. I read until I have to turn on the light to keep reading and I do until it's late at night and I am reaching the end. The wizard in this book is called Sparrowhawk but that is not his real name. Almost no one knows his real name. The magic in this place is all about naming, knowing the real name of a thing or person. Then you can control them. And a thing can be changed into another thing as long as it is renamed and the spell lasts.

Father stands on the sidewalk next to a police car. He doesn't see me at first. His arms are loose and not held behind him. He wears stiff new blue jeans and a light blue shirt. His hair is cut close and his skin shows through white above his ears. Still he recognizes the sound of my footsteps, my breath when I see him and take it in hard. He turns and picks me up, my feet off the ground and his whiskers against my forehead.

"Caroline," he says. "My heart."

I have my pack again with Randy and all my papers, my blue ribbon, my dictionary, the things I took from our house and they want to put it in the trunk with Father's red pack but I keep it with me, down by my feet in the back of the car.

That's where we ride. We drive between the buildings with cars on both sides of us. Through the windows of stores I can see jewelry and long tables and many bright lamps hanging from chains. I squeeze Father's hand more tightly and he squeezes back. I can't see between the buildings or far behind us but I feel that we're driving away from the forest park, that we're not going back there. I can't even see the river. We cross a bridge where cars speed under us and then we're in a black tunnel. In the darkness Father leans close so I can smell him and feel his face against mine. He whispers one word, my name, and is sitting up straight again before we come out the other end into the brightness, racing all the other cars up a curving slope.

"You two can talk," says the officer in the passenger seat. "Don't worry. I'm sure you have lots to say to each other."

"They don't want to talk in front of us," the driver says.

I want to know where Father was and what they asked him. I want to tell him that I passed all the tests and also about the stories I made from the pictures and the book I read.

The first officer turns to look back at us. "Aren't you even curious where we're going?" he says.

"I've heard a little about it," Father says. "A little surprise isn't a bad thing."

"You'll like it," the officer says. "I bet you'll like it."

The truth is I don't care so much about where we're going as long as we're together but I don't say this aloud. Now the city is down below, far behind us. I can see the river for a moment and then it's gone. Black crows hop along the edge of the highway. Far above a vulture is circling, watching us slide past. The seat belts have silver buckles with square metal buttons in the middle. The windows in the back have no handles to roll them down. Music comes up behind my head, the sound of violins out of a speaker. The officer driving turns the knob and it goes off with a click.

"I was thinking," Father says, "you know how sometimes a bear will move too close to a town or a ranch and they catch it or tranquilize it?"

"Yeah," the officer driving says.

"How would it be if you just let us free in a real wilderness?" Father says. "Just let us free."

"Would you like that?" the officer says. "Trust me, this'll be better."

Father is smiling in a way I haven't seen before or maybe I've forgotten. His voice seems less low. I look at him and he squeezes my hand and looks out the window like it's a natural thing for us to be inside a car, racing along the highway.

"Horses," I say when I see them. I have seen horses before but not for a long time. Some are standing beneath a tree and others are eating grass and two brown ones run powerfully along next to the fence like they're racing our car.