Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman Page B

telling me to lie down on the floor and I think how the boot prints are going to get all over the back of my new favorite shirt with the rainbow on it but then he is telling me to be good, which means not to make noise, and I stare up at the lightbulb and the chain that is still swinging until the patch on his pocket that says Ace Hardware blocks it and then it doesn’t matter if he pulled the chain once or
twice or how much noise I make because everything is dark and quiet, except for the word good . Good is in my ears over and over again, and sometimes it is cut up in pieces of a whisper and sometimes it has more o ’s than it needs, and always it is so heavy I can’t breathe and my shirt is all ruined.

the electric company
    “ D oes that feel good?” Carol asks me, and her friend Trina laughs and coughs on the smoke that comes exploding out of her mouth. “Does it?”
    Carol and Trina were listening to Meat Loaf and getting stoned, and I was sitting on the top bunk where I’m really not allowed to be until I’m “ten, if I’m lucky,” trying not to make any noise so Carol won’t tell me Get Down from There and that’s when Carol got up from the radio and said, “Let me show you something.” She was talking to Trina but coming over to me. “Come here, Ror.”
    She took my book and I watched it go, my page gone, and then she lifted me onto her hip. “Okay, watch,” she said, putting her hands on my bottom and moving me in circles against the hip pocket of her corduroys, against her hip, against her hip bone.
    I pretend like I can’t hear her asking. I keep my eyes on the top bunk, on the cover of my book, it has green cloth and gold letters, I read the words over and over to keep my eyes off the curly red bangs and the smoky cloud that hang around Trina’s laughing head, Girl Scout Handbook , it says, Girl Scout Handbook , and the outline of the trefoil behind it, the points of the promise.
    “Come on, Ror,” says Carol, “doesn’t that feel good?”

     
     
    “G-O-O-D,” I say, and grip the arms of my chair. The man, who is sitting at Mr. Lombroso’s desk even though he is not the principal of Roscoe Elementary School, smiles and makes a note with his brand-new pencil.
    “Gear,” he says.
    I swing my legs.
    “G-E-A-R,” I say back to him, and swing my legs higher so they come out straight, so I can see them. I’m wearing a skirt today. It has gray flowers and three ruffles and lace. I hate this man who treats me like I’m a great big insect in his very own mason jar. I like my new skirt.
    “Theme.”
    “T-H-E-M-E.” I have to dress up for this man with the new pencils and briefcase whose leather is almost as shiny as the gold locks he flipped open at once, SMACK!, when Mr. Lombroso brought me in. I have to dress up for his briefcase.
    “You’re doing very well.” He smiles at me. “Queen.”
    I spell to the wall behind his head. I swing my legs after every letter, “Q-swing-U-swing-E-swing-E-swing-N-swing.” I will for his pencil to break, for one of my tennies to fly off and hit his round wire glasses.
    “Wash,” he says but I can’t hear him right.
    “Wash or watch?”
    He is delighted. “Can you spell both?”
     
     
    Carol is babysitting Timmy and me together. Carol is Timmy’s aunt. Like the same way the Hardware Man is my uncle. Not in real life.
    It is Timmy’s bath time and Carol turns on the water in the tub. She calls me into the bathroom.

    “Get undressed, Ror,” she says, as she pulls down Timmy’s pants. Timmy is barely five years old and I am almost eight. Timmy’s still stuck on the kindergartener’s side of the playground. Timmy is holding a Lego and licking it.
    “But I already took a bath,” I say.
    “Get undressed.” She coos at Timmy as she moves the Lego out of his mouth so she can pull off his shirt.
    “Carol, I took a bath.” I did. I just took a bath.
    “Took a bath!” Timmy yells. “Took a bath!”
    “Do it,” she says and there is