Shoebag Returns by M. E. Kerr

said Dr. Dingle, who was not fond of the word “normal.” In his profession it was not a money-producing word, and he rarely heard it when he didn’t sneeze. Perhaps he was slightly allergic to it.
    “Achoo!”
    “God bless you,” said Josephine.
    “Why don’t we end this session with a few words from you about the Butter Club,” he persisted.
    “Miss Rattray says there’s no such club. … Anyway, why don’t you get Stanley Sweetsong in here? He’s been having nightmares about being put in one of Mr. Longo’s tanks.”
    “ You are my client, dear, not Stanley Sweetsong. Have you had any interesting dreams?”
    His voice had such a plaintive sound, very like Josephine’s father’s every time he announced another transfer to a new Army post.
    “I dreamed,” Josephine began, “that on Career Day a famous actor came to talk to us in assembly, and guess what, Dr. Dingle?”
    “What?” the psychologist leaned forward, pencil ready over the pad he held on his lap.
    “He asked if he could see a performance of If You’re Not In, You’re Out!”
    Of course she had made all that up. She never remembered her dreams. And an actor was never invited to speak on Career Day. Just writers were. Just scientists were. Just lawyers were. Just accountants, musicians, and computer analysts. Just females were, never males!
    But Josephine felt sorry for Dr. Dingle in these sessions. She wanted to say something he could make notes about … and she had always wished she could meet a real live actor. How long could she continue writing and performing her plays without some notion of what one was like?
    “In your dream, did this famous actor see a performance of your play?” Dr. Dingle asked. “In this dream how did you feel when the actor asked to see it?”
    But Josephine was bored with the whole idea of this dream she never had. She uncrossed and crossed her legs, and put her palms behind her head and yawned.
    “Well?” Dr. Dingle asked again.
    “That’s all there was to the dream.”
    “How do you feel about that dream?”
    “I feel that we ought to have an actor come on Career Day, and I wish you’d tell Miss Rattray that.”
    Dr. Dingle made a note of it.
    “What else, Josephine?” Dr. Dingle asked.
    “Nothing. I feel quite normal today.”
    “Achoo!”
    “God bless you.”
    Up the wall, beside the couch, a cockroach had paused, his antennae quivering, his eyes alert, almost as though he understood every word being spoken.
    “We have a little visitor in here listening to everything we say,” Josephine said.
    The cockroach hurried away.
    “You know, Josephine,” said Dr. Dingle, “it is a good thing to have a lively imagination. Your little plays, your new little club, this little visitor you claim is present — all of that has its value. But —” he paused to rub his eyes, and take a deep breath.
    “But?” Josephine said.
    “But we must get to the bottom of things. Your rage, and your fears. The strange names you gave your dolls!”
    One thing Josephine Jiminez was not afraid of was bugs. She looked out for them whenever she could. She watched the cockroach until it disappeared down the side of the couch.
    “Tell me what you’re thinking about right now,” said Dr. Dingle, never one to give up on a client.
    “I’m thinking of what it would be like to be a cockroach.”
    “Aha! Is that what you feel like? Something shunned. Something no one wants around?” Dr. Dingle was sitting forward now, his eyes bright.
    Josephine said, “I never said I felt like one. I said I wondered what it would be like to be one.”
    “Wouldn’t you always be hungry? Wouldn’t you have rage? Wouldn’t you want to smash your dolls against the wall? Wouldn’t you fear that no one would want you in a club?”
    Josephine glanced up at the large clock on the infirmary wall. Three minutes to go before the session was over. Ten minutes to go before the nine members of the secret, new, underground, Butter Club met in