defiance you might expect, but simply, reasonably, as an accepted annoyance.
“Try me.”
“I can’t promise,” she said, “because the aliens need me.”
Albert chitters again. It’s hot. Really hot, and Tara wants water. But there never seems to be any water here. Albert tugs her hand. He wants her to follow. She goes with him and he takes her the same way he always does. Toward the big steel doors, and then down into cool darkness, the hum of big fans, and then he’ll bring her underground and there will be a thing like a microphone, only at her height, not a grown up one. And she’ll talk and sing into it, because that seems to be what Albert wants her to do, while luminescent colors roll across his armor plates in thin, transparent bands.
She’s never seen anything alive here. Except Albert.
She talks into the microphone, though, sings it silly songs and talks about things. Her mother and father, and the divorce. The time in the hospital, and the friends she made there. Insects and arthropods, bicycles and card games. Her friends and teachers, and how happy she is to be back in a real school.
Colors rippling across his carapace impatiently, Albert waits. They’ve done this before.
I blamed the implant. Nobody likes to think her kid is experiencing symptoms of undifferentiated schizophrenia, after all. I rescheduled for the next day and took the morning off and we made an emergency appointment with Dr. al-Mansoor.
Tara waited outside while I went in to talk to the doctor. She looked bleary-eyed under the scarf tucked over her hair, the flesh slack over her cheekbones and shadowed around the eyes. I like Dr. al-Mansoor. And it was pretty obvious she hadn’t planned on being in the clinic at seven AM to see us, but she’d managed to get there.
I put a cup of coffee on her desk before I sat down. She took it gratefully, cupping lean fingers around the warm paper, her wedding ring flashing as she lowered her head over the steam. “You have a concern, Jill?” she asked.
Her given name is Hadiyah, but I always have to remind myself to use it, even though we’d gotten to be good friends over the last four months or so. I think she respected the questions I asked. None of the other parents were in the medical profession.
I looked down at my own coffee cup and cleared my throat. Best to just say it. “I think there’s a problem with Tara’s implant.”
They’ll catch her if she tries it here. So Tara sits and folds her hands and tries not to rock impatiently, first in the waiting room and then in the office while Mom and Dr. al-Mansoor talk, mostly over her head. There’s a dollhouse on the ledge, though, along with some other toys that Tara is mostly too old for, and Tara busies herself with the dolls and the furniture until she gets bored, and starts running the red firetruck back and forth along the ledge. She stages a four-alarm fire and a rescue, complete with hook-and-ladder work on the dollhouse, though the sizes are off and the dolls have to make a death-defying leap from the second floor to be caught at the top of the ladder by a half-scale fireman.
She’s totally lost track of the grownup conversation, and they’re not talking about her now anyway but about some other girl in the trial, though Dr. al-Mansoor is very careful not to say her name. “She hasn’t had any similar ideations, though . . . ”
The conversation stops, and Tara looks up to find Mom and Dr. alMansoor staring at her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Tara,” Dr. al-Monsoor says, smoothing her scarf over her hair, “where did you learn to play the fainting game?”
Tara bites her lip. Her hair falls across her eyes and she pushes it back. She never promised not to tell. “At the hospital,” she says, dragging it out. She turns back to the dollhouse and saves another Ken doll from the flames.
“Who taught you?”
This Ken doll didn’t jump hard enough. He falls short of the ladder, and the miniature
“Try me.”
“I can’t promise,” she said, “because the aliens need me.”
Albert chitters again. It’s hot. Really hot, and Tara wants water. But there never seems to be any water here. Albert tugs her hand. He wants her to follow. She goes with him and he takes her the same way he always does. Toward the big steel doors, and then down into cool darkness, the hum of big fans, and then he’ll bring her underground and there will be a thing like a microphone, only at her height, not a grown up one. And she’ll talk and sing into it, because that seems to be what Albert wants her to do, while luminescent colors roll across his armor plates in thin, transparent bands.
She’s never seen anything alive here. Except Albert.
She talks into the microphone, though, sings it silly songs and talks about things. Her mother and father, and the divorce. The time in the hospital, and the friends she made there. Insects and arthropods, bicycles and card games. Her friends and teachers, and how happy she is to be back in a real school.
Colors rippling across his carapace impatiently, Albert waits. They’ve done this before.
I blamed the implant. Nobody likes to think her kid is experiencing symptoms of undifferentiated schizophrenia, after all. I rescheduled for the next day and took the morning off and we made an emergency appointment with Dr. al-Mansoor.
Tara waited outside while I went in to talk to the doctor. She looked bleary-eyed under the scarf tucked over her hair, the flesh slack over her cheekbones and shadowed around the eyes. I like Dr. al-Mansoor. And it was pretty obvious she hadn’t planned on being in the clinic at seven AM to see us, but she’d managed to get there.
I put a cup of coffee on her desk before I sat down. She took it gratefully, cupping lean fingers around the warm paper, her wedding ring flashing as she lowered her head over the steam. “You have a concern, Jill?” she asked.
Her given name is Hadiyah, but I always have to remind myself to use it, even though we’d gotten to be good friends over the last four months or so. I think she respected the questions I asked. None of the other parents were in the medical profession.
I looked down at my own coffee cup and cleared my throat. Best to just say it. “I think there’s a problem with Tara’s implant.”
They’ll catch her if she tries it here. So Tara sits and folds her hands and tries not to rock impatiently, first in the waiting room and then in the office while Mom and Dr. al-Mansoor talk, mostly over her head. There’s a dollhouse on the ledge, though, along with some other toys that Tara is mostly too old for, and Tara busies herself with the dolls and the furniture until she gets bored, and starts running the red firetruck back and forth along the ledge. She stages a four-alarm fire and a rescue, complete with hook-and-ladder work on the dollhouse, though the sizes are off and the dolls have to make a death-defying leap from the second floor to be caught at the top of the ladder by a half-scale fireman.
She’s totally lost track of the grownup conversation, and they’re not talking about her now anyway but about some other girl in the trial, though Dr. al-Mansoor is very careful not to say her name. “She hasn’t had any similar ideations, though . . . ”
The conversation stops, and Tara looks up to find Mom and Dr. alMansoor staring at her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Tara,” Dr. al-Monsoor says, smoothing her scarf over her hair, “where did you learn to play the fainting game?”
Tara bites her lip. Her hair falls across her eyes and she pushes it back. She never promised not to tell. “At the hospital,” she says, dragging it out. She turns back to the dollhouse and saves another Ken doll from the flames.
“Who taught you?”
This Ken doll didn’t jump hard enough. He falls short of the ladder, and the miniature
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