Trompe l'Oeil by Nancy Reisman

again became sensical, Mrs. Graham saying, “Katy? Do I have your attention?”
    She didn’t lose track of Mrs. Graham’s voice, but the sounds stuck the way Italian had, strings of vowels and consonants she heard but did not interpret. The words stretched and puckered. She copied what Mrs. Graham wrote on the board, but sometimes missed a piece. A page number. The third week of school, her mother visited her classroom at the end of the day and spoke with Mrs. Graham and copied down all the assignments Katy had already copied. “She needs to be given written instructions,” her mother said, as if Katy weren’t in the room. “Most of the instructions,” Mrs. Graham told her, “are written down. She only needs the right page.”
    â€œWe just moved here year-round,” her mother said.
    â€œShe’ll adjust.” Mrs. Graham smiled, but now Katy was marked.
    It would happen in other places. Outside. Around other kids. On the bus. She tuned in halfway, missing the first parts of stories, the beginnings of bus fights or jokes. “What?” she’d say to Theo—when he was around—and in whispers he’d explain.
    Theo never misread the instructions, never misheard the others. He was cautious: these were year-round kids from the harbor town streets and the bluff. For passing instants his face would go blank before settling into ordinary watchfulness, like a television skipping through the empty, electric-snow channels, but he didn’t lose information. Teachers liked him, they had always liked him—he was handsome, well-mannered—but he wasn’t a pet. It didn’t take long for him to make friends. A few, even in the first weeks, normal boys who seemed lively and unconfused. Sometimes when he joined them, Katy would panic, but all September he was patient with her, explaining, sticking by her in new places (as if she were Molly or in fact retarded). At home, he brought his reading into her room while she finished homework; then he’d return to his room, where he’d sleep. She did not follow him, nor did they sleep in the living room again. He stayed in her room longest—long enough to need a blanket—the night after Molly’s nursery school refused to refund a deposit; through the walls they could hear their father shouting, She’s dead—you want to have that conversation? their mother shouting, Shut up .
    Some mornings upon waking Katy had to remind herself that Molly was dead, and in that way Rome kept repeating, and Molly kept running into the street.
    By October, Theo’s old impatience returned. He wouldn’t hold Katy’s hand in public, though sometimes he’d walk close to her, nudging her, letting her know he was there. She couldn’t blame him, really. She’d drift, sometimes just giving up, letting herself slide, and then discover she was alone in a deep dirt pit. Everyone called down clever suggestions of how to climb out but no one lifted her to solid ground. Perhaps she’d have to live there, part-time, always it seemed, everyone nodding in quiet recognition and pitying consolation. Yes, too bad she isn’t like the others , a shrugging acceptance that she was defective but meant no harm. The way, in Newton, her classmates had talked about Candace Green, a plain girl with skinny white legs and narrow, slightly out-turned feet, a girl who didn’t say much, and sometimes was the butt of mild jokes, though not the worst jokes, the worst reserved for even more objectionable kids. Candace Green. Maybe Katy was now Candace Green, only unskinny, and as the weeks progressed, and she comforted herself with cookies and chips, further and further from skinny.
    It was better in gym, when she ran or played soccer. By mid-fall her concentration improved; she could follow the through lines of Mrs. Graham’s lessons. Still, every success felt provisional, Katy herself