"Trudy"

by Jennifer L. Rowland

She looked out the window and watched the snow drift lazily down to

the earth. She would have liked to reach out and touch it, maybe catch a

flake or two on her tongue, but even if she could get the old, rusty window

mechanism to work, the bars in front of the spotty glass wouldn't let her

through. Still, it was pretty to watch, and she amused herself with

remembered stories of Jack Frost as the ice formed patterns that were barely

visible through the soiled windowpanes.

Jack Frost, and she instantly saw her Uncle Jack. Funny, Uncle Jack

usually came to visit. But she hadn't seen him lately. Not that she could

really keep track of days, but she did remember that things weren't so white

the last time he'd come. In fact, she was pretty sure there had been

flowers. Yes, there had been flowers when Uncle Jack came. He'd taken her

for a walk in the gardens. She loved the flowers, especially the daisies.

It was a shame, she'd said, the daisies weren't growing well this year. It

didn't matter that she was just repeating what she'd heard Miss Kishner say,

Uncle Jack smiled and agreed with her as if she were....what had he called

her? Oh, yes, a grand botyniss. At any rate, she wished it was flower time

again. She always felt better when she saw the flowers.

She coughed and rubbed her nose miserably. She was certain that if

she had some flowers to look at now she'd feel better. Maybe Uncle Jack

would bring her some. He hadn't made it to see her the last two times the

flowers had come. But that was all right. Uncle Jack was a very important

man. And important men were always busy, and they couldn't always come see

you because they were so busy doing important things.

Poppy was always busy. He was so busy that he'd even gone to

someplace called Saw Dee A Ray Bee Uh to do important things. But he was

going to come back with lots of money. Al had told her that. And he did

come back. Poppy had come and gotten her and Al out of the big, big house

with all the kids who had no mommies or daddies. She knew better, though.

Al made sure of that. They *did* have a daddy, and he was coming back for

them. They weren't orphans, he told her over and over again. Al never

talked about Mommy, and eventually she'd stopped asking about her. Poppy

was the important one. He was the one they could count on.

She turned around and looked at the great room she was in. It was a

huge room, but she had to share it with lots and lots of people. In the

house Poppy had bought when he came back, she had had her own room, and she

even had toys--new toys, not broken ones. They didn't have good toys here.

All the toys here had slobber on them and were broken or missing parts. She

couldn't even do a puzzle, because none of the puzzles had all the pieces.

So she usually ended up just looking out the window.

She looked at the snow again. It was pretty, but it was so cold.

The cold sneaked in through the window and made everything cold. Her bed

was right below the window, and no matter how many blankets Miss Kishner

gave her, they all turned to ice and she shivered all night long. And when

she got cold, her cough got worse. Dr. Young had checked her with that

awful cold stetherscope, and made tut-tut noises, and told her to drink

plenty of juice and everything would be fine. She just had a winter cold,

he said. Dr. Young was very smart, so she always made sure to drink all of

her juice, and sometimes even asked for a second glass. Miss Kishner

usually obliged her, but when Miss Forrest was there, she fussed at her for

being greedy. And so she would have to make do with just one glass, no

matter what Dr. Young said. But that was all right. She really didn't

mind. Miss Forrest was just trying to make sure that she knew how important

it was to share.

What she did mind was that they'd cut her hair off. She touched the

rough cropped edges and sighed. She just couldn't comb it herself, and they

didn't have time to fix it for her. Even Miss Kishner had gotten tired of

yanking at the tangles. So, she guessed it was a long time ago, even though

she remembered it as vividly as if it had been yesterday, she'd been taken

down the hallway where they took you when you were bad. She'd been so

scared. She'd tried very hard to follow the rules, but sometimes one of the

others would just make you so upset you couldn't help but cry. And then

there had been the one time when she'd had a bad dream and wet the bed, but

she hadn't done that in the longest time, so she didn't understand why she

was being taken to the Bad Place. They'd put her in a big, hard chair and

told her to sit very still. Of course she had, especially when they took

out the scissors. Somehow she'd managed not to start screaming. Then a

hand pushed her head down and she felt the cold metal on the back of her

neck. In a few minutes, all she felt was air, and her head was raised.

They took a towel and wiped her neck and then told her to stand up. When

she stood up, she saw her hair all over the floor. She couldn't help it.

She started to cry.

She touched the short hair again. She was sort of used to it now,

and she didn't think she looked funny when she looked in the mirror anymore,

but nobody told her she was pretty anymore. Not even Miss Kishner. She

wondered what Al would say about her hair. Al never teased her. But he

would probably miss her hair, she thought. When they were in the big, big

house, and even after Poppy came back, Al would brush her hair for her. A

hundred times, he said. Every night he'd sit on the edge of her bed and

take her favorite hairbrush and brush her hair, counting each pull of the

brush. That was what the movie stars did, he'd told her. That was why

their hair was so long and pretty. She wanted hair like the movie stars,

and so she didn't complain, not even when Al had to pull hard to get out a knot.

She missed Al. She knew he would be different. She had an old

photograph of herself and Al and Poppy, and when she looked in the mirror

she knew that she looked different than the little girl in the picture.

That meant Al wasn't the little boy in the picture. And Poppy. Poppy would

never change. Poppy was in Heaven, Al said. She wasn't so sure about that.

She'd seen Poppy taking a nap in that funny-looking bed in the church, and

then they'd closed the lid. She'd guessed that was so he wouldn't get woken

up; he looked like he really wanted the nap. She wanted to ask Al, but he

was so quiet. He just sat next to her with a frown on his face. Uncle Jack

had been crying, and she wanted to tell him not to be sad, that Poppy was

just taking a long nap. But then she and Al had taken a ride in a shiny

black car that stopped in a stone garden. That's what it looked like, but

Al had told her it was a semmerterry. The strange bed with a lid had been

put in a hole in the ground and they started to throw dirt on it. That's

when she'd started screaming. And that's when Al told her again that Poppy

was in Heaven. She didn't understand how he could be in the strange bed and

in Heaven at the same time, but Al knew a lot, so she listened to him. She

didn't think Poppy would be happy when he woke up with dirt all over him,

though.

Al hadn't been happy, either. He'd held on to her, hugging her, and

she'd watched as two tiny tears rolled down his cheeks. She noticed that he

didn't bow his head with everyone else when the priest started to pray, and

she wanted to ask him, but she didn't. Not even when they left Poppy in the

ground.

She looked at the ground outside her window. It was covered with

white. She coughed again. Miss Kishner came up to her and put a hand on

her forehead. "You've got a fever," she said, and pulled down the covers on

the bed. "Come over here and get into bed."

With a sigh, she left the window and walked to her bed. The sheets

were like ice and she gasped when she lay down. The gasp started her

coughing again. Now that she was lying down she could feel a heaviness in

her chest. She started shivering when Miss Kishner pulled the cold blankets

over her shoulders. She didn't know why she was so tired. She shouldn't be

tired. It wasn't like she had run around the room. Not like Frances.

Frances was strange. She drooled and she wet the bed and she was mean.

Frances liked to pull hair. She put her hand to her head and felt the small

bald spot from the time, not too long ago, when Frances had caught her and

pulled her hair out. That was the only time she'd ever hit someone. She'd

hit Frances so hard that red started to come out of her nose. They'd

brought her to the Bad Place after that. Frances had to go to the Bad

Place, too, but not at the same time. She didn't like the Bad Place. It

was scary and it hurt. It hurt so bad it made her cough worse. It made her

feel bad.

She didn't like feeling bad. She felt bad right now. She tilted

her head back and looked up through the window, past the bars, to the sky.

It was grey, but she could still see the clouds. It had stopped snowing and

the clouds were changing. One of them looked like a flower, and she smiled.

She tried to sigh, but couldn't get a deep enough breath. No matter. She'd

just look at the flower. But it was already changing. Now it was a dog.

She liked dogs. Poppy had promised to get them a dog, but then he'd gotten

sick. And then, after they'd left him in the ground, or he'd gone to Heaven

(she still wasn't sure where he was), some people in very dark clothes had

come to their house. They'd taken Al away in one car, and put her in

another. That was when she'd been brought to the first big place with bars

on the windows. She didn't like being away from Al, but the nuns were very

nice there. They read her stories about Jesus every night and told her how

she must be a good girl. She tried very hard to be a good girl, but she

must not have been good enough, because when she got older, they brought her

to a new place with bars on the windows, and another, until finally she'd

ended up here, with the beds that got cold in the winter.

But, she thought, the good thing about this place was that this was

the place where Uncle Jack had first come to visit her. He'd been so happy

to see her and gave her a tight hug, so tight she could hardly breathe. She

felt like she was in a tight hug right now, only nobody was hugging her.

She closed her eyes and pretended that Uncle Jack was hugging her. Then she

rolled over and looked at the battered picture on her nightstand. Uncle

Jack had brought it on one of his visits. He was going to find Al, he said,

even though Al wasn't a little boy anymore. Al was a young man. But he was

going to find Al, and then Al would be able to come visit. She'd been very

happy to hear that. She knew Al would look different, but she couldn't help

but see the little boy in the photograph whenever she thought about him.

She hoped that Uncle Jack had found Al, and maybe that was why Uncle Jack

couldn't come visit her anymore.

She coughed again. She was getting tired. She tried to remember

some of the stories about Jesus that the nuns had taught her. She

remembered her favorite, about how Jesus had made all the grown-ups move

aside and let the children come to be with Him. Maybe she was big now, but

she would have liked to be one of those children. "Can I come be with You?"

she asked out loud. Nobody in the room heard her speak.

She rolled onto her back and realized someone was standing next to

her bed. It was Poppy. She smiled and started to squeal in excitement, but

it turned into a hacking cough. He smiled back at her and reached out his

hand. He wasn't covered in dirt, so Al must have been right. He must have

been in Heaven.

She took his hand and felt lighter than air. She didn't cough

anymore and she didn't feel bad. She followed him out of the building and

up through the air. Up to a place where the flowers never stopped growing,

not even for an instant.