How My Brain Ended Up Inside This Box

Chapter Ten

"Draw my heart," she said to me, holding out a piece of yellow chalk.

I took it and, scarcely breathing, I got up and walked to the blackboard, stepping right between Mother and Mrs. Blather, who parted to make way for me. I didn't think at all. I just drew and drew for what seemed like a very long time, and I had no idea what I was drawing. I didn't even look at it when I was done but, still gripping the chalk in my hand, I turned, walked back to my desk and sat down.

Mother and Mrs. Blather seemed to gasp as the third woman stepped between them and inspected my work.

"It talks to birds," I heard Mother whisper.

"Shush!" Mrs. Blather snapped, and raised her hand as if she were about to hit mother. Instead, she spoke to the woman in black.

"I'm sorry, Miss Marta. This one doesn't know any manners."

Miss Marta turned and gazed at mother for a few long moments. They were like two dark mirrors reflecting nothing off each other, Mother in her fluffy light blue bathrobe, her ruby red lipstick and her bright blond hair, Miss Marta all in black, dark and awful in her scary magic way.

"You may leave now," she told Mother, and turned back to my drawing. Mother gave a sort of a snort, but she left the room. I was astonished. I'd never seen Mother give way and I knew now it was possible to defeat her. If I ever got the chance, I told myself, I would also tell her to "leave now" in the haughtiest way and maybe she would leave, maybe that was all it would take.

"And you," she said to Mrs. Blather, who was clearly surprised to be dismissed as well.

'But I have measurements to do," Mrs. Blather said. Miss Marta waved her hand towards the door, and Mrs. Blather mumbled something about "doing them later I suppose" and left the building as well. Now there was only Miss Marta and the row of us sitting quietly and obediently in our chairs. Miss Marta resumed pacing back and forth in front of us, now and again posing a nonsensical proposition to one of us and receiving in return an indecipherable answer. She was speaking a completely different language and somehow making us reply in kind, while she was the only one who had any idea of what anything meant.

She gave no indication of whether any of our answers pleased her or not, other than that single kiss she had bestowed on Random. I wished the others had been banished too, that she had kept only me with her in that room, or even better, that she would take me – and only me – take me with her far away where there was only her and me and no one else and nothing else forever and ever and ever.

I imagined an enchanted island, and on that island were birds and squirrels and Miss Marta and me, and I told her everything the birds and squirrels were saying, because she couldn't understand them, only I could, and I was useful to her and let her in on all the mysteries and secrets and then she would love me too.

"What do the finches say?"

I was daydreaming and didn't realize at first that she was talking to me. She had to repeat herself.

"What do the finches say?" she said, and she was standing right in front of me and scowling down at me.

"Peep peep peep?" I replied.

"This is how you talk to birds?" she chuckled. "Peep peep peep?"

"It's what the raven Mary told me that finches say," I tried to reply, but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. I couldn't speak and Miss Marta moved on. I felt like I could burst into pieces. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to smash everything to bits. I couldn't move. I was trapped in that body and it seemed as if everything was going horribly wrong.