Curing Kyle Magnusson ✓

Two - Dirty Boy

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Anna

It was a rainy afternoon sixteen years ago, and I was that three-year-old girl sitting on the window-sill, scowling at the raindrops trickling down the glass. I had never liked the rain back then because my dad had a strict no-playing-outside-on-a-rainy-day policy. He didn't want me to get sick.

I had been pampered from before I was born, the unplanned baby that was a blessing for a middle-aged couple. Most people wouldn't be happy, but my parents were ecstatic when they found out. With my elder brothers gone to college, I was the bundle of joy that made the house feel like home.

Despite the fact that my entire room was cluttered with expensive toys, I had been in a terrible mood. I hated being trapped indoors, unable to cycle outside in our peaceful street or climb up into the treehouse my dad had built for me. That's where my heart lay, in the outdoors.

As I watched the drops of water race with each other, my frustration grew. My nails picked at the frilled hem of my pink skirt, a dress mom had forced me to wear, and I desperately wished for the rain to stop.

I heard distant shouting once again, something that had become a usual occurrence. We had gotten new neighbors two months ago, and since my room was attached to their wall, I was constantly subjected to the torture of their shouting. Usually, it was a woman shouting, and it was followed by the breaking of dishes and slamming of doors.

Being too young to understand, I had asked my mom and dad what it was all about. They hadn't given me a clear answer, simply saying that Mr. Magnusson was hard of hearing. It made sense to me then. No wonder the woman had to shout to be heard by her close-to-deaf husband. I had automatically assumed that the man was hard-of-seeing too. Maybe that's why he bumped into things and made them break.

Pressing my small hands on my ears, I huffed in anger. I really hated the noise, and it made me want to shout at them to stop being so loud. I didn't do it, though, my mom said we shouldn't be rude to people.

Then I saw something that was to change my life forever.

My window faced their house, and I could always see their door open and close, usually when the balding man who was hard of hearing left for work. His car wasn't on his porch though, so he must not be home at all. I was too young to wonder why the woman was screaming if her husband wasn't home.

Their door opened, and I saw a small boy stumble out of it, falling down the two stairs and onto the wet pavement. I watched him struggle to get up, falling again when he tripped over his bare feet and too-long pants.

Mrs. Magnusson hurried out after him. I recognized the woman who was known as the new 'witch' who moved into the neighborhood, by the kids my age. Playing in the street, we were always careful to avoid her house. What if she baked us into cakes and ate us? There were rumors about why she shouted so much, and I always tried to forget the myths when I tried to sleep in my bed, afraid she would float through the joint wall and abduct me.

She was holding an umbrella as she followed the boy out of the door, and I assumed she was going to help him up and take him inside.

Instead, she hit him with it.

The umbrella collided with the boy's ankle, making him lose his balance and fall face-down in the mud. The umbrella came down again, this time on his thigh. The boy writhed in pain, rising on his hands and knees and crawling away from the abuser. The woman shouted after the boy, her voice drowned out by the roaring wind, and the splattering of the rain, the glass window blocking even the faintest of sound from my innocent ears.