The first time I saw Jonas, that day by the spring, he was a lost, tangle-headed boy following a bird. I was almost eleven, only three years older, though in my mind old enough to be his mother, when I took him by the hand and led him back to the path. I could never have imagined then that the second time I saw him, four years later, this strange child would irrevocably change my life.
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That day I woke up anxious—a hollow, homesick feeling in my chest. My dreams had scared me: a man wanted me to eat jacket potatoes. He said he was going to kill me. I begged to see my mother one last time. There were banjo players. I pounded on the glass, but no one could hear me.
Anna was still asleep. Her spiral-bound journal had fallen open on the floor beside her bed. I was tempted to read it, but I already knew everything it would say. I reached under the mattress and pulled out my own journal. Jade silk, with a teensy lock and key. Mum had bought it for me in Chinatown after our annual New Year’s Day dim sum. Anna had chosen a red T-shirt covered in what looked like Chinese characters, but when you tilted your head sideways it said, Go Fuck Yourself! Mum bought herself a lavender bathrobe. By the time we got home, I’d already managed to lose the key to my journal. I pried open the lock with a safety pin and broke it. Which didn’t matter, since pretty much all I did was make lists of things I needed to do to make myself a better person. Things like “practice the flute for an hour every day!!” or “read Middlemarch!”
It had rained heavily the night before, and the air was waterlogged. Early morning heat raised steam off the damp pine needle paths around the camp. Already our cabin smelled of mildew. I needed to pee.
I closed the cabin door quietly behind me and headed to the bathroom, kicking away sharp, squirrel-nibbled pinecones with my bare feet. The towels we’d hung on the line to dry were soaked and heavy, flecked with bits of debris from the overhanging trees.
When I sat down on the toilet, I noticed blood on my shin. I wiped it off with a wodge of toilet paper and got a Band-Aid from the medicine cabinet. I had one leg up on the toilet seat, struggling to open the frustrating wax-papery wrapper, when I saw drops of blood on the floor. I lifted up the hem of my nightgown. The back was stained with blood. Finally. I’d waited so long for this, checking my underpants every day, hoping to catch up with my friends.
I dug around in the linen closet, found Anna’s box of Playtex, and sat down on the toilet seat, little plinks of blood dripping into the water. I knew what to do. I’d stolen her tampons a few times before, practiced inserting them. Becky said I was being an idiot, but I was worried that if I did it wrong, the tampon would break my hymen. I’d studied the little pamphlet in the box with its pictograms of a lunglike vaginal canal, squat legs bent at the knees for just the correct positioning.
I was peeling off the plastic wrapper when there was a knock on the bathroom door.
“Don’t come in!” I shouted. “I’m in here!”
“Well, hurry up, I need a piss.” It was Conrad.
“Pee in the bushes. Are you a girl?”
“Are you a total bitch?”
I listened to him stumbling away into the woods. There were moments when Conrad was bearable. At times I even felt sorry for him. But he had this creepy, insinuating way about him—the kind of guy who’s constantly washing his hands. Recently he’d started following me and Anna when we walked to the beach, always just out of sight. Sometimes, lying on the hot sand, we would catch him spying on us from the top of the dunes, hoping to see our boobs.
I made sure the bathroom door was locked. Sat back down on the toilet, pulled my nightgown high up around my waist and took my underpants off so I could spread my legs wide enough apart. I positioned the pink plastic applicator and was pushing the plunger when I heard a noise. On the opposite side of the bathroom, Conrad’s face was smashed tight against the clerestory window, eyes wide, staring between my open legs. I dropped the tampon applicator and it skittled away across the bathroom floor.
“Get away, you freak!” I shrieked, my entire body vibrating with rage and shame. I listened to Conrad’s sickening laugh as he ran off. By tomorrow, every one of his weirdo friends would know. I sat on the toilet weeping, wanting to die. The second I heard his cabin door slam shut, I ran for my cabin, shoved my bloody nightgown out of sight under my bed, yanked on my bathing suit, and raced to the pond. My only thought was to put as much distance between me and Conrad as possible. I would never be able to face him again, that much was clear. A stack of paddles was leaning against a tree. I grabbed one, pushed our fiberglass canoe off the spongy green undergrowth into the water as hard as I could, lay down on the bottom of the boat as the canoe drifted away from the beach. I hugged my arms to my chest, stared up at the early morning sky. This must be what it’s like to be a Viking dead person, I thought as the boat glided out unmanned.