Jane

Jane:  There he is.  I see him in the crowd, he wears a dirty, torn tee shirt, and his hair is greasy.  He lives here.  He is one of us.  One of the 99%, and one of the occupiers, and I love that he is so young, too young to care, yet he does.

He doesn’t know I watch him.  From our tent, I peek through the mesh window, and can just see him, where he’s set up camp.  Rolf has taken him on as one of his own.  The boy argues with Rolf, he wants to hold a sign, he wants to join the throngs who push back the barriers, keep the police out.  He wants to yell and shout and mean something, be something. 

I can’t hear what Rolf says, but I know what it is, because it’s the same thing my mother says to me – “Stay here and watch the younger ones.  That’s where you’re needed.  That’s your part.  To keep our camp. 

I’ve become a stay-at-home housewife, when I came here with my family to join the revolution.  I came here to make a difference – I’m sixteen! – but I have to stay home and watch the kids and prepare the meals while my parents fight for us.  They say I’m important, but all I feel is dirty, greasy-haired, no make-up, no life, no purpose.  I left school for this?  To be a nineties housefrou?  I am young, I want excitement, I want love!

Maybe I’ll talk to the boy.

Poppy

Poppy:  Where I grew up, we didn’t have school, cept when the plice came.  Then they’d take me and matty and lilly and put us in a car and we always asked to turn on the lights and matty wanted the siren too, but the pliceman wouldn’t do that.  Only the lights.

We drove fast, and then he walked us into the offise and I had to go with ms. Claire and matty with mr. cow which isn’t his real name, but he was always chewing cud, it looked like.  Lilly and I wanted to stay tagether, but we never could cause she had to go one with the plice to her school, the hi school.

Ms. Claire gave me breakfast from the cafeteria, and I liked Ms. Claire, and she showed me numbers and words and taught me to tell time.

Matty always ended up in the offise with a black eye or a bloody nose, and then we’d walk home, we’d walk along the panhandle, past the bums who knew our daddy, past the stench, into the projects where I saw a man get shot right in front of me one day when I was out on the scooter my daddy took from some rich person’s garbage and gave to me.

I don’t ride my scooter anymore.  I stay inside.   Lilly comes home, and she makes us some Campbell’s soup and I’m still hungry, but oh well, this is it.  I only hope the rats don’t come when I’m tryin to sleep, like they did once.

Lara

(sorry I haven't been keeping up the blog posts, been busy finishing one book, and starting another... this is the start of the new book, Mama.  Note that this Lara is different from the Larabee who's posted before -- Shelley)

I called my real mother Mama.  That much I remember.

The rest is a blur.  I don’t even know what she looks like.  In my memories, I see parts, such as her feet, padding down the stairs in Chinese slippers one time after I spilled my milk, so quiet, I wouldn’t have known she was coming except for the creak of the steps in our old house. 

I remember the quick pattering of my heart against my ribs – Mama always said I was nothing but bones -- but I don’t remember why I was so scared – was I going to get in trouble?  What kind of trouble, and how much?  Would she yell?  Punish me? 

I remember her crying a lot.  She was always crying.  Would my spilled milk make her cry?  Was it my fault she cried all the time?

If my memories are real at all, I know that in a flash of quick thinking, I put the cat on the table, and he lapped up all the milk before my mother got downstairs.  When Mama reached me, she patted my head, calling me a good girl for finishing all my milk.  All my fear slipped away in a rush of relief.

Lilly

(I keep toying with Lilly's story -- the girl abducted one night out in San Francisco.  One day it will coalesce into a novel.  For now, I play...)

Lilly:

He wants (me here forever).

He says (speak when spoken to).

He goes (to work or to play, all day, all day).

I wish (for windows, a door, a chance).

I claw (at the plaster under the bed, where he won’t see).

I suck (on my arm until it bleeds).

Prison is too tight

For a fifteen year old girl.

All I did, all I did,

All I did

Was go out,

Was have fun,

Get drunk,

Dance,

Sweat,

Live…

All I got, all I got,

All I got was this,

This room,

These walls,

            And him.

Corinne (Secrets I Don't Dare Tell, excerpt)

Meanwhile, I reach over to the coffee table with one hand to get my phone.  I start texting Marissa what happened, when suddenly my mother smacks my phone out of my hand!

“What the fuck!” I say -- big, big oops.

Right away, I amend that to, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I thought we were done.”

“We’re not done,” my mother says, leaning forward and getting all in my face.

“I was just telling Marissa—“

“I never should have gotten you that goddamned phone.  I thought you were special, Corinne, but you’re just like every other kid your age—“

“That’s right, I am!” I say, even though it really hurts to hear my mother say that to me.  “So I don’t even know why you’re punishing me for last night when everyone – everyone – is having sex by the time they’re like fourteen, and I’m sixteen, and all I was doing was—“

My mother pushes off her knees and stands up.  She starts walking away!

“Listen to me!” I yell.

“I did listen!  I always listen to you, Corinne!”

“You’re not listening right now!”

 “Ladies, please.  We’re getting off topic.  Ashley, sit down, please.”

“There’s more?” I say, too snotty, I know, I know.  I’m an idiot.

“I’m sorry.  I’ll be good, Daddy, I promise,” I say, leaning closer to him.

“Yes, you will,” my mother says.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” I say.

“You’d better not talk to me with that tone.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

“Fine.”

“And just to make sure you are ‘good’, Tim will be staying here with you this weekend,” my mother says.

I sit upright, and the stone, which has grown to a baseball-sized rock, rolls around my stomach.  I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Tim?”