of course was innocent of the so-called human sciences. She’d probably never even heard of Sigmund Food—none of that sticky stuff for her.) I saw my chance. “I ate a funny-looking mushroom,” I blurted, exploding my chance to atoms by overdoing it—no tracker would ever eat a funny-looking mushroom. “I fell on it with my mouth open,” I tacked on lamely. “My god she tried to kill herself,” Willis hollered, “we have to get her to Nurse’s Bung right away.” Since Iwas quiet now, Ottie rolled off me to help me to my feet—and I forked up his jackknife out of the tuft of iron grass where it had fallen, and slashing air with it, so he backed off, and making, I seem to recall, some kinda wordless noise—howling, bawling, sumpm along those lines—I ran off into the woods.
It meant exile
—and now I hastened to forget what I knew, which wasn’t much, of Wood Wiz Lost-Finding, and I was lost in the woods. I hadn’t stolen Ottie’s knife as essential tool number 3 of emergency wood wizardry, although it was. I had no intention of cutting willow rod stanchions or leafy roofing for a lean-to. No, it was myself I intended to cut—not kill, mind you, only cut—which brings me to the question of
WHY THE BOGEYWOMAN LETS HER OWN BLOOD:
(Note well I was not your typical Badgirl capital B: I was the Bogeywoman, whereas classical Badgirl was Margaret, age fourteen, fifteen, with a Pall Mall usurping the notch of a cherry coke straw in her lips and dangling from her white lipstick at the bus stop [transfer from Meadowbottom Circle to Number 5 Slade Avenue]. Somebody’s bubby in a babushka limps by and sighs, “Oi, so young!” Badgirl doesn’t turn her head, gives her at most a sidewise sullen glance from half-lowered lids. Badgirl got her period at thirteen, threw out the stiffened panties in a park garbage can, thumbed a tampax up there—it was murder for a week—and didn’t tell Suzette, who’d have made it occasion for a boring speech. Badgirl used to carry an abortionist’s telephone number—it was in D.C.—in her wallet, penciled on a corner of her first Social Security card, which she hadn’t lost yet. But this miniature toughgirl has emotions—like me in the woods. This is where Badgirl and Bogeywoman come
together, age 14, 15, 16, in that overbubbling cauldron of the heart. So much they have to spill some when they think of—well maybe
think
isn’t quite the word for it—that I could go crazy was churning in my dreambox, that I was going to die, that everyone was going to die, that the black drain of time was already sucking down my lazy worthless life and I would never possess any more of it than this torn-up, dirty-sudsy, offensive fluid, my eye staring coldly out at the chunk-loaded river going by—waves of hunger and disgust—that I would never love anyone, that no one would ever love me but still I wanted them in my gorge gullet snatch hole craw wanted to eat them alive before they had a chance to eat me or, worse, look at me, see what I was and run)
Ottie kept that jackknife sharp, wouldn’t you know it. I staggered through deep shade on no trail, weeping and slicing a very fine grid as I went, a plan for a good camp, a tough camp, for girls, on the fish-white underbelly of my forearm—so fine it took some time before the Chipmunks’ cottage, the Lower Big Bear line, the Upper Big Bear line, waterfront, archery field and chapel all filled up with blood and ran together. By then rags of pink sky winked at me between branches overhead—twilight over the lake. They were throwing me out—in all my life I had shown for twelve and a half minutes what I really was and already they were throwing me out. Okay I was out of camp but I would never go home, I decided that right then.
And, funny, there was no use hiding in the woods either: old Bundgus was such an ace tracker that she’d find me as soon as she could catch me, for all I had over her draft horse flanks was speed.
I turned
It meant exile
—and now I hastened to forget what I knew, which wasn’t much, of Wood Wiz Lost-Finding, and I was lost in the woods. I hadn’t stolen Ottie’s knife as essential tool number 3 of emergency wood wizardry, although it was. I had no intention of cutting willow rod stanchions or leafy roofing for a lean-to. No, it was myself I intended to cut—not kill, mind you, only cut—which brings me to the question of
WHY THE BOGEYWOMAN LETS HER OWN BLOOD:
(Note well I was not your typical Badgirl capital B: I was the Bogeywoman, whereas classical Badgirl was Margaret, age fourteen, fifteen, with a Pall Mall usurping the notch of a cherry coke straw in her lips and dangling from her white lipstick at the bus stop [transfer from Meadowbottom Circle to Number 5 Slade Avenue]. Somebody’s bubby in a babushka limps by and sighs, “Oi, so young!” Badgirl doesn’t turn her head, gives her at most a sidewise sullen glance from half-lowered lids. Badgirl got her period at thirteen, threw out the stiffened panties in a park garbage can, thumbed a tampax up there—it was murder for a week—and didn’t tell Suzette, who’d have made it occasion for a boring speech. Badgirl used to carry an abortionist’s telephone number—it was in D.C.—in her wallet, penciled on a corner of her first Social Security card, which she hadn’t lost yet. But this miniature toughgirl has emotions—like me in the woods. This is where Badgirl and Bogeywoman come
together, age 14, 15, 16, in that overbubbling cauldron of the heart. So much they have to spill some when they think of—well maybe
think
isn’t quite the word for it—that I could go crazy was churning in my dreambox, that I was going to die, that everyone was going to die, that the black drain of time was already sucking down my lazy worthless life and I would never possess any more of it than this torn-up, dirty-sudsy, offensive fluid, my eye staring coldly out at the chunk-loaded river going by—waves of hunger and disgust—that I would never love anyone, that no one would ever love me but still I wanted them in my gorge gullet snatch hole craw wanted to eat them alive before they had a chance to eat me or, worse, look at me, see what I was and run)
Ottie kept that jackknife sharp, wouldn’t you know it. I staggered through deep shade on no trail, weeping and slicing a very fine grid as I went, a plan for a good camp, a tough camp, for girls, on the fish-white underbelly of my forearm—so fine it took some time before the Chipmunks’ cottage, the Lower Big Bear line, the Upper Big Bear line, waterfront, archery field and chapel all filled up with blood and ran together. By then rags of pink sky winked at me between branches overhead—twilight over the lake. They were throwing me out—in all my life I had shown for twelve and a half minutes what I really was and already they were throwing me out. Okay I was out of camp but I would never go home, I decided that right then.
And, funny, there was no use hiding in the woods either: old Bundgus was such an ace tracker that she’d find me as soon as she could catch me, for all I had over her draft horse flanks was speed.
I turned