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slowly and lowering her head to study a bit of fauna or a flower she’ll twirl between her palms. I knew it would be her, coming into sight next to him, because she was not among the first group to arrive back at the bus. She is just visible now at the corner, walking at a leisurely pace until she reaches the two steps into the bus. She climbs them slowly, still in no hurry. When we are all on the bus and it moves off, she is not where she was before, inside their little circle, for she has chosen a seat somewhere in the middle, to be alone with him and away from them, and also to keep herself apart from where I sit, another girl altogether now, as if, when she first climbed onto the bus, she did not even hint to me that she had been eagerly awaiting this outing of ours, this trip we would make together.

V
    FROM THE WINDOW IN THE room overlooking the sand track (the room my father calls mine, the room he entreats me to sleep in, night after night) I can see the girl who lives just below me as she steps out of the building’s front entrance. I will already be in wait, there behind the window where I have been busying myself with a towel, drying my face, neck, and hands. It won’t be more than a few moments before she appears, hoisting her bulky book bag and walking heavily. She drags herself along as if she hasn’t yet rid herself of the sleep from which she was suddenly and unwillingly yanked. As her feet take their first steps, her body swerves toward the edge of the track: final traces of sleep still hold her in their sway. I know very well that I really should not be standing at the window so expectantly. If I stand here like this every day, I am behaving exactly like those people who are too obviously expecting something, or (even worse) I am one of those who lie in wait, anticipating a response to the look they send out. No, I must not stand like this, waiting behind the window. Girls her age activate something in those who watch them, but it’s wrong. It’s errant desire, misplaced desire. It’s something defective in the men who watch.
    I watch her slowing down, maybe stumbling, and I figure that she must be taking in the fact that between her and the end of the sand track there is still a long and arduous way to go. Her feet sink into the sand, and I worry about sharp grains of it finding their way into her soft white shoes and soiling her socks, which are also white. But every day at this time, I know, she will stamp her feet on the cement surface where the sand track ends abruptly. She wants to knock away the sandy soil that clings and at the same time announce to herself that she has finished with the track that so annoys her. She stamps her feet twice, then a third time to finally rid the white shoes of the sand and its dirty, clinging residue. But the sand that has worked its way inside will stay there, sticking to her socks, suspended between her soft and pliable toes, which are not yet roughened or cracked by age or by too much walking.
    When she reaches the closest edge of the building where she will wait for the bus, I can no longer see her from my window. Once she is there, I turn away from the window and hurriedly finish rubbing my face and neck dry, as if to proclaim to myself that it is time for things to move on to the next stage. Come to the table! says my father as he stands gazing at the plates, which aren’t very many and anyway, aren’t full. He lets me have the few minutes I need to go into my room and get into my daytime clothes. Come to the table! he says to my mother, this time going to her in the kitchen. Or he might just stand at the door waiting for her, just inside the central hallway where he can also see me leaving the room that holds all the books. He waits to see which one of us will come out first, me or my mother. Come on, let’s eat, he says to me as he takes a couple of steps toward me as if to meet me so that we can proceed together, as