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Until now, Micky hadn’t noticed this deforot imperfections,” she said
“This isn’t like having a big schnoz I’m either a mutant or a cripple, and I refuse to be a cripple People pity cripples, but they’re afraid of mutants”
“You want people to be afraid of you?”
“Fear implies respect,” Leilani said
“So far, you’re not registering high on my terror meter”
“Give reat body”
Disconcerted to hear such a thing from a child, Micky covered her discoe pudding I’ve got to work hard to stay like this”
“No you don’t You were born perfect, and you’ve got one of those yroscope You could eat half a cow and drink a keg of beer every day, and your butt would actually tighten up a notch”
Micky couldn’t remember the last time that she’d been rendered speechless by anyone, but with this girl, she was nearly befuddled into silence “Hoould you know?”
“I can tell,” Leilani assured her “You don’t run, you don’t poalk -“
“I workout”
“Oh? When was your last workout?”
“Yesterday,” Micky lied
“Yeah,” said Leilani, “and I was out waltzing all night” She stareatto be asha”
“Thanks for your approval” “Your boobs are real, aren’t they?” “Girl, you are an a piece of work”
“Thanks They must be real Even the best implants don’t look that natural Unless there’s y, ood boobs You can be a reat boobs That’s been my observation, anyway Men can be lovely creatures, but in some ways, they’re pathetically predictable” “You’re nine, huh?”
“My birthday was February twenty-eighth That was Ash Wednesday this year Do you believe in fasting and penitence?”
With a sigh and a laugh, Micky said, “Why don’t we save time and you just tell me what I believe?”
“Probably not ,” Leilani said, without a pause “Except in having fun and getting through the day”
Micky was left speechless not by the child’s acute perception but by hearing the truth put so bluntly, especially as this was a truth that she had so long avoided conte
“Nothing wrong with having fun,” said Leilani “One of the things I believe, if you want to know, is that we’re here to enjoy life” She shook her head “A Men must be all over you”
“Not anymore,” Micky said, surprised to hear herself reply at all, let alone so revealingly
A lopsided sirl’s mouth, and unmistakable merriment enlivened her blue eyes “Now don’t you wish you could see me as a mutant?”
“What?”
“As long as you think of me as a handicapped waif, your pity doesn’t allow you to be impolite On the other hand, if you could see erous mutant, you’d tell me none of this is my business, and you’d hustle me back to my own yard”
“You’re looking more like a mutant all the time”
Clapping her hands in delight, Leilani said, “I knew there umption in you” She rose from her chair with a hitch and pointed across the backyard “What’s that thing?”
“A rosebush”
“No, really”
“Really It’s a rosebush”
“No roses”
“The potential’s there”
“Hardly any leaves”
“Lots of thorns, though,” Micky noted
Squinching her face, Leilani said, “I bet it pulls up its roots late at night and creeps around the neighborhood, eating stray cats”
“Lock your doors”
“We don’t have cats” Leilani blinked “Oh” She grinned “Good one” She hooked her right hand into an imitation of a claw, raked the air, and hissed
“What did you mean when you said ‘all bets are off’?”
“When did I say that?” Leilani asked disingenuously
“You said you’ve only got until your next birthday, and then all bets are off”
“Oh, the alien-contact thing”
Although that wasn’t ;in answer, she turned away froait
Micky leaned forward froe chair “Leilani?”
“I say a lot of stuff Not all of it irl stopped and turned “Say, Michelina Bellsong, did I ask whether you believe in life after death?”
“And I was a wiseass”
“Yeah, I remember now”
“So…do you?” Micky asked
“Do I what?”
“Believe in life after death?”
Gazing at Micky with a soleirl at last said, “I better”
As she negotiated the fallen pickets and crossed the neglected sun-browned lawn next door, the faint click-and-squeak of her leg brace faded until it could have been e of industrious insects hard at work in the hot, dry air
For a while after the girl had gone into the neighboring house trailer, Micky sat forward in the lounge chair, staring at the door through which she had disappeared
Leilani was a pretty package of char vulnerability But while reht a sue uneasiness Like a quick dark fish, solimpsed truth had seeh it eluded her net
The liquid-thick heat of the late-August sun pooled around Micky She felt as though she were floating in a hot bath
The scent of recentlyessence of summer
In the distance rose the lulling ruht be mistaken for the rhythmic susurration of the sea
She should have grown drowsy, at least lethargic, but her rew stiff with a tension that the sun couldn’t cook from her
Although it see that her aunt Geneva had said only the previous evening, over dinner
‘CHANGE ISN’T EASY, Micky Changing the way you livehow you thinkwhat you believe about life That’s hard, sweetie When weto it even ant so bad to change, because thewe know The misery is comfortable”
To her surprise, sitting across the dinette table fro sobs Discreet, this weeping The plate of hona blurred in front of her, and hot tears slid down her cheeks She kept her fork in e as happening to her
She hadn’t cried since childhood She’d thought that she was beyond tears, too tough for self-pity and too hardened to be riry with herself for this weakness, she continued eating even though her throat grew so thick with e