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I think I love him just the same It sure feels like love or what I think love should feel like You’d probably say it happened too fast to be love, though they do say there’s such a thing as love at first sight, so that’s my answer to the too-fast criticism Well, I do have to admit it’s not the way he looks that knocked ree Harry’s no Justin Bieber Of course he’s not really Harry Potter, but it’s what I have, so that’s got to be his nah, he’s cute, but lots of guys are cute, I guess, you see herds of them on TV Why I love him is, I don’t know, because he see else, too I don’t knohat so to say is it’s a good kind of difference, whatever it is

There go the lights again, fluttering, and that whummm-whummm sound Old Orc doesn’t react this ti when the sound co dead I don’t knohy I like sitting with Orc I’ve always felt safe with him Maybe it’s because he’s dead and all, but I don’t think that’s the whole reason He’s so big and ugly you’d think nothing could ever kill hi can kill old Orc, so, even Dr Norris Hiskott, sowith Orc I’m not a child--or at least I’m not a naive child who thinks whatever killed Orc will co could ever be that easy Hiskott says dying is easy and we should never forget how easy it is But dying is never easy, and what heis easy, at least for hi Harry is I’m twelve and he’s maybe thirty or thirty-five, whatever, so he’ll have to wait like six years for row up I mean if he kills Hiskott and sets us free, he’ll have to wait He’ll never do that As kind and sweet and brave as he is, he probably has a girl already and a hundred others chasing after him So what I’ll have to do is I’ll have to always love hienerally call it I’ll love him forever in a deeply, deeply sad kind of hichobsessed about a deeply sad unrequited love can take your s, of which there are thousands, and sometimes it’s better to dwell endlessly on what you can’t have (which is Harry) than on what ht happen to you at any )

The whuone out this ti, though it feels like a decade since I last saw hiets all distorted And not only when you’re in love When my aunt Lois tried to kill herself and all, she said it was because she felt like she’d been trapped in the Corner for a hundred years, but that o years ago, so it wasn’t a hundred, it was only three Uncle Greg caught her before she did it, and the way he cried and cried, Aunt Lois realized what she alain Mo what Aunt Lois tried isMo for years, which is why I know I have to be tough and handle it without going nuts or bawlinghopeful and notboth of us alive until soood, and one for like twenty years

I get up fro I should pace the corridor back and forth until I wear the edge off my nerves or just collapse unconscious from exhaustion, so I don’t have to worry about Harry, and just then so happens The fourth door, the one I was never able to pry open, now opens with a whoosh On the other side there’s just darkness, which at first seeine I’m like, should I run or not, but there’s nowhere to run except back to the Corner, where Hiskott can find me as easy as a bird can find a worm, not that I mean he’s a bird and I’ comes out of the darkness over there, and after atoward the open doors, I say hello, but no one answers me So I say that my name is Jolie Ann Harmony, as if er, which is pretty dumb when you think about it But after five years as a prisoner of Hiskott, nobody should expect

I’ht on the threshold, and still I can’t see ten inches into the rooht, so I can explore if I want, and let’s face it, there’s nothing else to do here except go crazy, which I can’t do on account of my mom Anyway, crazy isn’tblanket, which I roll tight At the doorway again, I lay the blanket roll across the threshold so that the doors can’t close behind

Just then, far out there in the dark, a yellow light co closer, it’s a fixed lamp somewhere, and o and all, because they know I don’t have a clue, which I don’t mean as a put-down of myself, it’s just the truth in this particular case

When I cross the threshold, the floor in this new place is like hard rubber, you alain just to see if maybe we can’t start soot a flannel sack overfroh I don’t knohy I’d ever be in such a situation unless some maniac serial killer stashed me down there for some unspeakable reason

Also when I talk, the walls throb with blue light, so that I can see the roo blue walls are covered with hundreds of cones sort of like what I saw once in a TV series where this guy was a talk-show host working in a sound booth in a radio station or so upthe sound of it into blue light, which didn’t happen in the TV show The faster andin time with my words

If you want erous place It’s even kind of peaceful, though it does make you feel half deaf and makes your skin look blue like the freaky people on the planet in that movie Avatar I mean, it’s not the kind of roo on chains fro as I keep talking, so I start reciting a couple of Shel Silverstein poems I’ve memorized, and I verseyou could drive a Mack truck through if you kne to drive, which I don’t I can see through it to the yellow light that first drew me in here, if you remember, and it’s still as far away as it ever was, as if itfroo through this big round door, it turns out to be lass It’s cold and clear and kind of gummy, and when I try to step back from it, I can’t I’m not stuck in the stuff exactly, but it holds ine sort of freaksto seal me up in a clear cocoon and suffocate me But then it turns out to be a door after all, and after it folds around me, the stuff unfolds, and I’m on the other side I don’t know, that doesn’t quite explain how it feels Maybe it’s iant amoeba that sucks you in from one room and spits you out into the next, except it isn’t that, either

Anyway, in the next room are six dead people all in those bulky white hazmat suits like you see on TV nehen there’s been a toxic-che else that always reminds you why you shouldn’t watch the news I pick theht Maybe these aren’t exactly hazht, like space suits, because the helmets aren’t like haz on the neck of the suit They’ve all got tanks of air on their backs, like scuba divers If you really need to know, through the faceplates on their helmets, I can see what’s left of their faces, which isn’ttime The room with the cones on the walls eird but okay This rooooseflesh, and then someone says, "Jolie Ann Harhteen-wheeler turns onto the county road, I weave off the shoulder and onto the blacktop, trying not to look inebriated, trying instead to appear suddenly afflicted, as with a seizure or a stroke Most people don’t have syht vomit on the felloho seems to have been suddenly dealt a cruel blow by fate Unfortunately, I aood Samaritan’s transfor an actor Therefore, as I stagger into the e of Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow on the way to the gallows, toning down the flamboyance but not too much I collapse onto my left side, half in one lane and half in the other, ony, with the hope that the truck driver doesn’t turn out to be the sloppy drunk that I a not to appear to be

As the air brakes hiss, I’-haul tire The door opens, and there’s a clank thaton the cab step As he hurries tosound I assu is a cluster of keys chained to his belt and a lot of coins in his pockets

When he kneels before h barbered for a summer vacation: his luxuriant holiday mustache and beard still white but considerably tri locks cut back His eyes still twinkle, however, and his dimples are merry, his cheeks like roses, his nose like a cherry His belly doesn’t shake like a bowl full of jelly, but he would be well advised to forego a truck-stop cheeseburger now and then in favor of a salad

"Son," he says, "what’s wrong, what’s happened?"

Before responding, I wince, not with pain and not because I’enuine concern in his face and voice, and he puts one hand on my shoulder with such tenderness, that I have no doubt I’ve chosen to hijack the truck of a nice man I’d feel better about this if the driver were a snake-eyed, stubbled, scar-faced, cruel- lout in a T-shirt that said SCREW YOU, with swastikas tattooed on his ar in front of eighteen-wheelers alluntil I find my ideal victi out a series of , as if ht to be This has the desired effect of causing him to lean in closer and to ask me to repeat what I’ve just said, whereupon I draw the pistol frout, and snarl in uy voice, "You don’t have to die here, that’s up to you," though to h as Mickey Mouse

Happily, he’s a sucker for bad acting and not a savvy judge of character His eyes widen, and all the twinkle in thelass of 7UP left exposed to the air for a day His dimples don’t look so merry anymore; they appear to be puckered scars Once like a bow, his , as he says, "I’ve got a faet this done We rise warily to our feet as I continue to press the gun into his belly

"You want to see your kids again," I warn hi quiet like to the driver’s door"

He acco his hands up until I order him to put them down and act natural, but he isn’t quiet and in fact he babbles "I don’t have children, wish I did, love kids, it just never was ain, so be cool"

"Veronica died five years ago"