Psychological Associates! That's suite twenty-five-sixteen, down the
hall."
Normally, Julie would have pretended to understand and continued going into offices until she found the right one, but she was too worried about being late now to pretend. "Would you spell that out for me?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"The numbers!" she said desperately. "Spell them out like this: three—six—nine—four—two. Say it that
way."
The woman looked at her like she was an idiot, which Julie knew she was, but she hated it when other
people noticed. After an irritated sigh, the, woman said, "Dr. Wilmer is in suite two—five—one—six."
"Two—five—one—six," Julie repeated.
"That's the fourth door on the left," she added.
"Well!" Julie cried in frustration. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place!"
Dr. Wilmer's receptionist looked up when Julie walked in. "Did you get lost, Julie?"
"Me? No way!" Julie lied with an emphatic shake of her curly head as she returned to her chair.
Unaware that she was being observed through what looked like an ordinary mirror, she turned her attention to the aquarium beside her chair. The first thing she noticed was that one of the beautiful fish had
died and that two others were swimming around it as if contemplating eating it. Automatically, she tapped her finger on the glass to scare them away, but a moment later they returned. "There's a dead fish in there," she told the receptionist, trying to sound only slightly concerned. "I could take it out for you."
7
"The cleaning people will remove it tonight, but thank you for offering."
Julie swallowed an irate protest at what she felt was needless cruelty to the dead fish. It wasn't right for anything so wonderfully beautiful and so helpless to be left in there like that. Picking up a magazine from the coffee table, she pretended to look at it, but from the corner of her eye she kept up her surveillance of the two predatory fish. Each time they returned to prod and poke their deceased comrade, she stole a glance at the receptionist to make sure she wasn't watching, then Julie reached out as casually as possible
and tapped the glass to scare them off.
A few feet away, in her office on the other side of the two-way mirror, Dr. Theresa Wilmer watched the entire little scenario, her eyes alight with a knowing smile as she watched Julie's gallant attempt to protect
a dead fish while maintaining a facade of indifference for the sake of the receptionist.
Glancing at the man
beside her, another psychiatrist who'd recently begun donating some of his time to her special project, Dr. Wilmer said wryly, "There she is, 'Julie the terrible,' the adolescent terror who some foster care officials have judged to be not only 'learning-disabled,' but unmanageable, a bad influence on her peers,
and also 'a troublemaker bound for juvenile delinquency.' Did you know," she continued, her voice taking
on a shade of amused admiration, "that she actually organized a hunger strike at LaSalle? She talked forty-five children, most of whom were older than she, into going along with her to demand better food."
Dr. John Frazier peered through the two-way mirror at the little girl. "I suppose she did that because she had an underlying need to challenge authority?"
"No," Dr. Wilmer replied dryly, "she did it because she had an underlying need for better food. The food at LaSalle is nutritious but tasteless. I sampled some."
Frazier flashed a startled look at his associate. "What about her thefts? You can't ignore that problem so easily." Leaning her shoulder against the wall, Terry tipped her head to the child in the waiting room and said with a smile, "Have you ever heard of Robin Hood?"
"Of course. Why?"
"Because you're looking at a modern-day adolescent version of Robin Hood out there. Julie can filch the gold right out of your teeth without your knowing it, she's that quick."
"I hardly think that's a recommendation for sending her to live with your