The Girl in the Wall Read Free

deaf. Good for everyone. She spent a month or so trying to figure out ways she could make this happen, with thoughts of sharp pencils and other pointed objects, but she couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t cause pain and get her into trouble.
    Finally she mentioned it to George.
    â€œNo, God, no. You can’t be thinking those kinds of thoughts,” he yelled.
    They were at the river, so he could shout. Not loudly — George was never loud — quietly, as though that same stuffed animal was having a small amount of success with making itself heard.
    He could see that he had alarmed her with the ferocity of his reaction.
    It was late spring, nearly three years after the knife incident. George was twelve; his sister was eight, in grade two. She had failed grade one, couldn’t get the hang of things. Mostly she gazed out the window or stared at her classmates and teacher. She didn’t manage much better the second time around but it was decided that she should move ahead anyway. They couldn’t keep her in grade one forever.
    â€œI hate myself, Georgie,” Morven said now on the bank of the river.
    â€œNo, you don’t.”
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œIt’s not good to say that even if you think it,” said George.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œIt’s a sin.”
    â€œWhat’s a sin?”
    â€œSomething that’s wrong.”
    â€œWho says what’s wrong?”
    â€œGod, mostly.”
    â€œIt doesn’t count then. God’s dumb.”
    â€œDon’t say that, Mor.”
    â€œWhat can I say? All the things I want to say you tell me not to. What am I supposed to say? What am I supposed to think? Everything I think is wrong too.”
    George stood up and retrieved his glove and baseball from where he had left them in the sparse shade of a young oak tree.
    â€œLet’s play some more catch.”
    â€œCan I tell you something?” said Morven. “Please?”
    â€œIs it about hating yourself or deafening our mother or something equally as horrible?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œOkay, then. I guess so.”
    George sat down again on the long grass beneath the tree.
    â€œCome into the shade,” he said. “Your face is getting baked.”
    Morven plunked herself down and put her hands to her sunburned cheeks.
    â€œA girl at school invited me to play,” she said.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œI told her no. I said, ‘I’ve already played.’”
    â€œThat was a stupid thing to say.”
    â€œI thought so.”
    George took his baseball out of the glove by his side and examined it.
    â€œWhat’s her name?”
    â€œGloria.”
    â€œLet’s go and call on her and ask her to come out and play with us now.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI don’t know where she lives.”
    â€œShe lives up on Coniston in one of the poor people houses.”
    â€œI don’t want to.”
    â€œMaybe if we called on her and asked her to play with us you wouldn’t hate yourself so much.”
    â€œNo, I hate myself more than that. Calling on Gloria won’t help.”
    â€œIt might.”
    â€œNo. It won’t.”
    She stood up and walked toward the edge of the riverbank. She walked so close that George hurried to join her.
    â€œHer face turned sad when I said it,” said Morven. “It looked like it might start to cry.”
    He wanted to tell her that Gloria’s face was a she and not an it. But he bit his tongue to keep from speaking.
    They sat with their legs hanging over the abrupt edge where a chunk of earth had broken away from the bank.
    â€œI hate my face,” she said. “I hate my whole head, really, except for my eyes.”
    â€œWell, at least you don’t hate your eyes,” George said. “That’s good, I guess.”
    â€œYeah. I hate my glasses but I don’t hate my eyes. Without them, I wouldn’t be