it.
Everybody wanted me to read the rest on Monday, and Mr. Petterick said heâd schedule it in. Lennie made me promise him personally that I would do it.
It was all very exciting and gratifying, and it was the last real fun I was to have for what felt like forever.
Time for my appointment with the shrink.
He sat in the old, oak swivel chair with scars all over the wood. His desk, more scarred oak, was piled with file folders in different colors. He had a couple of magazines open in front of him, as if heâd been reading two articles simultaneously.
He was wearing a very sleek gray suit. I couldnât help noticing his socks, which were gray with an electric blue stripe down them, and his black, shiny shoes. This was no ordinary, shabby, poverty-stricken school staffer. I was impressed.
I sat down, put my bookbag on the floor, and braced myself for the usual exploratory questions. He smiled at me and asked me how I was spending the money that I had been stealing from my mother.
My jaw dropped, leaving me literally speechless for about a minute. Thatâs a longer time than youâd think.
The thing was, he was right. Lately, just now and then, I would sneak a quarter or two, or maybe even a whole dollar, from my momâs purse before she got up in the morning. I would tell myself that a , it was payment for extra chores and b , as soon as I could I would pay it back anyway. Mostly I did my best to forget it each time it happened, which was not easy. I mean, my mom and I get along a lot better than most kids and their mothers, so why was I taking this stupid risk of spoiling it all?
Mind you, in third grade I went through nearly a year of telling the most outrageous lies, and then it stopped; and I never figured that one out, either. I guess it was just a phase, and maybe thatâs what this was, too.
Anyway, filching quarters was not what I had expected to discuss with this guy Brightner. For one thing, how the dickens did he even know about it?
Into the ringing silence in his office I said squeakily, âWhat money?â
âThe money you take out of her wallet in the mornings before she wakes up.â
âShe told you that?â I said, playing outraged innocence over the pure panic I actually felt.
I was sure Mom hadnât said anything to this guy about my pilfering, because she didnât know about it herself. When my mother knows something about me thatâs bad and is supposed to be a secret, like that Iâve been to an all-night movie instead of sleeping over at Barbâs or Meganâs where Iâm supposed to be, she gets this sad, tired look as if sheâs discovered Iâve been selling military secrets to Russia. She sits me down and starts to discuss my little deception very calmly and openly, and then we scream at each other for a while about different interpretations of the words âtrustâ and âprivacy.â In the end we work out some kind of return to normal.
There had been no such scene about missing money, though. Besides, Dr. Brightner was brand-new. There hadnât been time for Mom to talk to him.
But if she hadnât told him about the money, how did he know? My mind raced.
Dr. Brightner read it.
âNo,â he said. âShe didnât tell me.â He let me think about that for a minute. I was feeling pretty sweaty by then.
âHave some candy,â he offered, leaning across the desk to shove a little plate of things that looked like tiny pink-, yellow-, and white-coated seeds at me. They smelled faintly like licorice. âYou are kind of skinny for a girl your age. Youâre not one of these self-starvers, are you?â
I shook my head wordlessly.
âIâm glad to hear that.â He sat back again comfortably and quirked his eyebrows up. âAre you saving up the stolen money to run away, by any chance?â
âRunaways screw up their lives,â I said with as much haughtiness as I