light on-off, on-off, on-off. She couldn’t feel the electricity, she decided. That was impossible.
There was nothing specific she could put her finger on as having changed. The days started and ended the same. Chris snapped like an elastic band thumb-shot in any direction he chose, but even his randomness was expected. The only thing that was different was the direction of Mrs. Lane’s lawn chair as she sat in the fenced backyard, watching the mosquitoes emerge from the hedges. So where did the buzzing come from?
Out in the yard, Mrs. Lane was listening to the plastic chatter of talk radio. Tammy wondered if it might swat down the invisible thing she sensed hovered here inside the house. This microscopic, misanthropic organism. The itching silence that swivelled and circled, waiting for blood.
In spite of the heat in the room, Tammy pulled the curtains to practise her moves. It had not yet occurred to her that Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” could be a song about anything except dancing alone in one’s room. Tammy lifted the needle, switched albums. The Police. They were the cutest, with their mirrored shades and spiky hair. Sting’s square jaw was like an anvil weighing down her heart.
In the chunk of light that fell through the curtains, she watched dust motes flickering between the windowsill and the Rice-A-Roni-coloured carpet. Flecks of light floated, stirred like gnats when she reached out and swatted her hand through them. Out the window, her mother sat stiffly in the lawn chair. White squares of shirt and shorts bubbled between the nylon chair’s green lattice. What did her mother think about, sitting there staring at the bushes, listening to the Scotts next door? If Tammy was thinking about her mom, did that mean her mom was thinking about her?
They were flesh and blood. It only made sense they should be psychically connected. Tammy decided to send her mother an ESP signal. If she got the signal, she would turn and look at Tammy’s window. Tammy moved closer. She stood to one side of the gap. The nylon curtains that hung over the sheers were scratchy and ropy with smoke. From behind, her mother seemed small, almost as small as Tammy, one knee pulled up, shoulders hunched with nervous tension, even though the very act of sitting and doing nothing should have cancelled out such a thing. Tammy couldn’t know that in another two summers she would grow from four-foot-eleven to five-foot-four — make up the five inches that separated them. She concentrated on the back of her mother’s head, zoomed in, took aim with her eyes.
Mrs. Lane stared straight ahead at the garden.
Tammy never meant to spy on anyone. She hated to think of someone spying on her. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing it. Was it so terrible? If you were a blind person, Tammy reasoned, everyone would see you, but you wouldn’t see them.
LEVEL 6:
DIG DUG
PLAYER 2
Tammy put her hands together, tucked her chin, bent her knees, took a breath, and jumped.
With a rush, the surface was broken. Bubbles spurted past her ears. She opened her eyes. Yellow gaseous light wavered above her, drifted languidly down like food-colour droplets dispersing in a vase of water. Tammy saw herself at the bottom of the vase. The rest of the world, a beautiful flower up there, out of sight, ready to suck her up.
She propelled herself along the fat blue lines that striped the bottom of the pool, marking the deep from the shallow. On the incline, she let a small amount of air escape from her mouth, bit by bit, slowly, slowly as she continued through the shallow end. When she reached the far side of the pool her lungs would be empty, but not before. If she could make this underwater lap consistently all week, only lifesaving and mouth-to-mouth would stand in the way of her receiving her Blue badge.
She heard the barrage of bubbles as another swimmer followed her into the pool. She watched the concrete beneath her. Not looking ahead made the
There was nothing specific she could put her finger on as having changed. The days started and ended the same. Chris snapped like an elastic band thumb-shot in any direction he chose, but even his randomness was expected. The only thing that was different was the direction of Mrs. Lane’s lawn chair as she sat in the fenced backyard, watching the mosquitoes emerge from the hedges. So where did the buzzing come from?
Out in the yard, Mrs. Lane was listening to the plastic chatter of talk radio. Tammy wondered if it might swat down the invisible thing she sensed hovered here inside the house. This microscopic, misanthropic organism. The itching silence that swivelled and circled, waiting for blood.
In spite of the heat in the room, Tammy pulled the curtains to practise her moves. It had not yet occurred to her that Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” could be a song about anything except dancing alone in one’s room. Tammy lifted the needle, switched albums. The Police. They were the cutest, with their mirrored shades and spiky hair. Sting’s square jaw was like an anvil weighing down her heart.
In the chunk of light that fell through the curtains, she watched dust motes flickering between the windowsill and the Rice-A-Roni-coloured carpet. Flecks of light floated, stirred like gnats when she reached out and swatted her hand through them. Out the window, her mother sat stiffly in the lawn chair. White squares of shirt and shorts bubbled between the nylon chair’s green lattice. What did her mother think about, sitting there staring at the bushes, listening to the Scotts next door? If Tammy was thinking about her mom, did that mean her mom was thinking about her?
They were flesh and blood. It only made sense they should be psychically connected. Tammy decided to send her mother an ESP signal. If she got the signal, she would turn and look at Tammy’s window. Tammy moved closer. She stood to one side of the gap. The nylon curtains that hung over the sheers were scratchy and ropy with smoke. From behind, her mother seemed small, almost as small as Tammy, one knee pulled up, shoulders hunched with nervous tension, even though the very act of sitting and doing nothing should have cancelled out such a thing. Tammy couldn’t know that in another two summers she would grow from four-foot-eleven to five-foot-four — make up the five inches that separated them. She concentrated on the back of her mother’s head, zoomed in, took aim with her eyes.
Mrs. Lane stared straight ahead at the garden.
Tammy never meant to spy on anyone. She hated to think of someone spying on her. Yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing it. Was it so terrible? If you were a blind person, Tammy reasoned, everyone would see you, but you wouldn’t see them.
LEVEL 6:
DIG DUG
PLAYER 2
Tammy put her hands together, tucked her chin, bent her knees, took a breath, and jumped.
With a rush, the surface was broken. Bubbles spurted past her ears. She opened her eyes. Yellow gaseous light wavered above her, drifted languidly down like food-colour droplets dispersing in a vase of water. Tammy saw herself at the bottom of the vase. The rest of the world, a beautiful flower up there, out of sight, ready to suck her up.
She propelled herself along the fat blue lines that striped the bottom of the pool, marking the deep from the shallow. On the incline, she let a small amount of air escape from her mouth, bit by bit, slowly, slowly as she continued through the shallow end. When she reached the far side of the pool her lungs would be empty, but not before. If she could make this underwater lap consistently all week, only lifesaving and mouth-to-mouth would stand in the way of her receiving her Blue badge.
She heard the barrage of bubbles as another swimmer followed her into the pool. She watched the concrete beneath her. Not looking ahead made the
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