The Lottery by Beth Goobie

character sketches, Sal thought wearily.
    “Excuse me,” she said again, and when the girl continued to give no response, repeated it a third time, loudly.
    A shudder ran through the girl. Without taking her eyes from her book, she leaned backward, away from Sal.
    “Please,” Sal said quietly, pulling back so that she was no longer leaning into the other girl’s space. “Tauni?” She knew better, now, than to touch.
    The girl gave her a quick sideways glance without the slightest hint of recognition. “Yeah?” Her voice wobbled, tight and high in her throat, as if rarely used.
    “I was wondering,” said Sal, “why you wear black lipstick.”
    Slowly the girl’s face turned toward Sal, her blue eyes not quite focused as if her brain was between radio stations, picking up Sal’s voice through a lot of distortion.
    “For my mouth,” she said vaguely. “So I know where it is.”
    “You wear black lipstick so you’ll know where your mouth is?” Sal asked cautiously.
    “So I’ll know where my face is.” The girl began to speak more quickly, as if gradually tuning in.
    “Why don’t you know where your face is?” Sal was definitely getting muddled.
    “In the mirror,” said the girl, watching the space above Sal’s head.
    Carefully, Sal added up the girl’s fragmented comments. “You can’t find your face in a mirror without black lipstick?”
    “And black hair,” the girl said slowly. “In the mirror ... it doesn’t make sense. I see things ... but I don’t know what they are. What’s me, and what isn’t me? Black helps me ... find things. The black stands out. So that’s where my face must be.”
    “Oh,” said Sal, and the girl returned to her book, outer space, other planets, wherever it was she went to escape the reality of here.



Chapter Eight
    “Ready for a higher gear?” Dangling his car keys, Dusty lounged in the bedroom doorway. “Learner’s permit heaven, coming right up.”
    “Where’s Lizard?” Sprawled on her bed, Sal regarded her brother over a Batman comic.
    “Sucking Slurpees somewhere else,” he replied. “C’mon, I drove all the way home with my windows open, airing out my car for your supreme nostrils.”
    “Mmm,” said Sal. “I’ll need a Slurpee.”
    “Slurpees are essential to a learning driver’s focus,” agreed her brother.
    “And a bag of Doritos.”
    “You drive a hard bargain, fair lady.” Dusty clapped a hand over his heart. “But moonlight hath no pleasure without your fair company.”
    “That’s two ‘fair’s’ in two sentences,” Sal pointed out severely. “You’re going to have to work on your adjectives.”
    “And you could use some work on your gratitude.” Dusty tossed her the car keys. “You’re taking us on a back-alley tour to the 7-Eleven for Slurpees.”
    “Back alleys!” wailed Sal. “Give me Broadway Avenue, the Lawson Heights Mall!”
    “Back alleys,” scowled her brother, “at a top speed of ten klicks. Come along, little roadrunner.”
    Ten minutes later she was putt-putting up and down central Saskatoon’s back-alley garbage route while Dusty lounged in the passenger seat, subjecting her to his creative instruction techniques. “Watch out for the baby crawling out from behind that garbage bin,” he said casually, his head resting against the back of the seat.
    “What baby?” screeched Sal, slamming on the brakes.
    “Not a real baby,” grumbled Dusty, peeling himself off the dash. “A metaphorical baby. Always drive past every parked car as if a baby was about to crawl out from behind it. Metaphorical babies should always be on a good driver’s mind.”
    “I wish I had a metaphorical brother,” muttered Sal, edging her foot off the brake. An uneasy silence descended as she practiced U-turns in the parking lot of a Mennonite church. Dusty was pulling at his lower lip, extending it like a wad of chewing gum. Something was definitely brewing in her brother’s psych-major brain — Sal could feel him