I said, “Why are your eyes all red?” and she said she had really tied one on last night, and I wanted to know one what, but then there was Louise with scrambled eggs on her face so I never did find out.

Louise ate up all her breakfast and didn’t offer me any except the toast crusts. I told her I was hungry and there were werewolves starving in China. She said that was tough toenails and threw her juice glass at me. Then we went to her room and she said we were going to play Davy Crockett again.

I said, “I want to play Robin Hood instead and you can be Richard Greene.”

She told me fat chance, and Robin Hood was a big pansy. She laughed at me when I said he was not a flower just because he wore green all the time, on account of living in Sherwood Forest where it was important for camelflog. Then she told me what she meant about Robin Hood being a big pansy and laughed at me some more when I said that sounded absolutely ugh.

“That’s nothing, you baby,” she said. “You should hear what your mommy and daddy did together to get you born.” And she told me that, too, and it was even more ugh.

“My mommy and daddy never did that,” I said. “My daddy told my mommy that the Revolution needed more soldiers to fight the boorjwah oppressors so they got me from the Workers’ Collective because from each according to his ability to each according to his needs and they needed me for the Revolution, so there.”

Here is what Louise did then: stare at me like her frog dog.

Here is what she did next: turn to me and say, “I bet you are the daughter of that stupid Commie who shot himself in the park last year. The police were looking for you. You’re going to be put in an orphanage.”

I said, “No, I am in the System and my daddy is in this hotel visiting the Rosenbergs. He told me to sit on that park bench and he went away and he is in here somewhere. I am going to find him before I am one single minute older. That will show you. Good-bye.” But when I tried to walk past Louise, she shoved me back so hard I fell on some of her broken toys, which are everywhere, and it hurt.

She said, “You’re nuts. He’s dead. It was in all the papers last summer. I read all about it. So did Amanda. I’ll prove it to you.” Then she hollered for her governess to get into the room fast or else and when she came rushing in Louise told her, “This is that dead Commie’s kid. She’s stupid and crazy and she thinks her daddy’s coming back. Tell her!”

First Amanda stared at Louise. Then she stared at me. Her eyes were all soft and watery. She said, “Miss Louise, you cawn’t cawn’t cawn’t expect me to tell a child such a thing until I am sure this is the child in question. I would like to speak with her alone, if you please.”

Louise said, “No. I wanna watch.”

Amanda said, “There is a large box of petty force in my room, which I was saving for myself,” and Louise scootled away to utterly lay waste to the whole thing. Then Amanda turned back to me and asked me all of these questions about my name and my daddy and what happened in the park that night. I told her everything she wanted to know except about how the frog dog bit me and the rest of it. She gasped a lot.

Then she said, “Oh, you poor child, I am afraid that everything that wretched little beast told you is true. My heart breaks for you, but your daddy is indeed No More By His Own Hand and you match the newspaper descriptions of that unfortunate man’s lost little girl.” She put her arms around me and hugged me tight again like when she thought I was a lamb. That was nice. She smelled like lilac bath powder and lemon candies. She cried in my hair. I cried, too, because now I knew my daddy was not coming back ever again at all and I was utterly heartbroken.

Louise came back in with a whole bunch of petty force grundled up in her fists. Her fingers were leaking pink and green icing and yellow cake. When she saw Amanda and me crying on each other she threw those lumps of squooshed petty force at us and laughed. She said I was a crybaby and I should stick my head in gravy and wash it off with ice cream and send it to the Navy.

Amanda said, “Miss Louise, you ought not not not mock this poor orphaned child. You are Privileged and you should use what you have to help those who do not have as much and be thankful your lot in life is not theirs.”

I wiped my tears on Amanda’s blouse and said, “Yes, like Marks said, from each according to his ability to each according to his needs or else.”

Louise showed us this absolutely rank grin all smoolied over with melted petty force icing and said, “She is a Commie just like her stupid dead daddy and you are a Commie sympathizer and I am going to turn you both in to the police and my mother now.”

I said, “Thank you for a lovely time, Amanda. You have been very nice to me and I will do my best to see that you are not devoured by the spawn of my loins, but I really must be going now.” I shook Amanda’s hand and headed right for that door but Louise grabbed me and twisted my arm hard and said, “You’re not going anywhere, except an orphanage and jail.” Then she knocked me down and sat on me.

Amanda said, “Miss Louise, you cawn’t cawn’t cawn’t be serious about any of this. Get off the poor child this instant!” But Louise said that if Amanda did not move her fat rump the Hell out of there, she was going to call the police herself and tell them Amanda was a big lady pansy and then she could keep me company in jail and see how she liked it.

Amanda said that was a dreadful lie, but Louise asked her if she felt like seeing who the police believed, some old English bag or someone whose mother had more money and influenza than God Himself. That was when Amanda burst into tears all over again and ran out of the apartment and Louise and I were left alone.

Here is what I said: “You better get off me now.”

Here is what she said: “Make me.”

Then I said, “Maybe I can’t make you get off me now, but just you wait until the moon is full and I start to itch all over and I completely burst right out of my clothes if I do not get them off in time and I become a wolf and rip your throat out.”

That was when she laughed at me some more and called me a looney and said I would wind up in an orphanage and jail and the nut house, but that it came as no surprise to her because everyone knows all Commies are crazy. She asked me, “Do you know what would fix you right up, you big screwball? A lobotomy. Would you like a lobotomy?”

I said, “What I would like is to be old enough to be Foretold and Inevitable so I could start itching right now this very minute and-ow! Stop bouncing on me!-and not have to-ow! I told you, stop that, you’re making me mad!-and not have to wait until full moon to grush y’r froab in my powfur zhaws ob def an’-Ow! Ow! Ow-owOOOOOO!”

Oh my Lord, Lily Packmother simply would not approve of what happened. She says that just because we live like savages in Central Park and become ravening, murderous, bloodthirsty beasts every time the moon is full is no reason not to respect Tradition or we would be no better than Trade Unionists. But I could not help any of it. It was all enormously Foretold and Inevitable and fun. I did not have a warning itch even one little bit and it was still daylight outside let alone time for the full moon when my clothes simply burst right off before I knew it, and I think I was lots and lots bigger than I usually get when the Change is upon me, and Louise screamed but not for long because I am very ’fishent.

That was pretty much that. Louise tastes like old hardboiled eggs and does not have any trousers I could borrow to cover my shame afterward, which is what Lily Packmother calls it, only more of those stupid dresses.

Here’s what I can do: Burp up patent-leather shoe buckles.