From a television show I learned that people like Bill are called transvestites and that Janice is probably frigid (though maybe she’s just a religious fanatic) and Jaybee is probably a psychopath. The aunts would have had a fit if they had ever seen the things they talk about on TV, but I think it’s good to have words for things.
Everything is all right, except for the dreams I have about the little girl in the shelter. I dream I am with them in the twenty-second. I dream I am trying to find a chute which is not already stuffed full of bodies. I dream I am singing: down, down, down to happyland. And I wake up choking.
August 15, 1991
I met a neighbor girl my age. She’s a senior at George Washington High, the school I’ll be going to next month. Her name is Candace Maclear, and everyone calls her Candy. She’s very friendly. She says I’m really rad, which is good, and offered me some coke (to sniff) and spent all day teaching me to fix my hair. She says I talk funny, so I’m concentrating on sounding more like her.
August 17, 1991
I told Bill about Candy offering me drugs, and he warned me about it when I go to school in two weeks. Everyone here uses them, he says, and it’s hard not to. He talked about “peer pressure,” which seems to mean letting other people run your life for you. I had enough of that at Westfaire!
August 20, 1991
Candy’s brother told me her boyfriend really goes after girls with long hair, and Candy’s afraid he’ll take to me. I’ve seen Candy’s boyfriend and, believe me, she hasn’t anything to worry about. His hair stands up in spikes and he has pimples. I look at him and I think of Giles. I look at all the boys here and I think of Giles. I wonder if they’re all like this!
August 21, 1991
Everything here in the twentieth seems very temporary. Nothing lasts. Friendships don’t last. Love affairs don’t last. Marriages don’t last. I’ve seen men here who people tell me have been married four or five times, and their old wives aren’t dead, either. People even change what sex they are, and there are people coming to the door all the time trying to get me to change my religion and be born again, though I haven’t gotten used to being born the first time yet. Wouldn’t being born again imply I didn’t trust God to have done it right the first time?
Even though I was mad at him, I wish Father Raymond were here! Janice did get born again, last week, and there’s no living with her. I finally had to tell her I am a Catholic and please leave me alone. She got very angry. She doesn’t approve of me and she doesn’t approve of Bill. She says he’s being sinful to dress up like he does. I can’t see why. He isn’t hurting anyone, but Janice says God intended men to wear trousers and women to wear dresses, I look at pictures of Greeks and Scots and aborigines and Jesus, and I can’t figure out how she knows that!
September 6, 1991
Well, I’ve been to school. I know who sells crack and who fucks who and which teachers are gay and who has AIDS. Nobody has asked me to do any arithmetic or geography at all, so that was a waste of time. I am taking classes in literature and biology and Spanish. Bill and Janice decided these were the safest subjects for me.
Bill took one whole hour to tell me about sexual diseases, and maybe it’s a good thing he did. I do not want any of their diseases, though, after eavesdropping on a table of boys at lunch, I don’t think I’d be tempted anyhow. They were talking about this girl they got drunk or stoned and then they all did it, watching each other. They were laughing at the way different ones had done it, making comments about how long it took this one or that one, like the stable-boys used to hang over the paddock, watching the stallion serve the mares, giggling and pointing. I wonder if that has anything to do with male bonding?
In the fourteenth, we dreamed of chivalry and courtly love. I remember the oaths of fidelity the young men-at-arms used to offer their ladies, and they were no older than these high school boys. These guys don’t offer anything. It’s like the women they hit on are sacrifices to some kind of god that only boys worship. Most of the boys here remind me of Jaybee, though I’m not sure why.
The twentieth makes me feel very lonely. This isn’t my place. When I remember how beautiful Westfaire is, was, when I remember Giles, I want to cry. I choke, my chest burns, I get the hiccups and have to lie down. The worst part of living here is that nothing is beautiful. There must be something beautiful in the twentieth, and maybe I just haven’t seen it yet, but the way everyone acts, this is all there is. Magic doesn’t work. There is no other way. Some days all I want to do is cry.
[Some days all I want to do is cry! We keep trying to lure her, and she keeps ignoring us. I have thought of sending Puck. He says he can get there. The problem is, his doing so might draw attention to her. The Dark Lord may be watching the Bogles. We don’t know who he’s watching! Puck’s going there might show up like a meteorite, burning across
