'Friday. We'll go Friday.'
'High time too. Dorothy, if you're through in here, come in and sweep up.'
'She'll be 'long momently, Em,' said Uncle Henry. 'She's doing some chores in here for me.'
'All right, but send her along.' Aunty Em left, sensing something too big to even acknowledge. She left scowling.
Pause. Dorothy looked at Henry, with that cold curiosity.
He took two steps toward her and whupped her right across the mouth and onto the floor. Dorothy tasted blood, in triumph. Yup, yup, that was right. That was what it was. Now she could hate him.
'What the hell are you trying to do?' he said, whispering, shaking in fear. 'You want her to know or something?'
'Did I do something wrong, Uncle Henry?' she asked in a little-girl voice. 'She asked where you were and I told her.'
'You just keep quiet. You just keep quiet about everything. Oh Jesus!' He hid his face.
'What am I going to tell her about my mouth?' she said. Dorothy puffed out her lips as she spoke to make it sound as though she were hurt worse than she was, all swollen.
'Tell her you fell. You're pretty good at making up stories.'
'Like you are, Uncle,' said Dorothy very quietly.
She was silent and smiling, and she knew that the smile said: Why should I lie for you? Give me a reason. Then she spoke. 'You gonna bring me back something nice from Manhattan?' she said.
Uncle Henry looked scared again. He leaned over and helped her up. He started to brush her dress. 'Yeah, yeah, I'll do that.'
Dorothy smiled sweetly at him, so that he could see all her teeth were red.
'Dorothy, I'm sorry I hit you, but you almost got us…' He could not imagine what would have happened. 'Honey, we got to keep quiet about this. We got to keep as still as mice. It's like it's our own little world. It can't touch the other world at all.'
'Okay, Uncle Henry.'
He looked at her with love and great misgiving. His eyes were saying: What have I got myself into?
'I better go in,' said Dorothy.
I got them dancing, thought Dorothy. I got Aunty Em with a pin through her, squirming like a butterfly, and she don't even know it. And Uncle Henry, he's just got to be so careful. All I got to do is make sure nobody knows, and I can just keep pushing pins.
She stopped at the barn door and turned. 'Tell Aunty Em that I need some new boots,' she said.
I'm bad, she thought, rejoicing. I'm wicked, I'm evil. I'm the Devil's own.
'You can get them for me, when you go to Manhattan,' she said, and went into the house. She burned the pork, deliberately, burned it black, and she was smiling all the time.
The next day, or the day after that, in Manhattan, at school, a pretty little girl fell in the schoolyard and started to cry.
Aw, thought Dorothy. You poor little thing you. Is that all you got to cry about? Is that the only reason you have to cry?
Dorothy grinned and pretended to help the little girl up. She was so little and so thin and Dorothy was so big. She could feel her size.
'Does it hurt?' she cooed, and sliced the edge of her nails down the girl's wrist. The little girl looked up in bewildered horror.
'Hurt?' asked Dorothy, and wrenched the flesh of the wrist in two directions at once, wrung it like a cloth.
The little girl wailed.
'Shut up,' whispered Dorothy, and punched her as hard as she could in the stomach. The little girl doubled up and went quiet.
Dorothy looked at the pretty white dress and had an inspiration. 'You got any money? Give me some money. I'll stop if you give me some money.'
The little girl wept in silence.
Dorothy put her nails against her cheek. 'You better give me some,' she warned her, and chuckled suddenly. 'It's going to be real bad if you don't.'
The feeble little girl reached for a pretty little purse kept inside her glove. Dorothy took it from her. 'Tell your mother you dropped it,' she said. 'And you better not snitch, or I'll follow you home and whup you so bad you can't walk.'
The other kids said that Dorothy Gael was farm dirt. They said she was poor and had fleas. They said she smelled, which she did, and they refused to sit next to her in class. I can shut you all up, Dorothy realized. There's nothing I won't do to shut you all up.
She was swollen with discovery. She hung up her coat and scarf right next to the other kids'.
'Ew!' they cried with gestures of disgust.
She very quietly grabbed one of them by the throat. She had chosen a boy, one of the bigger ones. She
