But enough about me.
The Letter Girls…the Letter Girls…
Eleven now and far superior to their real world counterparts, or as you like to call the rest of the planet: Distraction. It’s no surprise that the girls are far ahead of the Alphabet Boys in almost every calculable subject, but perhaps this is something to examine a beat further, for isn’t part of the Parenthood’s philosophy based upon the concept that boys are out to impress girls from a very young age and therefore more concerned with how they are perceived than with what they actually are? Yet here are the boys, lagging behind the girls again. Just like on Planet Distraction. Some things, Marilyn, are simply biological, and it would behoove us to remember that.
K is possibly the most exceptional of all the kids combined (boys and girls) in that her scores completely dwarf the others’. But while Q on the boys’ side stands out for his interesting combination of the scientific with the spiritual, K seems as though she were plucked yesterday from Planet Distraction: Even her figures of speech suggest a worldly upbringing—e.g., don’t give me that, whatever’s clever, and what’s up? And while these words are clichés around, say, Detroit, they are most decidedly not here at the Parenthood. So while Q begins to contemplate a spiritual force behind all of existence, as Q begins to invent God, K is busy inventing clichés, figures of speech that, had she been born at a different time and under much different circumstances, might, like Dickens, have changed the lexicon of the world.
K is almost oddly in touch with the human condition, what is interesting to her fellow Letter Girls, what is interesting to us, the staff. Some of this is easy for us to take for granted, as we’ve all grown up with the things she says, the things she likes, the things she draws. But we must remember to ask ourselves (and constantly at that): Who taught her these things?
The answer? Nobody. In this fashion, K is prized in an almost inverted way: Here the Parenthood had hoped to develop a completely fresh way of thinking by eradicating the influence of the outside world, but instead we find ourselves with a Letter Girl who is re-creating that outside world. And how fascinating is that? What’s more astonishing, given the world we’ve created: a genius scientist or someone who could fit right into the world we’ve denied them? We’ve stressed art as an outlet for sexuality, a vent for the overheated studies in math and science, a mild form of entertainment…and K has made it the centerpiece of her life. QUESTION: Is K transcending the Parenthood in this way? A meta-child, if you will? My professional opinion is that it’s too early to tell. We’re about two years away from Richard and your Delicate Years and are very aware of how drastically the girls and boys might change. For all we now know, K may disavow her artistic prowess and turn her full attention to physics. But I wonder…would this make you happy, Marilyn?
Or sad?
And then there’s the matter of K’s recent drawings. Oh yes…her fixation of the past six months: the endless drawings of the pines and the One Tree.
We’ve discussed the One Tree enough times to give it a name—the treetop that more resembles the top spire of the boys’ tower than it does any pine in the forest. Because K is such a realist (and phenomenally so), how can we not question her about the slightly different look of that spire in comparison to the trees surrounding it?
Well, we have. In numerous Inspections you, Marilyn, have interrogated the girl as to the meaning of this One Tree, as it’s shown up in forty-four drawings by my latest calculation. And her response has not wavered from the start: It’s only a tree. And perhaps her response last week was the most telling of all (and maybe should mark the moment in which we start believing her): Maybe it looks a little different because I’m a little different. Maybe that tree is me.
Artistic, certainly, but unlike K. Again, K is a realist, and if there’s one thing we know about artistically minded people, even when their work changes, the subconscious root of it seems to stay the same. I can’t help but imagine an interpretation of a treetop driving the young girl crazy as she stares at it, knowing that it’s not how it actually looks. So, for all that, we question her. We get nowhere. Maybe there’s nowhere to get? But there is more we can, and have, done.
We’ve brought her outside into the Yard and asked her to point out where the One Tree might be. We’ve stood in the Yard ourselves, holding up K’s drawings, comparing them with the tops of the pines, lining up her reality with ours, until we felt confident we knew where her One Tree stood. And do you know what we found? We found it stood exactly where the boys’ tower should be. But while that should be the end of the story, it’s not. Why? Because we have yet to find an angle by which we can see the boys’ tower from any place in the Yard. We’ve stood in the many windows of the Turret’s backside and done the same. And still…no sign of the tower. NOTE: Of course there’s no sign of the tower; that’s Parenthood 101. Yet K seems to have seen it.
Or has she? Is it possible our outlook, what we see, has been so influenced by what we’ve built? Here we think it’s so clear that the girl must have seen the tip-top of the boys’ tower, but there is no visual evidence to support this. The only theory I can come up with is the possibility that someone was in the pines one day (had to be day, not night), possibly retrieving something from the trees, possibly pulled them aside to form an opening of sorts…
But this is all too perfect a storm, and my professional opinion is that we trust the girl and call ourselves fortunate that she’s simply drawing something that looks like a spire rather than the face of a boy.
Brings up interesting questions, doesn’t it, Marilyn? Is a child spoiled if he or she sees a drawing of the opposite sex? Hears a quote from the opposite sex? Reads a book that features a member of the opposite sex? The way we’ve raised these kids, wouldn’t the opposite sex be the equivalent of a unicorn or a hobgoblin on Planet Distraction? Wouldn’t the features be so foreign, so outrageous, as to be (safely) fiction?
But it isn’t only the fact that K may have seen the top of the boys’ tower (terrible as that thought may make you feel); it’s that K might not be telling us the truth when she claims the consistent oddity in all her drawings is only a tree. Because seeing is one thing, but lying is clearly another. Yet, by way of Boats, we know K to be as honest a kid as any raised by the Parenthood. We worry because you and Richard both have indoctrinated us with the need to worry, to question, to constantly Inspect our kids.
You have asked that, with this report, I offer my official/professional stance on the K situation. My vote. It is rare that you or Richard ask for so specified a report, and it is also inherently impossible for me to do so, for my first duty at the Parenthood is to always analyze both you and Richard, including responding with WHY I think you’d ask for a report based solely on one Letter Girl’s series of semi-concerning drawings.
So allow me to do my job first:
K poses an existential threat. And just as her personality is difficult to accept, given what we’ve taught her, how we’ve taught her to be, and how she’s turned out on her own, the threat she poses is also worthy of a philosophical discussion. Did she see the boys’ tower? Has she dreamed it? Has she invented for herself a mirror-image tower of the very one she lives in, situated in the only topography she knows beyond the Yard—that is, deep in the pines? Is K, an artist, attempting to create a fictional version of the tower not unlike the ones presented in the Judith Nancy books she adores? If so, is this not something to celebrate? Please refrain from considering me the liberal voice in your otherwise very conservative choir; K’s creativity is something to be studied, for what other place on Planet Distraction harbors an eleven-year-old girl capable of inventing the real world by way of her imagination? Perhaps a child in the Yukon Territories. Perhaps a child raised in a cave that we’ve never heard of. But we have heard of K. And my professional opinion is that you and Richard have nothing to worry about. None of us do. K isn’t drawing men and
she’s certainly not talking about them. Here we have a wildly bright young female who has discovered, for herself, a place beyond the Parenthood, beyond the pines.
K cherishes both her imagination and her ability to re-create the real world as she knows it. Her photo-realistic renderings do not imply she is incapable of thinking for herself. Rather, it’s the opposite; K has the legitimate soul of an artist, and whether you paint pitch-perfect landscapes or three-eyed women with twelve arms, the artist is ultimately moved by the imagination.
Which brings me to my vote, the thing you asked for in the first place.
I don’t think K consciously saw the top of the boys’ tower. I also don’t think she has lied in her Inspections. And while the latter would matter, I don’t think the former does. But there’s one thing about this situation that concerns me, a question I’m sure you have asked yourself many times throughout:
Whether K saw a spire or has invented a second tower in the way fantastical artists/authors do, we must keep an eye on her.
Why?
Well, what if our little eleven-year-old girl decides to visit the place, imagined or not?
While I am in no way suggesting K is spoiled rotten (not even close), I am aware of how quickly word might spread if she were to seek (then find!) the boys’ tower and report back to her brilliant (and very loud) friend B. The Parenthood, of course, would topple, as the variables in the experiment were compromised.
So there you have it, Marilyn. My vote is to simply…watch her closely. And please, for my own sanity, and for the integrity of my specified job as underscored in my contract with the Parenthood, allow the next report to be my usual mundane musings on the inner workings of both yours and Richard’s minds…I’m much more comfortable in there than I am deciding the fate of a girl.
Barbara Burt
The Parenthood
Bad Decisions, Always, with B
“Because they’re always asking me about it. That’s why.”
K and B sat cross-legged, the game of Boats between them but not plugged in, no nodes connected to their bodies. The blue waters did not rage with the emotions expressed by the Letter Girls. Their individual boats were in no danger. B fingered the line switch, as she’d been doing for many minutes. She was ready to play, but K had halted that with this unexpected conversation.
“What do you mean they keep asking you about it? About what?” B said. She had a way of asking questions that forced a friend to tell the truth. K loved that about her. B was as straightforward as any Letter Girl in the Parenthood.
“Well, it’s like this.” K reached across the carpet for one of her drawings. She brought it back, placed it upon the Boats board. “I’ve been drawing the pines a lot lately.”
“You don’t say.”
“Stop it. What can I do? I’m interested in them. There’s something”—she leaned forward, eyed her own work—“fascinating about the treetops.”
B studied the picture.
“Okay. So?”
“So…what?”
“So what is M.O.M. asking you about?”
“Right here,” K said, bringing her finger over the drawing. “Wait—” She stopped herself. “First, do you see it?”
B scrunched her face the way she did when she was concentrating. An exaggerated emotion. Classic B.
“No,” she said at last. “I don’t see a thing. Treetops, yes. Anything else? No.”
K brought her finger down at last.
“Right there. You see?” She moved her finger enough to reveal the one errant treetop. The one peak in all those peaks that looked just different enough.
B shook her head. “Nope. Still don’t see it. Is this like some kind of art game? An optical illusion?”
“Well, yes. In a way it is.” She turned the drawing so that it faced herself. “If you look close, you’ll see the smallest tethers of bark, frayed edges, at the tip of every treetop but one. See?”
B studied. K saw a light come on in her best friend’s eyes. “Yeah! I see it.” The light went out. “So? So what’s the big deal about a mistake?”
K shook her head. “Well, that’s what caught their attention. I don’t make mistakes. Not like this. I’ve been drawing what I saw out there.”
“Out…there?”
“Yes. I don’t know when, but I saw something and I’ve drawn it ever since. And believe me, M.O.M. would love to know when and how I saw it.” She looked to the drawing. “I hardly realized it was in there myself until the Parenthood pointed it out. Now I see it’s in every one.” She stretched out sideways and plucked a few pieces of paper from the stack on the carpet. “You know me, B. I draw exactly what I see. I just assumed this particular treetop was…different. Look.”
One by one, K showed B the lone barkless tip of the pine in each drawing.
“Okay. I see it. Weird. What does M.O.M. think it is?”
“I don’t know,” K said. She looked to the door. To the windows. She knew that B recognized she was trying to keep a secret.
“What’s up, K? You’re scaring me.”
It was true that the humor had left K’s room. B obviously felt it go.
K got up, paced her room, came back, and knelt before the board. “The first time M.O.M. asked me about it, she and Krantz exchanged a glance. A knowing glance.”
“Ol’ eagle eye,” B said. “Nothing gets past my K.”
“Not much anyway.”
“And so…”
“So it struck me as weird.” She shrugged. “Weird enough to wonder why they were so concerned with this…treetop.”
The two girls looked down at the top drawing together.
“So,” B said. “This is why you’re feeling suspicious. They keep asking you about it. Like you said. Hmm.”
“At every Inspection. And I wouldn’t say I’m suspicious. Just…it’s interesting, isn’t it?”
B shrugged, too. “Yes. And so…”
“So…”
B shook her head. “No, K.”
“Why not?”
“I mean…I don’t…just no.”
“B, hear me out.”
“No!”
“It’s probably just something we’re not supposed to see until we’re older.” K held out her hands, palms up, as if to say, No big deal, right?
Even devoid of an expression, B looked exaggerated. Even her stoic look was overly so.
She got up and went to the door. K didn’t ask where she was going. She knew B was going to her own rooms, that there she would read a Judith Nancy book and that she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking of that one different treetop. Just like K couldn’t. Just like M.O.M. couldn’t.
“Okay,” B said, turning to face K again. “Okay. Sure. Let’s do it.”
“Really?” K got up and went to her. B held out her hands as though warding off a hug.
“Don’t get so excited. It’s probably a tall stick in the ground. Marks some kind of spot. A toilet.”
“A toilet?”
“Well, who knows!”
They laughed.
“You really wanna do it?” K asked. “You know we can get in trouble. And we’ll definitely have to tell M.O.M. in the Inspection that follows.”
“Yes,” B said. “Why not? If your photographic memory captured something interesting, why shouldn’t we act like we’re in a Judith Nancy book and check it out? What are we if we’re not…adventurous?”
“Exactly,” K said. Then, more serious, “Thanks, B.”
“Of course.” B opened the door. “Tomorrow,” she said.
“Tomorrow’s Film Night.”
“So? I’d rather make our own film.”
“Wow,” K said. But before she could say any more, B was out into the hall, the door closed behind her.
K walked ba
ck to the unplugged Boats board on the carpet. Still standing, she eyed the drawings at her feet.
Tomorrow, she thought. Then she looked out the window, to the pines, and thought the word again, one more time, before thinking it again, one more time.
Tomorrow
Film Night in the Body Hall was an annual highlight for the Letter Girls. When spring finally gave way to summer, most of the girls’ first thought was of the coming Film Night, the one time of the year they experienced moving pictures on a screen. Z suspected the films were written by none other than Judith Nancy, a theory that spread rapidly and was never denied by M.O.M. Nancy was legendary among the girls for her adventure stories that featured Letter Girls all grown up, overcoming obstacles and distractions in the name of achieving their goals. K’s favorite Nancy book was one titled In the Evening, in which Marla Haynes dedicates herself to long hours of study after her sisters have gone to sleep and in doing so cures all her sisters (and herself!) of a disease. But the plot of this particular book wasn’t what resonated so wildly with K and the others; rather, the book was written so well it was breathtaking, with a voice that seemed to whisper directly into their ears.
Did Judith Nancy write the summer films the Letter Girls pined for all year? M.O.M. wasn’t telling, and that was just fine with K. Mystery, she’d come to believe, could be a character all its own.
Nancy or not, Film Night was magic.
And on this night, it was the exact variety of distraction K and B were counting on.
On no other day of the year did the Letter Girls sit unified in the dark, their twenty-five little bodies unseen in the pews. More than one girl fell asleep each year (inexplicably, G simply didn’t care for the films at all), and no Inspector or staff, writer or M.O.M., had ever emerged from the sidelines to wake them. B, who had suggested tomorrow the evening before, was well aware of the opportunity afforded the two girls on Film Night. Two hours of darkness, two hours in which M.O.M. would assume the duo were seated with the others, two hours that ought to be enough to reach the odd treetop in K’s drawings, determine what it was, and get back before their absence was noted. And if they did get caught, the punishment surely wouldn’t be too much; they were conducting an Inspection of their own, after all.
Inspection Page 19