Burned

by Ellen Hopkins

  When you were almost grown,

  did you ever sit in a bubble bath,

  perspiration pooling,

  notice a blow-dryer plugged

  in within easy reach, and think

  about dropping it into the water?

  Did you wonder if the expected

  rush might somehow fail you?

  And now, do you ever dangle

  your toes over the precipice,

  dare the cliff to crumble,

  defy the frozen deity to suffer

  the sun, thaw feather and bone,

  take wing to fly you home?

  I, Pattyn Scarlet Von Stratten, do.

  I’m Not Exactly Sure

  When I began to feel that way.

  Maybe a little piece of me

  always has. It’s hard to remember.

  But I do know things really

  began to spin out of control

  after my first sex dream.

  As sex dreams go, there wasn’t

  much sex, just a collage

  of very hot kisses, and Justin Proud’s

  hands, exploring every inch

  of my body, at my fervent

  invitation. As a stalwart Mormon

  high school junior, drilled

  ceaselessly about the dire

  catastrophe awaiting those

  who harbored impure thoughts,

  I had never kissed a boy,

  had never even considered

  that I might enjoy such

  an unclean thing, until

  literature opened my eyes.

  See, the Library

  was my sanctuary.

  —

  Then I started high

  Through middle

  —

  school, where the

  school, librarians

  —

  not-so-bookish

  were like guardian

  —

  librarian was half

  angels. Spinsterish

  —

  angel, half she-devil,

  guardian angels,

  —

  so sayeth the rumor

  with graying hair

  —

  mill. I hardly cared.

  and beady eyes,

  —

  Ms. Rose was all

  magnified through

  —

  I could hope I might

  reading glasses,

  —

  one day be: aspen

  and always ready

  —

  physique, new penny

  to recommend new

  —

  hair, aurora green

  literary windows

  —

  eyes, and hands that

  to gaze through.

  —

  could speak. She

  A. A. Milne. Beatrix

  —

  walked on air. Ms.

  Potter. Lewis

  —

  Rose shuttered old

  Carroll. Kenneth

  —

  windows, opened

  Grahame. E. B.

  —

  portals undreamed of.

  White. Beverly

  —

  And just beyond,

  Cleary. Eve Bunting.

  —

  what fantastic worlds!

  I Met Her My Freshman Year

  All wide-eyed and dim about starting high school,

  a big new school, with polished hallways

  and hulking lockers and doors that led

  who-knew-where?

  A scary new school, filled with towering

  teachers and snickering students,

  impossible schedules, tough expectations,

  and endless possibilities.

  The library, with its paper perfume,

  whispered queries, and copy

  machine shuffles, was the only familiar

  place on the entire campus.

  And there was Ms. Rose.

  How can I help you?

  Fresh off a fling with C. S.

  Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle,

  hungry for travel far from home,

  I whispered, “Fantasy, please.”

  She smiled. Follow me.

  I know just where to take you.

  I shadowed her to Tolkien’s

  Middle-earth and Rowling’s

  School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,

  places no upstanding Mormon should go.

  When you finish those,

  I’d be happy to show you more.

  Fantasy Segued into Darker Dimensions

  And authors who used three whole names:

  Vivian Vande Velde, Annette Curtis Klause.

  Mary Downing Hahn.

  By my sophomore year, I was deep

  into adult horror—King, Koontz, Rice.

  You must try classic horror,

  insisted Ms. Rose.

  Poe, Wells, Stoker. Stevenson. Shelley.

  There’s more to life than monsters.

  You’ll love these authors:

  Burroughs. Dickens. Kipling. London.

  Bradbury. Chaucer. Henry David Thoreau.

  And these:

  Jane Austen. Arthur Miller. Charlotte Brontë.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald. J. D. Salinger.

  By my junior year, I devoured increasingly

  adult fare. Most, I hid under my dresser:

  D. H. Lawrence. Truman Capote.

  Ken Kesey. Jean Auel.

  Mary Higgins Clark. Danielle Steel.

  I Began

  To view the world at large

  through borrowed eyes,

  eyes more like those

  I wanted to own.

  Hopeful.

  I began

  to see that it was more than

  okay—it was, in some circles,

  expected—to question my

  little piece of the planet.

  Empowered.

  I began

  to understand that I could

  stretch if I wanted to, explore

  if I dared, escape

  if I just put one foot

  in front of the other.

  Enlightened.

  I began

  to realize that escape

  might offer the only real

  hope of freedom from my

  supposed God-given roles—

  wife and mother of as many

  babies as my body could bear.

  Emboldened.

  I Also Began to Journal

  Okay, one of the things expected of Latter-

  Day Saints is keeping a journal.

  But I’d always considered it just another

  “supposed to,” one not to worry much about.

  Besides, what would I write in a book

  everyone was allowed to read?

  Some splendid nonfiction chronicle

  about sharing a three-bedroom house

  with six younger sisters, most of whom

  I’d been required to diaper?

  Some suspend-your-disbelief fiction

  about how picture-perfect life was at home,

  forget the whole dysfunctional truth

  about Dad’s alcohol-fueled tirades?

  Some brilliant manifesto about how God

  whispered sweet insights into my ear,

  higher truths that I would hold on to forever,

  once I’d shared them through testimony?

  Or maybe they wanted trashy confessions—

  Daydreams Designed by Satan.

  Whatever. I’d never written but a few

  words in my mandated diary.

  Maybe it was the rebel in me.

  Or maybe it was just the lazy in me.

  But faithfully penning a journal

  was the furthest thing from my mind.

  Ms. Rose Had Other Ideas

  One day I brought a stack of books,

  most of them banned in decent L
DS

  households, to the checkout counter.

  Ms. Rose looked up and smiled.

  You are quite the reader, Pattyn.

  You’ll be a writer one day, I’ll venture.

  I shook my head. “Not me.

  Who’d want to read anything

  I have to say?”

  She smiled. How about you?

  Why don’t you start

  with a journal?

  So I gave her the whole

  lowdown about why journaling

  was not my thing.

  A very good reason to keep

  a journal just for you. One

  you don’t have to write in.

  A day or two later, she gave

  me one—plump, thin-lined,

  with a plain denim cover.

  Decorate it with your words,

  she said. And don’t be afraid

  of what goes inside.

  I Wasn’t Sure What She Meant

  Until I opened the stiff-paged volume

  and started to write.

  At first, rather ordinary fare

  garnished the lines.

  Feb. 6. Good day at school. Got an A

  on my history paper.

  Feb. 9. Roberta has strep throat. Great!

  Now we’ll all get it.

  But as the year progressed, I began

  to feel I was living in a stranger’s body.

  Mar. 15. Justin Proud smiled at me today.

  I can’t believe it! And I can’t believe

  how it made me feel. Kind of tingly all over,

  like I had an itch I didn’t want to scratch.

  An itch you-know-where.

  Mar. 17. I dreamed about Justin last night.

  Dreamed he kissed me, and I kissed him back,

  and I let him touch me all over my body

  and I woke up all hot and blushing.

  Blushing! Like I’d done something wrong.

  Can a dream be wrong?

  Aren’t dreams God’s way

  of telling you things?

  Justin Proud

  Was one of the designated

  “hot bods” on campus.

  No surprise all the girls

  hotly pursued that bod.

  The only surprise was my

  subconscious interest.

  I mean, he was anything

  but a good Mormon boy.

  And I, allegedly being

  a good Mormon girl,

  was supposed to keep

  my feminine thoughts pure.

  Easy enough, while struggling

  with stacks of books,

  piles of paper, and mounds

  of adolescent angst.

  Easy enough, while chasing

  after a herd of siblings,

  each the product of lustful,

  if legally married, behavior.

  Easy enough, while watching

  other girls pant after him.

  But just how do you maintain

  pure thoughts when you dream?

  I Suppose That’s the Kind of Thing

  Some girls could ask their moms.

  But Mom and I didn’t talk

  a whole lot about what

  makes the world go round.

  Conversation tended to run

  toward who’d wash the dishes,

  who’d dust and vacuum,

  who’d change the diapers.

  In a house with seven kids,

  the oldest always seemed to draw

  diaper duty. Mom worked real

  hard to avoid Luvs. In fact,

  that’s the hardest she ever

  worked at anything. Am I saying

  my mom was lazy? I guess I am.

  As more of us girls went off

  to school each day, the house

  got dirtier and dirtier. If we

  wanted clean clothes,

  we loaded the washer.

  If we wanted clean dishes,

  we had to clear the sink.

  Mom watched a lot of TV.

  She didn’t have a job, of course.

  Dad wouldn’t hear of it, which

  made Mom extremely happy.

  I think she saw her profession as

  populating the world with girls.

  Seven Girls

  That’s all Mom ever

  managed to give Dad.

  He named every one after

  a famous general, always

  planning on a son.

  A son, to replace the two

  his first wife had given him,

  the two he’d lost.

  Janice, I heard him tell Mom

  more than once, if you don’t

  pop out a boy next time,

  I’m getting my money back on you.

  But she carried no

  money-back guarantee.

  And the baby girls

  just kept coming.

  In reverse order: Georgia

  (another nod to General

  George Patton, my namesake);

  Roberta (Robert E. Lee);

  Davie (Jefferson D.);

  Teddie (Roosevelt);

  Ulyssa (S. Grant);

  Jackie (Pershing).

  Oh yes, and me.

  No nicknames,

  no shortcuts,

  use every syllable,

  every letter,

  because

  there would

  be no “half-ass”

  in Dad’s house.

  It’s disturbing, I know.

  But Dad was Dad

  so Mom went along.

  One Time, One Day

  between Davie

  and Roberta,

  I asked my mom

  why she persisted,

  kept on having

  baby after baby.

  She looked

  at me, at a spot

  between my eyes,

  blinking like I had

  suddenly fallen

  crazy. She paused

  before answering

  as if

  to confide would

  legitimize my fears.

  She drew a deep

  breath, leaned against

  the chair. I touched

  her hand and I thought

  she might

  cry. Instead she put

  baby Davie in my arms.

  Pattyn, she said,

  it’s a woman’s role.

  I decided if it was

  my role, I’d rather

  disappear.

  In My View, Having Babies

  was supposed to be

  something

  beautiful,

  not a duty.

  Something

  incredible,

  not role-playing.

  Bringing

  new life

  into this dying

  world,

  promising hope

  for a saner

  tomorrow.

  As I saw it,

  any expectation

  of sanity rested

  in a woman’s womb.

  God should have

  given Eve

  another chance.

  Instead, He turned

  her away, no way

  to make the world better.

  Regardless

  Barring blizzards

  or bouts of projectile vomiting,

  I attended Sunday services

  every week, and that week

  was no exception. Three solid

  hours of crying babies

  and uninspired testimony,

  all orchestrated by bishops,

  presidents, prophets, and priests,

  each bearing a masculine

  moniker, specialized “hardware,”

  and “God-given” attitude;

  of taking the sacrament,

  bread and water, served

  up by young deacons, all boys.

  The message came through loud

 
; and clear: Women are inferior.

  And God likes it that way.

  Silly Me

  I refused to believe it.

  Not only that, but I began

  to resent the whole idea.

  I had watched women crushed

  beneath the weight

  of dreams, smashed.

  I had seen them bow down

  before their husbands,

  and not just figuratively.

  I had witnessed bone-chilling

  abuse, no questions,

  no help, no escape.

  All in the hopes

  that when they died,

  and reached up from the grave,

  their husbands would grab