worm, I’d rather be curled up in a book than in any apple. It’s good
for a crippled kid to like books, because they won’t let you do the
things ordinary people do, even if you’re pretty sure you can do them,
so books are like having a whole other life. I like adventure stories
where they go to the north pole or Mars or New York or somewhere. I
like good mysteries, too, most anything by Agatha Christie, but I
especially like stories about animals, and most especially about talking
animals like in The Wind in the Willows.
I had a talking animal once. It was just a goldfish, and of course it
was really me not the fish who talked, because I read this book on
ventriloquism and learned to throw my voice, which is neat. So I’d sit
across the room and throw my voice into the goldfish bowl.” She began to
talk squeakily, without moving her lips, and the voice seemed to come
out of The Nun with No Name: “Hi, my name’s Binky the Fish, and if you
try to put me in a sandwich and eat me, I’ll shit on the mayonnaise.
“She returned to her normal voice and talked right over the flurry of
reactions from the religiosities around her. “There you have another
problem with cripples like me. We tend to be smart-mouthed sometimes
because we know nobody has the guts to whack us on the ass.”
Sister Immaculata looked as if she might have the guts, but in fact all
she did was mumble something about no TV privileges for a week.
Hatch, who had found the nun as frightening as a pterodactyl when he’d
first met her, was not impressed by her glower now, even though it was
so intense that he registered it with his peripheral vision. He could
not take his eyes off the girl.
Regina went blithely on without pause: “Besides being smart-mouthed
sometimes, what you should know about me is, I’m so clumsy, hitching
around like Long John Silver now there was a good book-that I’ll
probably break everything of value in your house. Never meaning to, of
course. It’ll be a regular destruction derby. Do you have the patience
for that? I’d hate to be beaten senseless and locked in the attic just
because I’m a poor crippled girl who can’t always control herself. This
leg doesn’t look so bad, really, and if I keep exercising it, I think
it’s going to turn out pretty enough, but I don’t really have much
strength in it, and I don’t feel too damned much in it, either.” She
balled up her deformed right hand and smacked it so hard against the
thigh of her right leg that she startled Gujilio, who was trying to
convey a ginger ale into the hand of the younger priest, who was staring
at the girl as if mesmerized. She smacked herself again, so hard that
Hatch winced, and she said, “You see? Dead meat.
Speaking of meat, I’m also a fussy eater. I simply can’t stomach dead
meat. Oh, I don’t mean I eat live animals. What I am is, I’m a
vegetarian, which makes things harder for you, even supposing you didn’t
mind that I’m not a cuddly baby you can dress up cute. My only virtue
is that I’m very bright, practically a genius. But even that’s a
drawback as far as some people are concerned. I’m smart beyond my
years, so I don’t act much like a child-”
“You’re certainly acting like one now,” Sister Immaculata said, and
seemed pleased at getting in that zinger.
But Regina ignored it: “-and what you want, after all, is a child, a
precious and ignorant blob, so you can show her the world, have the fun
of watching her learn and blossom, whereas I have already done a lot of
my blossoming. Intellectual blossoming, that is. I still don’t have
boobs.
I’m also bored by TV, which means I wouldn’t be able to join in a jolly
family evening around the tube, and I’m allergic to cats in case you’ve
got one, and I’m opinionated, which some people find infuriating in a