“That’s not the point,” he said. “Anyway, there was one stick of gum left in the pack, so I held it out to Stevie and asked him if he wanted it. He looked kind of surprised, but he took the gum, thanked me, and walked away.”

  “Let me guess, Dad. Did you and Stevie Pritchett become best friends after that?”

  “Maybe not best friends, but definitely friends,” he said.

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. His family moved away after we graduated high school, and after that we lost track of each other.”

  “Wouldn’t it be funny if Stevie Pritchett grew up to be an orthodontist?” I said.

  “Huh?” My father tilted his head to one side.

  “On account of what he said about your teeth being crooked,” I explained. “Get it?”

  Before he could respond, I felt a hard tug and the tip of my pole bent down so far I thought it might break right off. I knew what to do. I pulled in my elbows and jerked the line up and to the side to set the hook.

  “Atta girl, Rory!” my father shouted, reaching for the net. “Reel it in nice and slow now. Looks like you’ve got yourself a real whopper!”

  That fish put up a pretty good fight, but I took my time, letting it tire itself out so it would be easier to land. When it got close enough that we could see it, my father leaned over the edge of the boat and scooped it up.

  “What is it?” I asked, wrinkling my nose in disgust at the hideous brown thing flipping and flopping in the net.

  “Bullhead,” my father told me. “I’m guessing six, maybe seven pounds.”

  Duck was so excited he nearly tipped us over trying to get close enough to sniff the fish.

  “What are those gross things sticking out of its face?” I asked.

  “Whiskers,” my father said. “They won’t hurt you—it’s the fins you have to watch out for. They’re sharp as all get-out, especially the one right behind his head.”

  “How do you know it’s a he, not a she?” I asked. “Because of the whiskers?”

  “No, all bullheads have whiskers, but the males have bigger heads, and their bodies are more narrow.”

  Unfortunately, the bullhead had swallowed the hook, so my father had to use a pair of pliers to pull it out. I didn’t know fish could talk, but this one objected loudly with an awful belching sound until the hook was finally free and my father could toss him back into the water. Duck was so worked up by then, I thought he might jump right in after it.

  “Easy, boy,” I said, taking hold of his collar and pulling him away from the edge of the boat. “Remember, you’re not a puppy anymore.”

  We weren’t exactly sure how old Duck was. He had to be at least nine, because I’d been three years old when we got him. It was a few days before Christmas, and as my father was getting ready to leave the police station, someone showed up with a stray they’d found wandering around out on Route 52. The dog didn’t have a collar or tags, and since no one was answering the phone at the animal shelter in Rock Hill, my father decided he had no choice but to bring him home.

  “Duck!” I’d announced, the minute I laid eyes on that dog.

  My mother had stopped short.

  “Did you hear that, Roy?” she’d cried. “She’s trying to say dog! Can you say dog, Aurora? Can you say dog?”

  “Duck!” I’d said again.

  Most toddlers were already talking in full sentences by the time they were three, but I had been slower in learning how to do a lot of things, including talking.

  “Duck, duck duck!” I’d exclaimed as my mother clapped her hands delightedly.

  The name stuck, and when nobody showed up to claim him, Duck became an official member of the Franklin family. He wasn’t allowed up on the furniture, so he slept on a rag rug in the kitchen. After my parents went to bed, I would often sneak out of my room and keep him company. In the morning my mother would find us sound asleep, curled up on the rug together.

  I had no idea what Duck did all day while I was in school, but he was always waiting for me by the door when I got home. I wished I could bring him with me to school. He would’ve loved the cafeteria. People dropped all kinds of stuff on the floor. Besides, he could have kept me company. Duck and I understood each other. He didn’t worry about whether I had enough friends or bug me about putting on sunscreen, and I didn’t get mad at him if he rolled in something stinky or almost tipped the boat over when we went fishing.

  The ugly old bullhead was the only thing we caught that morning at Bartlett Lake, but I didn’t care. I was happy just to be there with Duck and to get some alone time with my father. Most mornings he was gone before I got up, and I was often asleep by the time he got home at night. Talking to him was easy, and we loved to make each other laugh. When we were done fishing, we pulled the boat up onto the shore and tucked the oars inside, the way my mother always tucked the tips of the wings under to keep them from drying out when she roasted a turkey. My father threw the anchor—an old Maxwell House coffee can filled with cement—out onto the ground and tossed a faded blue tarp over the boat.

  “It’s not even,” I said, pointing to a corner of the tarp that was hanging down a little farther on one side than the other.

  “Good enough?” he asked, giving it a tug.

  I nodded and tapped the end of my nose once, twice, three times.

  “Dad, if I ask you a question, do you promise to give me a true answer?” I said as we loaded the stuff in the back of the truck. “Was it Mom’s idea for you to tell me that story about Stevie Pritchett?”

  My father hung his head.

  “Maybe,” he said sheepishly.

  “I knew it!”

  “She was worried that your feelings might be hurt if you found out you hadn’t been invited to Lindsey’s party.”

  “But I was invited,” I told him.

  “I know. And next time maybe you’ll go. The easiest way to make a friend is to be a friend.”

  “Like with you and Stevie Pritchett?” I said.

  “Like with me and Stevie Pritchett,” he agreed.

  “Let’s do this again real soon, baby girl,” my father said a few minutes later as we climbed back into the truck.

  “Okay,” I said. “And Duck too, right? You have to admit, he was a good boy. Weren’t you, Duckie?”

  I patted his smooth black head and he closed his eyes with pleasure. Anybody who tells you that a dog can’t smile doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

  On the ride home, we turned the radio up loud and sang along at the top of our lungs, making up silly words to the songs we didn’t know. Duck lay on the seat between us, dozing peacefully.

  I loved that dog so much it hurt sometimes. He was my best friend. I couldn’t even imagine what life would be like without him by my side.

  On Monday morning, Lindsey Toffle waltzed into class wearing a silver charm bracelet her grandmother had given her for her birthday. It was from some fancy-schmancy jewelry store in New York City, and Lindsey couldn’t stop bragging about how much it must have cost.

  During silent reading she took the bracelet off and left it sitting on her desk while she went to use the bathroom. I couldn’t resist, and picked it up. I wasn’t planning to steal it—I only wanted to see the charms up close. There was a little seahorse, a wishbone, a cup and saucer, a heart with an arrow shot through it, a musical note, and a tiny silver bell, each one dangling like a dewdrop in a spider’s web.

  “Who said you could touch that?” cried Lindsey as soon as she returned, snatching the bracelet away from me. Before she put it back on, she touched each one of the little charms to be sure that none were missing.

  Later during recess, I noticed something shiny lying on the ground. When I bent down for a closer look, I discovered it was the little silver bell. It must have come loose and fallen off the chain somehow. Ever since my father had told me the story about Stevie Pritchett, I’d found myself wondering what it might feel like to have a friend besides Duck. Someone I could talk to, who would actually talk back. Maybe the silver bell would be my stick of Wrigley’s gum. Maybe when I returned the charm to Lindsey, she would realize I wasn’t so bad after all and want to be my friend. Maybe we’d even be best friends by the time we started middle school in the fall. I was so excited I could hardly breathe.

  According to my mother, I had always been different from other kids. When I was a baby, I was sensitive to loud sounds and would scream and cover my ears in the grocery store every time they made an announcement over the PA system. My mother bought me the smallest pair of soundproof headphones she could find, and I would wear them when we went shopping or whenever she needed to run the blender or the vacuum.

  There were no other children my age in our neighborhood, so my mother would load up a bag with snacks and sand toys and drive me to a playground a few miles away. Being an only child, I wasn’t used to being around other children, and I didn’t like them very much. My mother watched me like a hawk. If I pushed some little girl who came too close to me in the sandbox, or growled at an older boy who was trying to rush me up the steps of the slide, she would rush over to intervene, explaining to anyone who would listen that I didn’t mean any harm, I was sensitive about my personal space.

  I wasn’t good at sharing and would pitch a fit if anyone tried to touch my things, kicking and flailing my arms. Eventually people began to avoid us, pulling their children out of the sandbox or off the swings when they saw us coming. I was perfectly happy to play by myself, in fact I preferred it, but it was hard for my mother. She stopped taking me to the playground and bought a swing set and sandbox to put in our backyard instead.

  When I turned five, my mother told my father she thought it would be best if I were homeschooled.

  “After all, Heidi was homeschooled, and look how well she turned out,” she argued.

  I would have liked nothing better than to stay home with my mother and Duck all day, but my father put his foot down.

  “She’s never going to learn how to stand on her own two feet if you’re always there to catch her before she falls,” he told her.

  I didn’t cry when my mother dropped me off on the first day of kindergarten, but the phone calls home began almost immediately. Not only had I bitten Lindsey Toffle during circle time, I was throwing temper tantrums at the drop of a hat. I was also a runner.

  Our house was a good ten miles from school, but that didn’t stop me from trying to get home. When things didn’t go my way, I would take off running and never look back. I wasn’t fast enough to outrun a grown-up, but I certainly winded a few. The minute someone spotted me, the cry would go up, “Aurora running!” A few minutes later I’d be hauled back inside and marched down to the principal’s office. I spent a lot of time in the principal’s office that first year, and sitting on the time-out bench, and talking to Mrs. Strawgate, the school counselor. She was the one who recommended that I be tested.

  “For what?” my father asked. “Rory’s already reading chapter books and she’s only five.”

  My mother reached over and squeezed his arm.

  “It can’t hurt, Roy,” she said.

  I was given an IQ test, along with a bunch of other tests, all of which I passed with flying colors.

  “Looks to me like we’ve got a little genius on our hands, Rube,” my father said proudly.

  “She doesn’t have a single friend,” she told him.

  By the end of that year I had stopped running and learned to control my temper, but the damage was already done. Liberty is a small town. There were only fifteen kids in my grade, one of whom I’d bitten. Their minds were already made up about me.

  The following year at parent-teacher conferences, my first grade teacher, Mrs. Rattner, mentioned that I preferred to play by myself at recess and that she’d noticed I touched my nose a lot and sometimes talked to myself.

  Later that evening my mother told my father she’d made an appointment for me with a psychologist she’d found in Middletown.

  “You’re not serious, are you, Rube?” my father asked. “She’s just a kid.”

  When my mother reached over and squeezed his arm, he knew there was no point in arguing.

  Dr. Harris’s office smelled like a mix of salami and BO. We played Chutes and Ladders while he asked me a lot of questions.

  “What’s your favorite thing about school, Aurora?”

  “Coming home,” I answered.

  “What’s your second favorite thing about school?”

  “The drinking fountain,” I said.

  “Why’s that?” Dr. Harris asked.

  “(A) The water is really cold, and (B) if people push the button too hard it squirts them in the face. In case you’re wondering, my third favorite thing is Henrietta and my fourth is Gordon.”

  “Are Henrietta and Gordon in your class?” asked Dr. Harris.

  I giggled. Henrietta was a bunny who lived in the principal’s office, and Gordon was the custodian.

  “He’s got a long pole with a tennis ball on the end for getting scuff marks off the floor,” I explained. “He let me try it once. His favorite food is pimento cheese and mine is waffles. What’s yours?”

  “Black olives,” Dr. Harris answered and jotted something down in his notebook.

  When we were finished, Dr. Harris invited my mother to join us in his office.

  “How did it go?” she asked, perching on the edge of the couch, her hands fluttering in her lap like a couple of nervous little birds.

  “Aurora is clearly very bright,” Dr. Harris told my mother. “She’s articulate and has a delightful sense of humor, but like many only children, I gather she’s more comfortable around adults than children.”

  “Do you think you can help her?” my mother asked.

  “Help me with what?” I objected. “I’m only six and I beat him at Chutes and Ladders twice!”

  Dr. Harris laughed.

  “Therapy can be a long and involved process, Mrs. Franklin,” he told my mother. “Aurora definitely marches to her own drum, but she seems quite happy to me.”

  “I’d be happier if Duck was here,” I said. “Except he might scooch his butt on your rug.”

  “Aurora’s teacher feels she tends to isolate from her peers,” my mother explained. “And she has a number of unusual habits.”

  “Yes, I noticed the tapping,” said Dr. Harris. “Repetitive behaviors are a common response to stress.”

  I was getting bored with the conversation.

  “Can I color in your o’s?” I asked, pointing to a pile of magazines sitting on the corner of Dr. Harris’s desk.

  He looked confused.

  “My what?”

  My mother opened her purse and took out a ballpoint pen.

  “Would you mind?” she asked, reaching for a copy of Psychology Today sitting on the top of the pile. “It might help keep her occupied while we finish talking.”

  I lay down on the rug and got to work filling in the three glossy o’s on the cover, while my mother finally mustered up the courage to ask a question that had been keeping her awake at night.

  “I used to work at a place in Liberty called Hilltop Home. Maybe you’ve heard of it?” she began. “We saw a lot of autism and Asperger’s, so I’m familiar with the signs. I’ve often wondered—I mean, as we discussed on the phone, Aurora had significant developmental delays, and she exhibits other telltale behaviors. Do you think it’s possible she might be …”

  “On the spectrum?” Dr. Harris said. “No, I don’t.”

  “How can you be sure?” my mother asked. Her voice sounded shaky, as if she might be about to cry.

  “Her interaction with me was completely appropriate, Mrs. Franklin. She was engaged, made eye contact, had inflection in her voice.”

  “If it’s not ASD, then what is it?” my mother said. “OCD? ADD? It has to be something.”

  I looked up from my coloring.

  “Are you mad, Mom?” I asked. “Because you sound mad.”

  “No, sweetie, I’m not mad. Just frustrated.” She turned back to Dr. Harris. “I want the very best for my daughter. Early intervention is key. You realize that without a diagnosis, she’ll get no services whatsoever.”

  “People are in such a hurry these days to pin a label on anyone who doesn’t quite fit the mold,” he responded. “Not everything has a name.”

  “I do,” I said, putting the finishing touches on a nice round o I’d found in an advertisement for some pills. “Aurora.”

  My mother took me to see two more psychologists, plus an occupational therapist, all of whom came to the same conclusion: I was quirky, but not on the spectrum. I was also getting very good at playing Chutes and Ladders.

  “Enough is enough,” my father said when he saw the bills. “No more testing, no more shrinks. She is who she is, Rube. Let it be.”

  I had always been the center of my mother’s attention. We were extremely close. She loved me with all her heart, and I was anxious to please her, even if it meant trying to make friends with someone who’d made it clear from the minute we met that she didn’t like me. The reason I had bitten Lindsey Toffle way back when we were in kindergarten was because she’d told me I couldn’t sit next to her on the rug because I was ugly. Now, I was filled with hope as I hurried across the playground, clutching Lindsey’s silver charm tightly in my hand.

  Lindsey and her friends were playing foursquare with a rubber ball in a chalked box, slicing the air with their palms to make the ball spin. If my plan worked, I could be bouncing that very same ball back and forth soon myself.

  “What do you want?” Lindsey asked when she noticed me standing there watching her.

  Suddenly I felt nervous.

  “I just wanted to … I thought m-maybe you … ,” I stammered.

  “Maybe I what?” Lindsey asked, slapping the ball so hard it bounced outside the line. “No fair! I get a do-over. Aurora was distracting me.”

  “Lindsey?” I said, stepping forward.

  “What do you want?” she snapped, spinning around on her heel to face me. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

 

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