Flowers in the Attic (Dollanganger 1)

During January, February, and most of March the attic was much too cold to enter. A frigid vapor hung in the air up there, eerily misting everything over, and it was scary, you bet. And miserable; even Chris had to admit that.

All of this made us very content to stay in the warmer bedroom, cuddled close together as we stared and stared and stared. The twins adored the TV so they never wanted to turn it off; even at night while we slept they wanted it on, knowing it would then wake them up in the mornings. Even the scramble of dots after the late-late shows was better to them than nothing at all. Cory, in particular, liked to wake up and see the little people behind the desks giving the news, talking about the weather; for certainly their voices welcomed him more cheerfully into another day than did the covered, dim windows.

The TV shaped us, molded us, taught us how to spell and pronounce difficult words. We learned how important it was to be clean, odorless, and never let wax accumulate on your kitchen floor; never let the wind muss your hair, and God forbid if you had dandruff! Then the entire world would hold you

in scorn. In April I'd be thirteen, approaching the age of acne! Each day I examined my skin to see what horrors might pop up any moment. Really, we took commercials literally, believing in their value as a book of rules to see us safely through the dangers life held.

Each day that passed brought about changes in Chris and in me. Peculiar things were happening to our bodies. We grew hair where we hadn't had hair before--funny looking, crispy, amber- colored hair, darker than what was on our heads. I didn't like them, and I took the tweezers and plucked them out whenever they appeared, but they were like weeds: the more you plucked, the more came back. Chris found me one day with my arm upraised, seeking diligently to grasp one single, crinkly amber hair and ruthlessly yank it out.

"What the heck are you doing?" he shot out. "I don't want to have to shave under my arms and I don't want to use that depilatory cream that Momma uses--it stinks!"

"You mean you've been pulling hairs from your body wherever they appear?"

"Sure I do. I like my body nice and neat--even if you don't."

"You're fighting a losing battle," he said with a wicked grin. "That hair is supposed to grow where it does--so leave it alone and stop thinking about looking childishly neat, and begin to think of that hair as sexy."

Sexy? Big bosoms were sexy, not crinkly, wiry hair. But I didn't say this, for little hard apples were beginning to poke out my chest, and I just hoped Chris hadn't noticed. I was very pleased I was beginning to swell out in front--when I was alone, in a private place--but I didn't want anyone else to notice. I had to abandon that forlorn hope, for I saw Chris glance quite often at my chest, and no matter how loosely my sweaters or blouses fitted, I believe those little hills betrayed my modesty.

I was coming alive, feeling things I hadn't felt before. Strange achings, longings. Wanting

something, and not knowing what it was that woke me up at night, pulsating, throbbing, excited, and knowing a man was there with me, doing something I wanted him to complete, and he never did . . . he never did . . . always I woke up too soon, before I reached those climactic heights I knew he would take me to--if only I wouldn't wake up and spoil it all.

Then there was another puzzling thing. It was me who made up the beds every morning, as soon as we were up and dressed, and before the witch came in with the picnic basket. I kept seeing stains on the sheets, and they weren't large enough to be another of Cory's dreams of going to the bathroom. They were on Chris's side of the bed. "For heaven's sakes, Chris. I sure hope you don't take to dreaming of being in the bathroom while you're still asleep in bed." I just couldn't believe his fantastic tale of something he called "nocturnal emissions!"

"Chris, I think you should tell Momma, so she can take you to a doctor. Whatever you have might be contagious, something Cory could catch, and he's messy enough already in the bed without adding more."

He threw me a look of contempt while red color heated his face. "I don't need to see a doctor," he said in the stiffest way. "I've heard older boys talk in the school restrooms, and what is happening to me is perfectly normal."

"It cannot be normal--it is much too messy to be normal."

"Hah!" he scoffed, flashing his eyes with hidden laughter sparkling them. "Your time to mess up your sheets is coming "

"What do you mean?"

"Ask Momma. It's about time she told you. I've already noticed you're beginning to develop--and that's a sure sign."

I hated that he always knew more about

everything than I did! Where did he learn so much-- from nasty, idle talk in the boy's room? I'd heard some nasty, idle talk in the girls' room too, but darned if I was gonna believe one word of it. It was all just too gross!

The twins seldom used a chair, and they couldn't loll about on the beds, for that would make them rumpled, and the grandmother insisted that we keep everything "shipshape." And though they liked the soaps, they still kept on playing as they occasionally glanced up to see the most spellbinding scenes. Carrie had that dollhouse, with all its little people and its many small fascinations, to keep her constantly chattering in a singsong, lilting way that could grate on your nerves. Many an annoyed glance I'd throw her way, hoping she'd shut up for two seconds, and let me hear and enjoy without all the chitchat--but I never said anything to her, for that would bring about howls worse than the low murmur of her back-and-forth conversations.

While Carrie moved the dolls about, and conversed for male and female, Cory would fiddle with his many boxes of Tinker- toys. He refused to use the directions that Chris tried to teach him how to follow. Cory would design whatever suited his needs most, and what he constructed was always something he could beat upon to make musical notes. With the television to make noise and give a constantly changing variety of scenes, the dollhouse with its many charms to please Carrie, and the Tinkertoys which happied away the hours for Cory, the twins managed to make the best of their confined lives. The young are very adaptable; I know that from watching them. Sure, they complained some about two things the most. Why didn't momma come as often as she used to? That hurt, really hurt, for what could I tell them? And then there was the food; they never liked the food. They wanted icecream cones that they saw on TV, and the hot dogs TV children were always eating. In fact, they wanted everything that was aimed at a child's appetite for sweet things, or toy things The toys they got. The sweets they didn't.

And while the twins crawled about on the floor, or sat cross-legged making their particular kind of annoying racket, Chris and I tried to keep our minds concentrated on the complicated situations that unfolded daily before our eyes. We watched unfaithful husbands deceive loving wives, or nagging wives or wives too concerned with their children to give the husbands the attentions they deemed so necessary. It was vice-versa, too. Wives could be just as unfaithful to husbands good, or husbands bad. We learned love was just like a soap bubble, so shining and bright one day, and the next day it popped. Then came the tears, the woebegone expressions, the anguish over endless cups of coffee while seated at the kitchen table with a best friend who had her own troubles, or his own troubles. But, no sooner was one love over and done with, then along came another love to start that shining soap bubble soaring again. Oh, how very hard those beautiful people sought to find the perfect love and lock it away, keep it safe; and they never could.

One afternoon in late March Momma came into the room with a large box tucked under her arm. We were accustomed to seeing her enter our room with many gifts, not just one, and the strangest thing was she nodded at Chris, who seemed to understand for he got up from where he sat to study, caught hold of the small hands of our twins, and he took them up into the attic. I didn't understand in the least. It was still cold up there. Was this some secret? Was she bringing a gift just for me?

We sat side by side on the bed Carrie and I shared and before I could have a look at the "gift" meant especially for me, Momma said we had to have a "woman-to-woman" talk.

Now, I'd heard about man-to-man talks from watching old Andy Hardy movies, and I knew these particular kinds of discussions had something to do with growing up and sex, so I grew thoughtful and tried not to show too much interest, which would be unladylike--though I was dying to know at last.

And did she tell me what I'd waited to hear for many a year? No! While I sat solemnly and awaited the disclosing of all the evil, unholy things boys knew from the moment they were born, according to one particular witch-grandmother, I sat stunned and disbelieving while she did the explaining of how likely any day I would start to bleed!

Not from a wound, an injury, but from God's plan of how a woman's body should function. And, to add to my amazement, not only was I going to bleed once every month from now on until I was an old woman of fifty, this bloody thing was going to last five days!

"Until I'm fifty?" I asked in a voice weak and small, afraid, oh so afraid she wasn't joking.