I eat in a very small cafeteria. There are five other boys here, but I haven't spoken to any of them yet. I'm not sure what they are, but I'm studying them carefully.
My room is very small, only about an eighth of the size of the room I had at Grandmother Emma's, if that. There are two windows in the room, neither with curtains. They have black shades. My bed is about a third of the size of the bed I had and the mattress is very hard, as hard as board. There is a weak single ceiling fixture. I've asked for a desk lamp, but no one has brought one. Then you ask for things here, they nod, but no one says yes or no.
I try to get information about Mother. The best I've gotten is she is unchanged. There are no other details. I haven't asked about Father, and from what I gather, he hasn't asked much about me. They tell me nothing about Grandmother Emma, not even "unchanged." I know, however, that she thinks about me. She has hired an attorney and he has come to see me twice already. It's not Mr. Pond. Mr. Pond is a business lawyer. I need a criminal attorney. His name is Jack Cassidy, He asked me to call him Jack instead of Mr. Cassidy. He wants me to think he my pal. He is bald with gray eyebrows and a pinkish nose and lips. I was immediately concerned.
Yesterday, after he left my room, I was able to see him talking to one of the hall monitors, and when the light went on, I saw he had a tail and I realized he was a hairless rat. I should have known by the way his lips twitch and the way he clenches his teeth before he writes something to his long, yellow pad.
I want you to be honest with me," he told me. I can't help you unless you're absolutely honest with me."
"Will you be honest with me?" I replied, and he smiled and said "Of course.
Of course, he won't be. I don't mind being honest with him, however. I would rather everyone know that I know what's going on here.
I am keeping my own notebook and I am making copies of all the letters I send you. Some day, all this will be very valuable and I want you to have it all.
I am not confident about ever getting out of here.
But make no mistake about it, I'm not upset or unhappy. I have a wonderful opportunity.
I can expose them all.
Remember, be extra careful and tell no one any of this.
Your brother Ian
.
I folded this letter up and stuck it back in its envelope. Before I could read another. I heard Greataunt Frances calling to me from the bottom of the stairway. I quickly looked for a place to hide Ian's letters and decided to put them in the corner of the closet floor behind the shoe boxes. Then I hurried out, dawn the hall and to the stairway.
"I thought you were home," Great-aunt Frances said. "Did you get what you needed for school?"
"Yes."
"Good, Come on downstairs and well think about dinner. I have to tell you what happened on my soap opera today, too."
Mae Betty was back in the kitchen washing the floor and mumbling loudly about all the food that had been dropped and things that had been spilled and not wiped up before they'd become sticky and hard. She stuck her head out of the door as I came down the stairs to say. "You would think a blind person lived here!"
Great-aunt Frances only smiled.
"Don't mind her," she whispered. "I heard Lester complain about how lazy his daughter is many times. He swears she was so lazy it took her ten months to give birth to his granddaughter."
Could that be true? I wondered. And then I thought. How could Great-aunt Frances call anyone else lazy? Look at how little she will do, even for herself It helped me understand a little as to why Grandmother Emma was dissatisfied with her, but that surely wasn't enough to ignore her for so many years and let her live like this.
Before I could say or do anything else. Greataunt Frances went into a long speech about her characters on her soap opera. She talked about them as if they'd been real people and not actors pretending. As she described the story, she actually had tears in her eyes.
"I don't know how people can be so mean to each other. Jordan, do you?"
Before I could even think to r
eply, she went on and on about a different soap opera and the things people had done to each other in that one. Finally, exhausted, she dropped herself to the sofa and took a deep breath. Her face hardened in a way hadn't seen it harden before: her eyes colder, her lips firmer. She looked more like Grandmother Emma, and the childlike softness I had seen in her face evaporated.
"Didn't Emma talk about me at all?" she asked. "Didn't she say anything to you before she sent you here to live?"
I nodded.
"What did she say? Tell me," she demanded.
"She told me you wouldn't hate me and you needed me," I revealed.