The Different Girl

the parrot is the biggest thing in the picture,” I said.
    “Explain.”
    “Because it’s the one word you don’t have to say. So if you say cage it’s like you’re already saying parrot at the same time.”
    Robbert looked at each one of us in turn. “That is correct. Do you understand? Who understands? Caroline.”
    “We have to pretend that all four of us are answering the question even though it’s only one of us. We have to sort through.”
    “Exactly.”
    “Why?”
    “What?”
    “Why?” repeated Isobel. “Why do we have to pretend there’s only one of us.”
    “Because that might be the case,” said Robbert. “Just like on a thirty-minute walk. Just like when Veronika found our guest. There may only be time to do one thing. You need to know what that one thing is, and you do it by thinking.”
    We all nodded, but no one asked what they wanted to ask, which was to ask Isobel’s question again, because no one felt Robbert had answered it—not what she had really asked. But no one thought, if it was asked again, that Robbert would get anything but snappy.
    “What is Irene doing?” Caroline had her head cocked, like when she woke up from her dreams.
    “I’m sure she’ll tell you when she’s done.” Robbert looked at his watch, then yawned. “Maybe it’s time for a nap.”
    We didn’t want to take a nap and as it turned out we didn’t have to. Instead, Robbert rubbed his eyes and announced we would go for a walk. He shooed us in front of him and stumped down the stairs, the dangling tips of his shoelaces tapping the wood. We stood in the yard, waiting for Robbert to tell us where to go, but he yawned again and stood staring at the classroom. We stared, too.
    “What are all you looking at?” he called. “Let’s go. This is a thirty-minute walk. Thirty minutes exactly. Alone and in different directions than you’ve gone before. Everyone should be thinking about parrots and cages. Stay away from the water. Go .”
    We all looked at one another, taking half steps and changing directions again and again until we were sorted. Eleanor went to the cliff, Caroline to the beach, and Isobel toward the dock. I ended up walking between the buildings toward the woods. Since both the beach and the cliff could show new things washed up from the storm, and Isobel would be at the dock, I wondered if any of the others would decide to forget about time, too?
    I kept to the path until I reached the palms. The wind rustled the leaves and the treetops waved against the sky. I went to where the trees stood tight together, the ground between piled with branches and old husks. Birds lived in the tops of the palms, and other things lived in the dead branches and husks, rats and lizards and all kinds of bugs. If it was quiet you could hear them move.
    I looked at the pile, trying to think of parrots and cages. There were parrots in the trees—probably right then, above me—but that wasn’t what Robbert meant. If I was looking at palm trees, I should be thinking something else . But I couldn’t think of anything. I turned around. On the far side of the meadow stood Robbert’s building.
    Halfway back I left the path and entered the grass, bending until it rose above my head. Crickets launched themselves around me. At the edge of the grass, I squatted lower. Robbert’s building stood on cinder-block stilts. I crept behind a stilt so no one on the other side, if they looked underneath, could see me. Most of Robbert’s back windows weren’t windows anymore at all, but mesh-covered exhaust vents, for machines. The only window left was right where I stood. I looked in.
    This was the back room, all cabinets and boxes, but the door was ajar, and beyond it lay the foot of Robbert’s bed. The white sheet had been kicked away—which I knew because I could see the foot that had kicked it, now strapped with white bandages. I heard different machines, and I wondered if any of them were helping the girl.
    Irene came through the door and I ducked down. I heard her flipping switches and peeked up. She held a dark page up to the light, and the page became a picture of a gray arm with white bones. The girl’s arm, though it wasn’t really gray. We’d seen bird’s bones, and fish, even rats. But those bodies had feathers or scales or fur, a covering. Were the bones inside her really white? Were there the same dark pages of me? Irene snapped off the lamp and walked out. I retreated to the grass. It was almost