couldn’t tell me with the Outside Girl sitting right there listening and totally wishing she could be our knitting friend when all she could do was crochet and who even cares about crocheting, no one even knows who invented it, I could actually hear the ancient fishermen laughing at her. But still, we were under heavy surveillance.
So I said to Mama L, Send.
What? she asked.
Don’t you remember ElfQuest? I asked.
Of course I do, she said. I read those books with Mama K before you were born. Didn’t like them all that much, but I read them.
Whatever you want to tell me, just send what’s in your mind to my mind, I said. I’ll hear you. I’ll understand what to do.
And even though she was the mom and I was the kid, she did what I said. She sent to me. She sent me a story. And at first the story I received was just the story of knitting but soon it was the story of hollow eggs and soon it was more.
By the time Mama L had finished sending, I had knit five rows, and dropped most of my stitches, and the visit was over for the day. The Outside Girl smiled at us even though I could tell she felt left out. We really do like to try to keep families together, she said. I am so glad to see you and Perley doing well. I can tell you have a real bond.
Which was true.
* * *
Knit, purl, knit, purl, knit, purl, knit, purl. Ancient fishermen invented it and I got really good at it so fast, and I showed Altemonte how to do it, too. That was one project. But there was another project, too. Each night I would unravel the ball of yarn, down to its hollow center, and I would open the plastic egg, and I would spit my pill into it, and then I would close the egg and I would wind the yarn back around the egg but not all the yarn. I would spend two weeks knitting something, a square, a scarf, a pot holder, a swatch Mama L called it. And at visitation, I would see Mama L, and I would say to her, Trade you. And when I said, Trade you, she would give me a new color of yarn with a new plastic egg empty in the heart and she would take my leftover yarn, with two weeks of soggy blue pills inside where no one knew or heard.
Altemonte kept taking his medicine. He said, I promised my grandma. I said, But what about the death portal? Altemonte said, What happens to me is different than what happens to you. Maybe it’s because you’re slightly spastic. Maybe someday I’ll stop, he said. But not today. But our motto is excellence and loyalty, I said. He said, Sometimes you say that things are our motto when really they are just your motto, and I said, But don’t you think excellence is important? And he said, I don’t really know what excellence is, it sounds like something the principal would say. I asked, What about loyalty? Don’t you think loyalty is important? And he said, I think it’s important that you are on your quest and I am on mine. I said, But Altemonte I want our brains to be the same. And he said, But Perley our brains will never be the same no matter if we take medicine or not. But don’t you even have a motto? I asked him. Altemonte said, I guess if I had to have a motto it would probably be trust.
Trust is the same as loyalty, I said.
No, it’s not, he said.
Yes, it is, I said.
No, it’s not, he said. Then he said, I won’t betray you. I’ll even help you.
So I had to do the project without him.
The first visit the yarn was purple and the second visit the yarn was gray with flecks of emerald green, and by the third visit, when the yarn was yellow like a goldfinch, the death portal had begun to seal. I could taste Grandma Barlow’s pies, I could taste her pancakes, and the wizard had dropped the crystal ball and disappeared, and the crystal ball had shattered and inside it was my old brain back and my old brain was a mushroom it was a drum it was a fist that opened and closed.
LILY
I’ve stopped trying to defend myself. I won’t claim that I was a good