Strange Perceptions (22 page)

I looked down at Campbell’s body and thought of retrieving my father—my uncle’s knife, but decided to leave it there.

I trudged across the clearing, into the woods, heading toward the village. I had a lot to tell the elders.

Mad Goldilocks

The psychologist sat in the overstuffed leather chair, one leg crossed ankle to knee, notebook balanced on his thigh. I sat in the small sofa across from him. A coffee table separated us.

He scratched his chin with the back of his pen. “Tell me why you’re here.”

“I shouldn’t really be here,” I said. “My mom thinks I’m not adjusting well to the seventh grade, but she’s wrong.”

“Seventh grade, huh? That makes you how old?”

“Twelve.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. They were too intense, like he could see right through me.

He scribbled in his notebook. “Why does she think you’re not adjusting well?”

“Ask her yourself why don’t you?” I shot the answer out.

Again he wrote in his notebook. Then he looked at me, waiting.

“You really don’t have to do this,” I said. “The head-shrinking thing. We could just sit here until the hour’s up. Nobody the wiser.”

His pen touched his chin again as he watched me.

I sighed. “You’ll still get paid. Don’t worry.”

He stuck his pen in the notebook, closed it, and placed it on the coffee table. “Okay then.” He uncrossed his leg, leaned forward, and clasped his hands together across his knee. “What do you want to talk about?”

He thought he was pretty smart, but I wasn’t falling for any tricks. “I don’t care. What do you want to talk about?”

“How about the three bears?”

“That’s bullshit,” I said. Adults don’t expect cute kids like me to say words like bullshit.

He tugged at his ear, barely suppressing a smile. “What do you mean?”

“Have you even heard the story?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Well,” I said, “the story you’ve heard isn’t true. The bears were people, not animals. And there were two of them, not three.”

“And you think you’re Goldilocks?”

There it was—the big question. I didn’t expect him to ask it so quickly. I figured he’d dance around the subject a while and build up to it. But I wasn’t going to back down.

I stuck out my chin. “I don’t
think
. I know I am Goldilocks.”

He remained quiet; a ploy to keep me talking. I clamped my mouth shut. I could go the whole hour and not say another word. Easy.

He finally broke the silence. “Okay. How can you be the Goldilocks from the story since the story existed before you were born?”

Easy, magic. Not that I’d tell him that. I sighed. “You ever play that game called ‘Whisper’ when you were a kid?”

He made a I-don’t-know shrug with one shoulder.

“You know. You sit around in a circle and one person whispers a secret to the person next to them. Then they whisper that secret to the person next to them. And so on. It goes around the whole circle and when the secret makes it back to the person who started the game it’s not even close to the original. That’s what happened to my story.”

“So you’re saying the Goldilocks story I’ve heard isn’t the same as your story?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Can you tell me your story?”

I took a deep breath and began.

One time, when I was eight, Mom and Dad and my baby brother, Skeeter, and I were camping. Our camp was set up beside a small stream in the woods. Mom was in the tent dealing with Skeeter, or maybe taking a nap with him, I don’t remember. Dad had a fishing pole stuck in the mud bank, line in the water. He watched the line closely, expecting a fish to bite at any moment. Pretty funny. He never caught anything because he wouldn’t put a worm on the hook. What did he think? Some fish would come along and commit suicide on the hook?

Anyway, hundreds of little yellow buttercups filled the field behind our camp. I asked Dad if I could go pick some of them.

“Sure, but don’t wander too far away,” Dad said.

I skipped across the field, plucking the buttercups until I had two huge handfuls. Yeah skipping, funny huh? I was a sappy sweet kid, all unicorns and rainbows and crap like that. I thought the yellow flowers could make a pretty bouquet for Mom. So I headed back to camp with my hands full, eager to show Mom her present.

Halfway back across the field I saw a big thistle plant with purple flowers. On top the thistle sat the prettiest butterfly I had ever seen. It was huge, with multi-colored wings as large as my hands.

I dropped the buttercups and leaned down closer to the butterfly. Its wings slowly opened and closed. I reached out to touch it—I just had an urge to feel it. The butterfly seemed magical, like a butterfly princess. Don’t laugh. That’s actually what I thought. I told you I was sappy.

My fingers almost touched the butterfly before it flew away, moving in large swoops and arcs across the field.

I became totally convinced it truly was a butterfly princess. Maybe it was going home. I followed it, hoping it would lead me to its castle.

Mom and Dad used to tell me that I was easily distracted. That I had to learn to focus. But they had it backwards. I had no problem focusing. When something caught my interest I focused on it to the exclusion of everything else. Such was the case with the butterfly. I followed the butterfly through the woods, building up an elaborate fantasy, imagining what its castle would look like and how the butterfly royalty would greet me. I was so caught up in this grand adventure I lost track of time and place, just following the butterfly along, getting farther and farther away from camp. Eventually the butterfly flew up high into the sky and out of sight.

For several moments I stared after it, waiting for it to reappear. Tears welled up in my eyes. I plopped down on the ground and put my head into my hands.

Now, before you think I was a little baby let me explain. I truly believed I was on the way to the butterfly’s castle. Maybe this sounds crazy—oops, sorry, I know I’m not supposed to use that word. But when the butterfly flitted away it pained me. How would you feel if you were denied such a special adventure?

Gradually I became aware of my surroundings and realized I was lost.

I jumped to my feet and spun around, looking in all directions. The woods appeared the same no matter which direction I looked.

“Dad! Mom!”

No response.

“Dad!” I yelled louder.

Nothing.

I started running and screaming for my parents, dodging trees, and leaping over dead fall. I ran full-speed into a low hanging branch and was knocked off my feet. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried running in the woods, but it’s hard. Rocks and holes and branches and things to scratch and trip you are everywhere. Anyway, after I fell I rolled over, jumped to my feet and sprinted off in a different direction. I don’t know how long I ran, or how often I fell down, or how many times I yelled for my parents. I continued this panicked behavior until I collapsed on the forest floor, exhausted, throat raw from screaming.

Obviously, running around and bouncing off trees like a crazy pinball wasn’t helping me find my way back to my parents. I needed to travel in one direction and eventually I’d find a road or a stream.

I saw the sun through the canopy of tree branches above me. If I walked, keeping the sun in front of me, I’d be moving in one direction. I stood slowly, brushed myself off, and walked toward the sun. Having a plan made me fell better.

I walked for maybe two hours, almost losing my resolve several times before arriving at a meadow with a small log cabin in the center. The cabin had that grayish color wood gets when it’s been out in the weather for years. Beside the cabin were several tools—a shovel, an axe, a pick—and a stack of firewood. A wheelbarrow leaned against the firewood. A large black pipe jutted up from the cabin’s roof. White smoke whirled lazily out of the pipe.

I ran toward the cabin, but stopped halfway there. What if some psycho or pervert lived in the cabin? After all, what type of people lived deep in the woods? Crazy people, that’s who. I retreated from the meadow back to the trees and examined the cabin from a distance.

Pretty sharp thinking for an eight year old kid, don’t you think? Especially after the day I was having.

Anyway, as I hid in the woods trying to figure out what to do next, the door to the cabin opened and out trudged two massive people dressed in denim and flannel. Lumberjacks! The man had a thick, black beard covering his entire face. He picked up the large axe and laid it against his shoulder, carrying it by the handle with the axe’s top resting beside his head. He walked toward the woods away from me. The other person was a woman. She appeared to have a beard.

I rubbed my eyes and looked again.

Yes, she also had a beard. Light brown in color and not as thick as the man’s. It covered just the tip of her chin. She grabbed the wheelbarrow, pushing it in front of her, and followed the man.

I chewed on my lip. Should I try to go into their cabin? These people were frightening to look at. Would they harm me in some way if I got caught?

What finally helped me decide was the need to go to the bathroom. I didn’t have any toilet paper and what if a spider or other creepy-crawly got on my butt. Yuck! I crossed the clearing to the cabin, keeping an eye the direction the lumberjacks had left.

Above the cabin’s door hung a wood plaque with the words “The Baers” burned into it. Notice the spelling? B-A-E-R-S, not B-E-A-R-S. They weren’t bears like grizzly bears, just people named Baer. I went to the side of the cabin and looked through the small window.

The cabin’s inside was tiny, nothing more than a single room with a table and two chairs. On one side was a wood stove and the opposite side had a jumble of blankets and pillows piled on the floor. Under the window was a small cabinet.

No bathroom. Apparently the Baers poop in the woods.

I moved from the window, glancing at the woods, and noticed a primitive road that hadn’t been visible from my earlier vantage point. I grinned. At least checking the cabin allowed me to discover the road.

A wonderful smell hit my nose and my stomach twinged. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. I looked through the window again. Two bowls sat on the table. Without thinking I rushed to the cabin door, opened it, and ran to the table.

I should tell you what I did was wrong. Going into a house uninvited, even with an unlocked door, is breaking and entering. But at the time I was only thinking of the bowls of food on the table. Remember what I said about how great is my focus?

Anyway, I sat on one of the chairs and looked into the bowl. Soup. Steam rose from the bowl. I took a spoonful, blew on it, and slurped. Bean soup—my favorite. None of this too hot or too cold nonsense. No, the soup was just right. I scarfed down the entire bowl and sat back, leaning in the chair.

The front door opened, startling me, and I fell backwards in the chair. And no, the chair didn’t break.

The Baers stood there with their mouths open, as surprised as I was. For several moments we stared at each other.

“Moshie?” the woman asked the man.

The man smiled, revealing large, brown teeth. “No, Shashie,” he said.