Chapter 8

Erika and I walked on the pavement along Bird Street. I walked ahead and she followed me. She wore a thick jumper and equally thick tracksuit pants. Both her hands were in her pockets as she walked. She wore a baseball cap and bowed her head down whenever she saw a car drive by. In a way I felt guilty. Erika had been indoors all her life and all of a sudden she was outdoors, so of course she'd be uncomfortable.

Erika and I arrived downtown twenty minutes later. We were two eleven-year-old kids walking along a sidewalk filled with adult shoppers. Cars on the road honked their horns. Bored teenagers loitered around, trying to pick fights with anyone willing enough to mess with them. Erika wasn't looking and accidentally bumped into an adult male.

"Watch where yer going, kid!" cried the man.

Erika cowered in fear, trying to cover as much of her face and body as she could with her arms. Pedestrians walking by saw the incident, stared for three or four seconds, and then walked away. A few minutes later the pedestrians would probably forget such an incident ever occurred.

For Erika, who had never been outside in her whole life, even something as basic as walking in a crowd needed to be learnt. I held the little girl by the hand and directed her through the crowd of shoppers. Most of the shoppers wore sunglasses. They walked quickly. They had duties they needed to perform, tasks that needed to be completed.

I looked at Erika and wondered what she was thinking. I wondered what was going through her mind. As I looked at her, it was as if I could see her thoughts. Her ideas spilled out of her and hovered around her head like a halo. And she had so many deep thoughts and emotions, all of which could fill several volumes of books. I turned around and looked at everyone--the shoppers, the teens, the businessmen, the parents. Each one of them also had complex ideas and emotions spilling from their minds. Each one had a life and a past that could be translated into a novel. Yet in the crowd each one looked as insignificant as an ant.

Half an hour later, Erika and I were no longer downtown. Instead we sat on top of a grassy hill in a park filled with open fields, lakes, ducks, and seagulls. Little children ran around while their mothers sat under the sun with novels in their hands. The children were playing hide and seek. Erika seemed more relaxed in this environment. She took off her thick jacket, revealing her white shirt underneath. For no reason she looked at me and smiled. Her face looked beautiful when she smiled.

Both Erika and I lied on the grass and looked up at the sky. The sky, I must say, was far more beautiful than Erika. How could any individual human match the beauty of the sky?

"Have you ever been to school?" I asked, trying to start a conversation.

She shook her head. "I'm homeschooled."

"Do you have a mom?"

She nodded. "Wayne's not really my dad. He's my adopted dad."

"Do your real parents know about what Wayne does to you?"

"Yes. Wayne told them everything."

"And your real parents don't care?"

"No. They don't care."

"What time does Wayne come back from work today?"

"Five or six. I need to be back home on time or my daddy will punish me for going outside."

"You've never been outside before?"

"Not really."

"Why does Wayne punish you?"

"He thinks if I don't get punished, I will grow up to be a bad girl."

"If he's mean to you, why don't you run away?"

"Where will I go?"

"You can live with me."

"Will your mom and dad mind?"

"I don't think so. They're never home anyway." I paused. "There must be a way you can escape from Wayne."

"There is," she said. "I can kill myself."

"Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Dying's not good."

She shook her head. "Death is beautiful."

Erika kept silent. Her eyes looked at me for a while before wandering around. She began to rub her fingers on the grass. I couldn't figure out whether she was bored, shy, or nervous. After her eyes wandered around for a while, she started staring at me. It was the sort of stare an art critic gave to a painting.

"You know, Keith," Erika said, "you're quite a beautiful boy."

I smiled and blushed at the same time. "Thank you. I think the boy is supposed to say that to the girl."

Erika seemed confused, and it didn't take me long to realize why.

"You've never watched TV before, haven't you?" I said. "That's probably why you didn't know. It's okay."

"I've watched a little bit of TV before." She looked back up at the sky. "Keith, when you dream, what do you dream about?" She spoke softly.

I started fiddling with the grass. "I have dreams about you." I paused and took note of her reaction, but she didn't seem too surprised. "I don't understand dreams. Why do we dream?"