To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie. Ellen Conford

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СКАЧАТЬ darted toward the hall to run to my room, but for a heavy guy he was pretty fast. He grabbed my arm and pulled me against him.

      “Sylvie, be nice. I’ll be nice to you, you’ll see how nice I can be.” He slobbered on my neck, his fingers pawing at my collar.

      My heart hammered in my chest. I was smothering, I was suffocating, my face pressed into his shirtfront, his sweaty hands grabbing at my buttons.

      I socked him in the ribs and screamed.

      “You dirty old pig! You fat old pig! Don’t you dare touch me!”

      I ran down the hall to my room, just as Mrs. O’Connor came running to see what the noise was about.

      “Sylvie, what is it? What’s going on?”

      “Ask him!” I yelled. “Ask the fat old pig yourself.”

       “Sylvie!”

      I slammed my door shut and threw myself across the bed, crying like crazy.

      I was scared to death. I was crying because I was mad, but I was crying because I was really terrified, too. I’d made him too angry. It wasn’t my fault, this time I hadn’t started it, but I’d made him so mad I knew he was going to get me. He was big and he was strong and he was an adult, and he’d figure out a way to lie to the social worker so she’d believe him and not me.

      It wasn’t going to be all fake fatherly smiles and accidental touching anymore. He wasn’t going to bother to pretend after this. It was too late for pretending. I had hit him. He knew he wasn’t fooling me. And he was going to get me. He was going to force me.

      Even crying into my pillow, gasping for breath, I could hear him yelling. “Impossible! Incorrigible! . . . don’t know what gets into her.” I couldn’t hear what Mrs. O’Connor was saying, she was talking too softly, but I was sure she would believe whatever lies he was telling her.

      And then she’d go back to bed and he’d stay up and wait, until he was sure she was asleep, until he thought I was asleep....

      I groaned and slammed my fist into my pillow. No!

      I hauled myself off the bed and looked around the room. There was a big, old oak chest of drawers next to the door. I ran to it, leaned my shoulder against it, and pushed. I couldn’t budge it.

      Still crying, still hardly able to catch my breath, I opened all four drawers and dumped the things in them on the floor. Then I pulled the drawers out and pushed the dresser against the door. I put the drawers back in and threw all the stuff back into the drawers.

      “Sylvie, what are you doing? Sylvie, what are you moving around in there?”

      I fell back on the bed, exhausted. The doorknob turned, rattled, the door thunked against the dresser but didn’t move another inch.

      “Open the door, Sylvie! Open the door this instant!”

      I didn’t answer.

      I never spoke another word to Mr. or Mrs. O’Connor.

      I sat straight up in bed all night, staring at the dresser.

      The next afternoon, Miss Jenks, the social worker, came to take me to “Aunt Grace” and “Uncle Ted” Tyson.

      So like I say, I don’t know why Aunt Grace and Uncle Ted took me in, what with the reputation I had from the Framers and the O’Connors. Especially since I was the first foster child they’d ever had. And why they’d want to trust someone like me—or the kind of person they must have thought I was—with their six-year-old twin daughters was another thing I couldn’t figure. Aunt Grace talked a lot about “Christian charity,” so the only thing I could think was, maybe taking me was a way of making Brownie points with God.

      Anyhow, after a couple of weeks they told Miss Jenks they couldn’t believe I was the same girl she’d told them about.

      Well, I wasn’t. I hadn’t been the girl she’d told them about in the first place. That had been an act. I really am a very good actress, which is why I know I can get in the movies. It takes more than just a pretty face. More than just a beautiful face, even. It takes talent, which I proved I have.

      “Sylvie, Ed Sullivan is on! Sylvie, come on and watch Ed Sullivan with us! Maybe Señor Wences’ll be on!” Honey and Bunny both came rushing into my room.

      “Is it that late?” I felt sort of groggy. Somehow the afternoon had passed after I stopped counting hours. I had missed supper. I must have fallen asleep.

      “Sylvie, come on!” Bunny said. “You’ll miss the famous people in the studio audience. Maybe James Dean’ll be there.”

      “James Dean is dead, Bunny. He can’t be in the studio audience.”

      “Maybe President Eisenhower then.”

      “He’s in the hospital. Remember? You prayed for him.”

      “Maybe the prayers worked. Come on, Sylvie, you have to watch with us. You always watch with us.”

      “Okay, okay.”

      They each took one of my hands and practically pulled me out of bed. I looked at them in their seersucker nightgowns, their blond curls frizzy from the heat and their bath.

      I hugged them against my hips. Next week, when I wasn’t here, would they miss me? Would they wonder where I was?

      Maybe some Sunday night they’d be watching Ed Sullivan and the camera would pick out a famous face in the audience and Ed would say, “And over here we have that up-and-coming new star—” and Honey and Bunny would start screaming, “It’s Sylvie, it’s Sylvie!”

      Only, by then I wouldn’t be Sylvie anymore.

      After eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, I’d never be Sylvie Krail again.

       Chapter 3

      “Sylvie, I really don’t like to go off and leave you alone like this.”

      “Oh, Aunt Grace, you’ve left me alone before.”

      “But not when you’re sick. It’s different.”

      “You can leave me Mrs. Reemer’s number and I can call you if I need anything. I don’t want you to miss your canasta game on account of me.” I used my sick-but-brave voice again. She had to go to that canasta game.

      “Well, that’s true. I’m only ten minutes away, after all.”

      “I’m a big girl, Aunt Grace. You know I can take care of myself.”

      “I guess you can. And if you’re still feeling bad when I come home, we can call the doctor then.”

      “Sure, that’s right. You go and have a good time. I know how you look forward to your canasta.”

      The СКАЧАТЬ