When they became tired enough or uncomfortable enough, they would eventually take seats beside us and soon see that it was not so poisonous after all. But to give them your seat was to let them win. I slumped back under the intensity of their stares. But my movement had attracted the white woman's attention. For an instant our eyes met. I felt sympathy for her, and thought I detected sympathy in her glance. The exchange blurred the barriers of race (so new to me) long enough for me to smile and vaguely...

... with the heart of whiteness, rather than of darkness), Griffin expresses this sense of bareness rhetorically, his normally straightforward, sometimes clunky prose slipping unsubtly into irony: I was back in the land of my forefathers, Georgia. The town of Griffin was named for one of them. [I] ... carried the name hated by all Negroes, for former Governor Griffin (no kin that I would care to discover) devoted himself heroically to the task of keeping Negroes "in their place.

I had been, the self 1 knew, was hidden in the flesh of another. If I returned home to my wife and children they would not know me. They would open the door and stare blankly at me. My children would want to know who is this large, bald Negro. If I walked up to friends, I knew I would see no flicker of recognition in their eyes. I had tampered with the mystery of existence and I had lost the sense of my own being.

I switched on the light and looked into a cracked piece of a mirror bradded with bent nails to the wall. The bald Negro stared back at me from its mottled sheen. I knew I was in hell. Hell could be no more lonely or hopeless, no more agonizingly estranged from the world of order and harmony. I heard my voice, as though it belonged to someone else, hollow in the empty room, detached, say: "Nigger, what you standing up there crying for?

Suddenly, almost with no preparation, no advance hint, it became clear and it permeated my whole being. My inclination was to fight against it. I had gone too far. I knew now that there is no such thing as a disguised white man, when the black won't rub off. The black man is wholly a Negro, regardless of what he once may have been.

I walked up to the ticket counter. When the lady ticket-seller saw me, her otherwise attractive face turned sour, violently so. This look was so unexpected and so unprovoked I was taken aback. "What do you want?" she snapped. Taking care to pitch my voice to politeness, I asked about the next bus to Hattiesburg. She answered rudely and glared at me with such loathing I knew I was receiving what the Negroes call "the hate stare." It was my first experience with it. It is far more than the look of...

Jan ne parla plus de l’Arlésienne. Il l’aimait toujours cependant, et même plus que jamais, depuis qu’on la lui avait montrée dans les bras d’un autre. Seulement il était trop fier pour rien dire ; c’est ce qui le tua, le pauvre enfant !... Quelquefois il passait des journées entières seul dans un coin, sans bouger. D’autres jours, il se mettait à la terre avec rage et abattait à lui seul le travail de dix journaliers... Le soir venu, il prenait la route d’Arles et marchait devant lui jusqu’à ce qu’il vît monter dans le couchant les clochers grêles de la ville. Alors il revenait. Jamais il n’alla plus loin.

De le voir ainsi, toujours triste et seul, les gens du mas ne savaient plus que faire. On redoutait un malheur... Une fois, à table, sa mère, en le regardant avec des yeux pleins de larmes, lui dit : « Eh bien ! écoute, Jan, si tu la veux tout de même, nous te la donnerons... »

Le père, rouge de honte, baissait la tête...

Jan fit signe que non, et il sortit...

À partir de ce jour, il changea sa façon de vivre, affectant d’être toujours gai, pour rassurer ses parents. On le revit au bal, au cabaret, dans les ferrades. À la vote de Fontvieille, c’est lui qui mena la farandole.

Mishkin somnolait dans le fauteuil de pilotage. Son vaisseau transportait une cargaison pour les colons de Dora V : queues de langoustines, chaussures de tennis, etc. Et tout à coup, clanc, la panne. « Alerte », marmonna l'ordinateur de bord. Un transistor se lamenta : « Mon Dieu, je vais y laisser la peau ». Une seule solution : rallier Harmonia II avec le moteur auxiliaire. Il y avait un silo de pièces détachées sur cette planète inhabitée. Là-bas, nouvelle surprise : la pièce se trouvait dans un dépôt situé un peu plus loin. Mishkin partit à pied, accompagné d'un robot mal programmé. Gorgé d'un savoir qui ne servait à rien sur cette planète, il se sentait un peu plus sot qu'une vierge sur une licorne. Les planètes extraterrestres sont dangereuses, parce qu'il s'y passe des choses extraterrestres qu'on ne voit pas venir, et quand on trouve la parade, ça y est, on est mort. Quelle aventure !

I was in my bed at Brandon's beach house, and I was dreaming.

In my dream, Christopher had come to rescue me. He wasn't, it turned out, mad about the whole thing where I'd told him I loved Brandon and not him.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Our reunion was joyful . . . and passionate. It was turning the ice that had been flowing in my veins back to blood . . . warm, rich blood, that was making me hot . . . shove-the-covers-down, hair-sticking-to-the-back-of-my-neck hot.

In my dream, Christopher was kissing me . . . gently at first, playful kisses on the lips, light as the down feathers in the comforter that I'd already pushed past my bare thighs.

Then, as I kissed him back, proving that it was true-I had never loved Brandon. How could I?-the kisses became longer . . . deeper . . . more passionate. My lips parted beneath his as his hands found their way into my hair-spread like a fan across my pillow-his mouth cool against mine because of the chill outside, the zipper from his leather jacket almost unbearably cold as it pressed against my warm skin as he leaned over my bed, whispering my name. . . .

I was so relieved to learn he hadn't even believed me that bitterly cold morning outside of Dr. Fong's house when I'd said I didn't love him. He'd known Brandon had been making me say it.

He just hadn't known why.

The reason he hadn't believed it was because he'd loved me-the real me-all along. Not me, Nikki, the girl who'd torn his heart out of his chest and thrown it to the ground and then squashed it underneath her Louboutins.

Me, Em. The girl in the photo he'd kept over his desk all those months.

The girl he'd thought was dead for so many months.

Except if that was true . . . if Christopher hadn't believed me . . . why hadn't he called?

Because, a voice inside my dream reminded me, Christopher doesn't love you anymore.

Wait a minute. I wasn't actually liking this dream after all.

I opened my eyes with a gasp to find a hand pressed to my mouth. This was no dream. This was really happening.

I knew who it was, of course. Who else could it have been? Who else had been trying my doorknob (unsuccessfully, since I'd been careful about locking it every night) all week? The hand over my mouth was masculine. I could tell that just by its size and heaviness, even if, in the darkness of my room, I couldn't see who owned it.

So of course I did the only thing I could: I clamped down on it with my teeth as hard as I could.

What else was I going to do? Brandon had snuck into my room in the middle of the night to do what guys like Brandon do to girls when they're asleep. How dare he try to take advantage of me when I was dreaming about someone else? Someone I actually liked. . . .

I bit down and didn't let go until I heard bones crunch.

"Ow. Jesus, Em!" the voice cried in a hoarse whisper. The hand ripped away from my face, and for a second, I heard the sound of leather rubbing on leather . . . a sleeve lifting away from the body of a jacket as someone waved his hand back and forth.

Wait. My sleep-muddled mind tried to make sense of this. Why would Brandon be wearing a leather jacket inside?

"What did you go and bite me for?" Christopher wanted to know.

My mind reeled. Christopher? In my room? Here, at Brandon's house? What was Christopher doing here? How had he gotten in? Had I not been dreaming after all? Had he really been kissing me?

I sat up so fast, I jostled Cosabella, who'd been curled against my neck.

"Christopher?" I whispered. "Is that really you? Oh, my God, did I hurt you? Are you bleeding?"

"Of course it's really me," he whispered. He sounded so annoyed, I wanted to grab his face and go back to kissing it, just like in my dream . . . if that had really been a dream, and not real. Only Christopher could sound that irritated with me. Wonderful, amazing, easily annoyed Christopher. "Who else would it be? And don't tell me Stark has been sneaking in here. Was that why the door was locked? I had to use my library card to jimmy the lock. Seriously, if he's been trying to get in here, I'll kill him-"

I forgot that I was supposed to be giving Christopher the cold shoulder, on pain of Brandon destroying everything and everyone I loved.

I forgot that I was supposed to be pretending that Brandon and I were an item now.

I was so overwhelmed at finding Christopher sitting on the side of my bed, just like in my dream, that I threw my arms around him, pulling him close and swearing to myself that I was never going to let him go. I didn't even care that the metal rivets and zipper of his leather jacket were icy cold against the parts of my bare skin that weren't covered by the matching pink tank top and sleep boxers I was wearing. Just like in my dream.

"Oh, my God, Christopher," I whispered, breathing the crisp outdoorsy scent that was still clinging to his short hair. "I'm so glad to see you."

"I'm glad to see you, too," he said, putting his arms around me to hug me back. Hard. "And don't worry about my hand. I'm sure it's just a flesh wound."

I laughed. I think I was semihysterical.

But I didn't care. It felt so good to be in his embrace.

Christopher. Christopher was here.

"But what are you doing here?" I whispered.

His hold on me loosened just enough so that he could look down into my face. Sometime while I'd been sleeping, a partial moon must have come out . . . I could see its faint glow through a crack in the curtains on the far side of the room. It didn't let in enough light for me to see him by, because his back was to it and he was thrown into silhouette by its glow. But he, I knew, could see me.

"Did you really think I'd believe you, of all people, were in love with Brandon Stark?" he asked, in a softly chiding voice. "It may have taken me a while to figure out who you really are now, Em. But give me some credit. And now that I do know it's you, I'm certainly not going to let you go that easily."

My heart gave a little somersault inside my chest. I kept holding on to him. I don't think I could have let go of him, either, even if he'd wanted me to. Which, thank God, he didn't.

He leaned down and kissed me, and I realized, as our lips touched, that I hadn't been dreaming . . . that really had been him kissing me. Kissing me awake. No wonder I'd been so hot. . . . And that his kisses were doing to me again what they'd done to me before, making me feel warm and protected in a way I hadn't felt since . . . well, since the last time I'd been in his arms, all too briefly back in my room at the loft during Lulu's holiday party.

And just like then, before I was entirely aware of what was happening, Christopher's hands were gently cradling my face as his lips moved over mine . . .

. . . and then I was sinking . . . sinking slowly back against the soft pillows behind me, with Christopher on top of me. Somehow he'd shed that annoying leather jacket, and he was half on, half off the bed.

But definitely half on me, a sensation I couldn't say I didn't find enjoyable. I knew there were things we needed to say. Things I needed to know, things I needed to tell him.

But how could I when his lips were doing such interesting things to mine, and his hands-oh, his hands-had moved away from my face to tug at my . . .

"Christopher," I said breathlessly, pulling my lips from his. It was the hardest thing I think I'd ever had to do. In the darkened room, there was nothing I wanted to do more than just let him keep doing what he was doing.

But I couldn't. Someone had to stay sane. And I had a pretty good idea that it wasn't going to be him.

"We have to focus," I said.

"Focus," he repeated. I could see that his blue eyes, so close to mine, were half-lidded and looked dazed. "Definitely."

He lowered his head to kiss me again.

But as much as I longed to let him, I knew I couldn't.

"No." I ducked out from beneath him and moved to the far side of the bed, where Cosabella was sitting, licking herself. I pulled her onto my lap to use her as a kind of doggy boy-defense shield. "I'm serious. I'm happy to see you, too. But we have to talk. What are you doing here?"

Christopher seemed to pull himself together. He lost the dazed look-well, some of it-and said, sitting up straighter, "I think it should be obvious what I'm doing here, Em. I'm here to rescue you."

My heart gave another one of its crazy somersaults. Seriously, everything this boy said-and did-was causing my internal organs to do acrobatics.

"Rescue me?" Never in my life had anyone said anything as sweet to me. He had come all the way from New York to rescue me? Just when I had given up all hope that anyone I knew was even thinking about me. Except Lulu and my mother. And my agent, Rebecca, of course. "Oh, Christopher . . ."

It was all I could do to keep from crawling back across the bed and into his arms.

But that, I knew, would be a huge mistake. Because I wouldn't have the strength to crawl out of his arms again . . . not until things had gone way further than either of us were ready to handle . . . at least right now.

Pushing some of my sleep-tossed hair out of my eyes, I resolved to follow my own advice and focus.

"How did you even get in here?" I asked. "Brandon keeps this place locked up tighter than Fort Knox."

He pulled a small, sleek box from the pocket of his coat.

"Universal code grabber," he said. "Just the latest of my cousin Felix's many do-it-yourself hacking devices he's been working on to keep himself entertained. This one can run something like a million potential code combinations a second before it finds the right one. Used it to open Brandon's garage door."

I stared at the little metal box in his hand. Okay. This was definitely something I wouldn't dream. I wasn't so sure Christopher's cousin Felix belonged under house arrest in his mother's basement. I think maybe he belonged on the payroll of some tech corporation in Silicon Valley.

"I suppose that's how you bypassed the security system, too," I said.

"Oh, no," Christopher said, casually slipping the box back into his pocket. "I just typed in Brandon's password for that once I got inside. I figured he'd be stupid enough to use his name-and I was right."

I couldn't help smiling at that one.

"So we're just supposed to walk on out of here," I said, "the way you came in?" "Pretty much," he said. "You ready?"

I had to laugh at that. The idea of me just walking out of Brandon's house and away from my problems with Christopher like-well, like it was that easy.

Where could we even go? It wasn't, like, with my face, we wouldn't be instantly recognized anywhere we went.

And what about Steven, and Nikki, and their mom? I know I'm not related to them-except by blood-but I owed them something for the way they'd fought for me, even if it hadn't worked. Steven had gotten so mad at Brandon for agreeing to Nikki's insane plan, he'd finally had to leave the dining room entirely, for fear-he'd told me later, when I'd met him in the hallway as I'd been coming up to bed-that he'd smash Brandon's face in. Later, he'd come into my room, telling me that we had to get out of there before both Nikki and I ended up dead.

But go where? Steven could always rejoin his naval unit and slip back under the sea in the submarine he'd left to look for his missing mother. But what about Mrs. Howard, who couldn't even use her credit cards or pay a bill for fear of Stark Enterprises tracking her down?

Or Nikki, who chose to remain so blindly ignorant of the role she'd played in causing all of this heartache?

I wanted to tell Christopher all these things.

But first, I had to tell him the most important thing of all-besides the fact that I was madly in love with him, which I was pretty sure from the previous few minutes' makeout session he already knew.

"Christopher," I said, breathlessly, "Nikki told us. She told us what she tried to blackmail Brandon's dad over. What she overheard that got her killed . . . and me into this mess in the first place."

He reached out and smoothed some of my hair away from my face. I closed my eyes for a second or two, relishing the warmth from his fingers as they swept my skin. A wave of desire slammed into me with all the force of a dodgeball hurled by Whitney Robertson.

Bad. I had it bad for this guy.

"Go on," he said.

"It just . . . ," I said, opening my eyes again when his hand fell away from my face. "It doesn't make any sense, is the thing. Nikki says she overheard Mr. Stark and a bunch of his cronies chuckling in his office over the fact that new Stark Quarks are going to arrive with some kind of undetectable spyware-bundled with the new version of Journeyquest-that's going to upload all of the information the user taps into it-any information he ever enters into any websites, Priceline, Facebook, e-mails, that kind of thing. And all of it is going to be stored on the mainframe at Stark Corporate. All of it."

I looked at Christopher and shrugged.

"That's it?" he asked, his eyebrows raised.

"That's it," I said, nodding. "Nikki swears. She didn't hear them say anything else. She says they were all congratulating one another and toasting over it. I mean, I guess an undetectable tracking software is pretty advanced, but one in three PCs in America has spyware on it already and their owners don't even know. What's the use of having all that information-and we're talking about data from hundreds of thousands of homes, maybe millions, because the Stark Quark is going to be the lowest-priced laptop in history-if Stark's just going to store it on the mainframe? It's not like they said they were going to use it for anything. And you know the people who are going to be buying the Quarks-they're pretty low-end-aren't rich. It's not like Stark's going to be getting the credit card numbers of, like, millionaires or anything. That's why I don't understand how this could be worth killing Nikki Howard over. What's the big deal?"

The moon had shifted. Now a shaft of its light fell full on Christopher's face, and I could finally see him properly for the first time since I'd woken to find him in my room . . . and in my bed.

And for a second, I thought I spotted a glimpse of the dark supervillain that I had been convinced he'd turned into after reports of my "death," and his decision to try to avenge it . . . that supervillain I thought was gone for good when he realized I wasn't dead after all.

But no. The darkness-and hate-were still there. Maybe they would never go away.

And I was going to have live with the knowledge that I was the one who was responsible for that.

"Why does anyone commit murder?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I-" I blinked. "How should I know?"

"Three reasons," Christopher said. He held up one finger. "Love." Another finger. "Revenge." And finally, a third finger. "Profit. They tried to kill Nikki Howard when she threatened to expose the truth about them."

"So?" I shook my head. "I still don't-"

"Robert Stark definitely has a plan for how he's going to profit from the information he's stealing from the people who buy his new PCs," Christopher said. "What we need to do is figure out what that is. And how we're going to make him pay. We've got a lot work ahead of us. We better get on it. Get dressed and let's go."

I started disentangling my legs from the sheets. "Steven and his mom are going to be fine," I said. "I can probably get them up and out, no problem. But I'm not sure how we're going to convince Nikki to come along with us willingly. She likes it here just fine."

"Wait," Christopher said, putting a large hand on my shoulder. "What are you talking about?"

"Nikki," I said, looking at him in the moonlight. Something about his expression told me that the evil supervillain was not only back, but here to stay. "She's not going to want to go. But she has to, of course. It's not safe for her here."

"Em," Christopher said. His voice was cold. "I don't care about Nikki Howard. I'm here to rescue you. Not her."

"But." I blinked at him. "We can't just leave her behind."

"Oh, yes," he said, "we can."

Le Nouvel Observateur - Anne Crignon (30 Novembre 2006)
L'essai, qui se veut polémique, manque son but car il n'y a rien de scandaleux ni de trouble à révéler sur le Goncourt 2006 (.. .). Quel est ce petit chien fou aboyant tout d'un coup dans les pattes du grand saint-bernard ?

Secret numéro 11
L'amour ne meurt pas facilement - il augmente souvent pendant que personne ne s'en rend compte.

Secret numéro 27
L'absence peut faire deux choses à l'amour
Le rendre plus fort ou vous permettre de prétendre qu'il n'a jamais existé.

04/11/10 79 -

Phrase extraite d’une page 100 :

« Par contre plusieurs personnes avaient à diverses reprises tenté de descendre dans la caldera. »



Mais la paroi abrupte, les émanations de gaz volcaniques, les vapeurs d’acide sulfurique, rendaient la chose extrêmement difficile. Ceux qui s’y étaient hasardés, soit avaient dévissé, soit étaient morts asphyxiés. Le volcan représentait un défi insurmontable pour beaucoup d’hommes. Il faudrait attendre plusieurs dizaines d’années pour que, les techniques évoluant, quelqu’un réussisse enfin à le vaincre.

Sauf...

Sauf Jean Mabille qui était un volcanologue émérite (d’ailleurs très mal vu par la profession étant donné son mauvais caractère et ses intrigues professionnelles) ayant commencé sa carrière à l’âge de douze ans. Il avait très vite suivi les traces de son père qui avait trouvé la mort dans le Nyiragongo.

Jean Mabille se prépara comme un athlète de haut niveau, rassembla les équipements les plus sophistiqués, et se lança à l’assaut du monstre bavant. Quand il arriva au bord du cratère, il y demeura quelques jours à préparer son esprit et lorsqu’il se sentit prêt, il commença la descente. Il entendit les bruits terribles de la lave hurlante et il dut mettre son masque à gaz, tant les vapeurs étaient toxiques. Il y mit tant d’acharnement qu’il pensait être parvenu au bout de ses peines, lorsque lui aussi, dévissa, la paroi étant très abrupte et glissante.

Sa chute dura un temps fou dans son esprit qui se prépara à la mort. Il vit défiler sa vie et surtout les visages aimés de Mariette et de ses deux enfants, celui aussi de son père qu’il n’allait pas tarder à rejoindre. Mais pendant cette chute, il eut une surprise qu’il n’avait même pas remarqué, tant son esprit était occupé à tant d’autres choses. Au lieu de brûler, comme tout un chacun dans d’atroces brûlures, la lave le léchait en laissant son corps intact. Il ne chercha pas à comprendre.

A un moment, il atterrit sur un tapis d’herbes, incongru bien sûr en cet endroit, dans un clairière où coulait une rivière, avec en haut, le feu qui continuait à brûler, mais restait suspendu.

Il se frotta les yeux, se mit à marcher, et se sentit dans un état de bien-être et d’ataraxie qui ne laissa pas de le surprendre. Il y avait des fleurs, des papillons et des oiseaux qui lui tendaient la main. A un moment, il rencontra des enfants qui jouaient avec un rien.

Un adulte vint à sa hauteur.

- Vous êtes visiblement étonné de tout ça (il embrassa l’ensemble d’un geste ample), nous l’avons tous été à notre arrivée.

- Il me semble qu’ici c’est le Paradis.

- Vous n’y êtes pas du tout, en fait c’est l’Enfer. Ne voyez-vous pas le feu qui couve au-dessus de nos têtes ?

- Pourtant, constatez (Jean Mabille montra son corps), je suis indemne de toute blessure.

L’autre vomit un rire épouvantable.

- C’est parce que vous avez une âme noire, si vous aviez une âme pure, vous auriez été brûlé sans coup férir.

- Je ne comprends pas.

- Ceux qui survivent aux flammes et qui vont donc en Enfer, l’ont déjà connu sur Terre, ou plutôt l’ont créé autour d’eux. Vous-même... Alors on ne peut leur demander de le subir une deuxième fois.

- Vous pouvez traduire ?

- Plus vous ferez du mal pendant votre vie terrestre et plus celle-ci sera douce par la suite.

- N’est-ce pas le monde à l’envers ?

- C’est plutôt le monde à l’Enfer. Mais chut il ne faut pas ébruiter ce que je vous ai appris, car tout ici serait bientôt pavé de bonnes intentions, tout le monde voudrait y venir, gagner sa place et l’espace est assez limité.

Heureux les mauvais, ils seront béatifiés !

January 5, Justice Building, Miami, Florida

I’ve never been in a courthouse before. But then, I’ve never been in such deep shit before either. The metal detector screams when I walk through, and a security woman tries to check my pockets. I pull away.

“These what you want?” I dangle my keys an inch from her nose, getting in her face. She backs off, scowling. I throw them into her yellow, plastic basket and walk through again.

“You were supposed to give me those first,” she says.

“Sorry.” I’m not.

Behind me, my father flings in his keys. “You’re always sorry, Nicholas, always forgetting.” Then, he looks at the security woman, and his expression becomes a smile. “Miss, if you would please be so kind to tell me where is this courtroom?” He hands her the notice for my hearing.

She smiles too, taken in like everyone else by his Armani suit and Greek accent. “Second floor.” She looks at me. “Restraining order, huh?”

“Trouble with his girlfriend.” My father shakes his head. “He is sixteen.”

I stare forward, remembering a day on the beach, Caitlin laughing, a white hibiscus in her hair. Was it only a month ago? God, how did we get here?

My father nudges me onto the escalator, and it bears me up, high above the white-tiled floors and the metal detector, far from the security woman’s gaze. We reach the top, and he shoves me through a green door.

The courtroom smells like old books and sweat. Brown benches, like church pews, face the witness stand. On the front wall, gold letters read:

Miami-Dade County, Florida
We who labor here seek only the truth.

Fine, if you know what the truth is. Caitlin sits with her mother in the center pew. Dressed in white, her blond hair loose, she looks like something from our mythology book, a nymph, maybe, pursued by a beast. Guess I’m the beast. I pass her.

“Why are you doing this, Cat?” I whisper. “I thought we had something special.”

Caitlin examines her knees, but I can tell her eyes are brimming. “Yeah, Nick. I thought so too.”

“Then, why –?”

“You know why.” She moves to the other side of her mother.

I must stand there a second too long, because my father shoves me forward. I take a seat in the fourth row. He leaves a gap between us, opens his briefcase, and removes a thick folder. Work. I try to catch his eye. “Do you think they’ll –?”

His eyes narrow in annoyance. “Nicos, this is important.” He gestures at the folder.

I look away. From across the room, I feel Caitlin’s mom staring and Caitlin trying not to. So I concentrate, really concentrate, on making my face a mask. I’m good at that. People at school – my ex-friends, even Tom, who used to be my best friend – see me how I want them to: Nick Andreas, sixteen-year-old rich kid, honor student, coolest guy around. All fake. Only Caitlin knew the truth about the warfare with my father. She knew how humiliating it was warming the bench in football all season.

Telling her that stuff was a mistake. It’s easier to fake it. When you fake it for sixteen years, it becomes part of you, something you don’t think about. Maybe that’s why I can hold a smile when the judge – a female judge who’s sure to take Caitlin’s side – enters and Caitlin takes the witness stand. I grin like an idiot as the bailiff swears Caitlin in and a lawyer in a gray, polyester skirt begins asking her questions.

“State your name,” the polyester lawyer says.

“Caitlin Alyssa McCourt.”

Polyester points to the paper she’s holding. “Is this your statement, Miss McCourt?” Caitlin nods. “You’ll have to voice your answers for the record.”

“Yes.”

“Is it your testimony you were involved in a relationship with the respondent, Nicholas Andreas?” Yes. “Is he here today?” Yes. “Point him out, please.”

Caitlin’s finger stretches toward me. I meet her eyes, try to make her remember all the good times. Bad move. Her tears, brimming before spill out, unchecked. A tissue is offered. Polyester keeps going.

“Was the relationship a sexual one?”

Caitlin’s hands twist in her lap. “Yes.”

“Was the sex consensual?”

Cat says nothing, glancing at her mother. The question takes me by surprise. Does she mean to lie about that too, make it rape, what we did together? It wasn’t. Polyester repeats the question, and Caitlin says, “I heard you. I was thinking.” She looks at her mother again and wipes another tear. Her chin juts forward. Finally, she says, “Yes. It was consensual. Nick and I . . . I loved him.”

In her seat two rows away, Mrs. McCourt shakes her head. Now, Caitlin stares forward.

“What happened December 12?” Polyester asks.

I look at the wall, my attention suddenly riveted by a palmetto bug, feelers writhing. I could kill it if I wanted.

“He hit me.”

The bug slides to the floor.

Michael, who is having some difficulty at home, is persuaded by his friend, Julian Karpe, to go to a local carnival on his sixteenth birthday . . . .

When I was kid, the fair was like magic. Sometimes, I’d go with Mom and whatever guy was trying to impress us. Other times, it was just us. Those were the best, even though we couldn’t afford wristbands that let you on all the rides, and we had to smuggle in our own sandwiches and soda. But with Mom, I could watch the shows and hear the music and not have to worry about owing someone.

“It says here there’s a circus at three-thirty.” Karpe pointed at our complimentary program. “And every hour on the half-hour after that.”

“Negative.” I kicked a half-empty cup of cherry slush in my way. “It’s not a real circus. Just poodles, walking on hind legs and stuff.” Though, even as I said it, I remembered how I’d loved it when I was younger.

“Oh.” Karpe looked at the program again. “How about rides? The Doppel Looping goes upside-down twice.”

“Rides are for kids.”

“We are kids. What’s up your butt?”

I ignored him, watching a guy with an American flag and the words, My Country ~ Love it or Leave It tattooed on his arm. He held a beer bottle, circling the Whack-a-Mole game.

“Easy,” the guy said to his girlfriend. “They gotta give a prize each game.”

“But there’s no one playing,” she said.

“That’s what makes it so easy.”

His girlfriend gave the tattoo a squeeze, and the guy handed a dollar to the girl running the game. She stuck it into her money belt and pulled out an orange balloon. I watched as she fitted it over the nipple of the game and handed the guy a mallet.

“What do you want to do?” Karpe’s voice, always on the verge of it, reached full whine.

“So, start,” the guy commanded the Whack-a-Mole girl.

“I need four players.” The girl held up four fingers. She wore leather bracelets, the kind you get monogrammed at the fair, on each wrist. She yelled to the nearly empty midway, “Three more players. Put the mole in the hole! Prize every time.”

“Want to play?” Karpe said.

“To win a stuffed Clifford the dog? Not likely.” I started to walk away.

“Well, I’m playing.” Karpe walked over to the Whack-a-Mole, waving a dollar, so I had to stay.

The girl took the money, barely glancing up. “Two more players! We’re looking for terminators,” she purred. “Whack-a-Mole exterminators!”

“Ain’t no one here.” The tattooed guy took a swig of beer.

“Sorry, sir. I’m not allowed to start with less than four players.” She pointed to a sign that said that.

Something about her voice—or maybe the sir— caught my attention. I looked at her.

Because, you know, I hadn’t before. Not really. I thought I knew what to expect. I’d been to enough fairs to know what a Whack-a-Mole girl looked like.

I was wrong.

First, she had no visible tattoos, scars, or body piercings. No scabs either. Nothing, in short, to i.d. her body if it was found in a canal. And she was young, nineteen or twenty. And pretty. Not the carnival kind of pretty -- just regular pretty. I felt like I’d seen her before. She repeated the balloon process. This time, it was a green balloon. As she concentrated, a half inch of pink tongue slid out between her teeth. Her dark hair fell over her eyes so I couldn’t see them. What I could see, at least if I walked closer, was the view down her green T-shirt.

I walked closer.

She finished the green balloon and stepped back. She pushed the hair from her eyes.
They met mine. They were brown. She held my gaze a moment, then looked away.

“Two more players!” she called. “Two more!”

“Start the game!” Tattooed man snarled. “There’s no one else going to play.”

“Maybe the lady wants to play?”

“I ain’t paying twice for a shot at one prize.”

“Pretty good shot, I’d say.” The girl glanced at Karpe, who held his mallet like it might bend over and take a bite of his arm.

The guy grumbled but tossed her another dollar. He yanked his girlfriend toward him. “Now, start!”

The girl turned and yelled into her microphone, “One more player for a chance at the prize. Second win gets you a big prize.”

This time, the balloon was yellow. But her eyes were still brown, the T-shirt still green. Unbelievable, how everything in the world, everything in your head can evaporate in a second over a hot girl in a green T-shirt.

I stepped closer.

The guy slammed the bottle on the counter. Beer splashed up onto his girlfriend.

“She needs another player, Les,” his girlfriend said.

“Who asked you?” The guy raised his hand. The girlfriend flinched. Then, fast as it had happened, he turned back to the Whack-a-Mole girl. “Start the game now.”

I was in this now. My fist was clenched, my heart racing. I hated bullies. Neither the guy’s girlfriend nor the Whack-a-Mole girl seemed to mind, but I did. Beating the guy senseless -- my first instinct -- wasn’t really an option, considering he was twice my size and twice my mean. If there was one thing I’d learned in sixteen years, it was that mean people always won.

“One more player! One more!”

“I’ll play,” I said.

I expected her to look grateful or something, but she didn’t. I nudged Karpe to give her a dollar. She took it.

She gestured that I should stand by a station that already had a balloon attached. A purple one. She started the game.

I raised my mallet and began pounding, pounding, pounding. In front of me, it was this little mole, trying to pop out of its mole hole to safety. But in my head, it was everything else. Mom, sitting with her hand on the telephone, afraid to pick it up. Boom! People at school, who used to be my friends, but now they crapped on me. Bam! Dutton, holding his fingers up in the shape of an L. Boom, bam! Karpe, pathetically begging me to come here, and me going. Boom! Boom! Boom! Walker, hitting my mother. Bam! Me, never doing anything about it.

Pop!

And I was still pounding, pounding, pounding. And someone touched my wrist.

A few more bashes.

“Hey!”

I stopped. I stopped and looked into the eyes of the Whack-a-Mole girl.

“Hey. You won.”

Below, the mole had gone into his hole forever.

“You won,” the girl whispered again.

And the warmth of her hand, the intensity of her gaze, it startled me.

Karpe clapped me on the shoulder.

“Michael -- Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” Clap, clap, clap. “You won.”

But I just saw the girl. “It’s my birthday,” I said.
Why’d I say that?

But she seemed to know. One hand, the hand not on my wrist, came up and grazed my cheek. Then, she pulled me toward her, my mouth toward her mouth. And, around us, there was nothing. No shards of purple balloon, no spilled beer. No Karpe. No moles. Only her, her face, her lips, the feel and smell, the taste of her.

“Happy birthday, Michael.” I watched her lips form the words. “Sweet sixteen?”

I nodded.

“And been kissed?”

“Yeah . . . thank you.”

And, stupidly, I added, “My name’s Michael.”

“Kirstie.” Then, “My break’s at six. You could come back then if you wanted.”

Not really a question. I nodded.

I let Karpe have the stuffed dog.

JPinedale senior high school
“home of the panthers”
PINEDALE, FLORIDA

TO: Eugene Runnels, Principal
FROM: Celia Velez, Assistant
DATE: October 27
RE: Incident Involving HIV-positive student

Alejandro Crusan, a senior, was apparently attacked this morning at the corner of East Main and Salem Court. According to his parents, Alex was en route to Dunkin Donuts at 35 East Main at approximately 6:00 a.m. A witness, Daria Bickell, a special education (Down Syndrome) student at Pinedale, saw Alex’s red SUV stopped at a red stoplight. An assailant, said to be wearing a blue Pinedale Panthers letter jacket and carrying a baseball bat, attacked Alex's car, smashing the front windshield and passenger-side windows. When the assailant attempted to run around to the driver's side, Alex was able to drive away. The witness saw Pinedale student, Clinton Cole, 17, leaving the scene.

Although this incident did not take place on school property, I have contacted the school board, and they have pledged full cooperation with local police. Due to the nature of the incident, and also Alex's HIV-positive status, police will investigate the incident under the Florida Hate Crimes statute.

Memorial Hospital, Monday, 10:50 a.m.
Alex

My mother’s crying. I make out shapes . . . IV pole, television set, window. Hospital window with flowers on the windowsill. I shut my eyes quick. Mom can’t know I’m awake. My face aches a little, and the rest of me feels like it’s still asleep. Like, numb. Even closing my eyes hurts, but I keep them shut tight anyway. I’m not ready to talk to anyone and, what’s more, I’m not sure I can. I can’t even believe this has happened, so how can I talk about it?

And my mother’s crying. Again.

When I was first diagnosed with HIV, my mother cried a lot. When she finally stopped crying, my parents took me to Disneyworld. It was pretty cool. Even though we lived in Miami, we hadn’t been in years because my sister, Carolina – who’s nine, now, eight years younger than I am -- had been too young to go on many rides before that. I didn’t think about why we went, that I was like one of those Make-a-Wish foundation kids who wants to see Mickey before he dies. It hadn’t totally sunk in yet, you know?

Even though I felt fine, Mom made me ride in this wheelchair we rented. In a stroke of brain dead-itude, I went along with her. There were tons of gimpy kids there, and we got to go right to the front at every ride. The line for Space Mountain was, like, two hours, but we shot up front and I stepped out of my wheelchair and got on. When the Disney guy let us ahead of this one family who was waiting, the dad turned to his son and said, “Don’t you hate people like that -- rent a wheelchair just to go first.”

Mom started crying then too. She yelled at the guy, “You should thank God you have healthy children. My son has HIV. He's dying.” And all around, people who’d been happy and smiling started looking afraid or away. It ruined the whole trip.

That was the first time it really sank in that I was going to die. Me. Die.

Die.

We haven’t gone back to Disney since then, and if I did, I wouldn’t ride in a stinking wheelchair. I don't need one. I’m no poster boy, and I am nowhere near needing to see Mickey. Besides, they’re making some big gains in AIDS medications. I could live twenty years, maybe. Maybe longer.

Or maybe not.

I don’t have AIDS yet, anyway – that’s the first thing anyone needs to know about me. I read all these books about it, and I know all about T-cell counts and viral loads, but the bottom line is: I was diagnosed with HIV a year ago, and I still feel fine. I’m not on meds yet. I’m hanging in, living with it. My doctors say if I keep doing what I’m supposed to, maybe they'll find a cure before I even get really sick.

So this year, we didn't go to Disney. In August, before we moved here to Podunkville, Florida, we went to New York City, and my mom and Aunt Maria took me to see this Broadway play called Rent. It won a lot of awards, and it's about people with AIDS. Of course, of all the musicals in New York, we had to see the one about AIDS. The people in the play, they're all junkies and homosexuals, and they're dealing with the fact that they're going to die, like, tomorrow. Aunt Maria hated the show because 1) It had loud music with electric guitars and stuff, which interfered with her sleeping; 2) It was depressing; 3) She said, “None of these people are like you, Alejandro. You are an innocent victim.” I guess she meant because the people in the show were in what you'd call high risk categories. Still, I think everyone with AIDS is an innocent victim. Most of the people I’ve met with HIV are in those higher-risk categories, and who cares? I don’t think anyone deserves to get sick or die. I mean, I wouldn’t wish this disease on Clinton Cole, much less some innocent homosexual.

Clinton Cole is what D.C. Comics would call my nemesis. He’s Joker to my Batman, Green Goblin to my Spidey. Since we moved to Pinedale, people have pretty much been assholes. But Clinton's, like, the uber-asshole.

The first weeks of school, it seemed like any time I turned a corner, everyone dove together, whispering. Did they think that because they were whispering, I didn't know they were talking about me? And the people who don’t whisper walk right past you in the hall, looking down pretending not to see you. I try not to get mad at those people, because I remember I used to do it myself before. When you see someone in a wheelchair or missing a leg or something, you don’t want to seem like you’re staring, so you look away. Which I now know is worse. And a lot of people backed up close to the wall when I walked by. The up-side (if you’d call it that) was, I didn’t have any trouble getting through the halls because no one would touch me.

But then there were the people like Clinton. People who didn’t care what I heard or thought. When I walked into the cafeteria the second day, he stood up and said, “Go back where you came from, fag.” And you could tell everyone was with him. Since then, he's been doing all kinds of other crap. He wore a surgical mask one day to government because we sit next to each other. I think he’s one of the people who left threatening notes in my locker, though I don't know for sure.

We moved here for Dad’s job. We lived in Miami all my life, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was better. I had some friends, like Austin and Danny, and other guys I hung with at school. Sure, a few people were weird, but not as many. And even though I stopped playing baseball when I got diagnosed, I was on the debate team. I made it to State with my original oratory last year, and I was going to try again this year.

Then, Dad’s company wanted to start an office here in Pinedale (Why here? Hell if I know), and they transferred him. I knew my parents didn't want to live here in the sticks, where there isn't so much as a Target, much less a mall. We have to drive to Gainesville to find a doctor who knows how to deal with me, and there are for sure no AIDS centers here. Without me, my parents probably wouldn’t have come here. They’d have choices. Dad could get a different job. But Dad had to stay with the company to keep his health insurance. We're pretty much uninsurable as new patients because of me.

And you know what the debate team at Pinedale is? Two guys who gave me the evil eye when I walked through the door. I walked right back out. It's not even worth trying to make friends in Pinedale.
And now I’m here in the hospital, listening to my mother crying because one of these rednecks thought I wasn’t dying quick enough and tried to take me out early. But he didn’t finish it off, so I’m here.
I hear my mother, moving around, and I keep my eyes closed, so she won’t know I’m awake. I can’t deal with any more crying right now.

But when I close my eyes, it’s like I’m there again. This morning. The sun streaming through my windshield. The baseball bat, the broken glass. The outline of some guy – the guy who attacked me.
And now, I’m here, face aching, and the rest of me just numb.

Numb.

Part I: Talia

Chapter 1

If I hear one more syllable about spindles, I shall surely die!

From my earliest memory, the subject has been worn to death in the castle, nay, in the entire kingdom. It is said that “spindle,” rather than “Mama” or “Papa,” was my first word in infancy, and I have little doubt that this is true, for ‘tis the word which lights more frequently than any other upon my most unwilling ears.

“Talia, dearest, you must never touch a spindle,” Mother would say as she tucked me into bed at night.

“I will not, Mother.”

“Vous non toucherez pas un fusee,” my tutor would say, during French lessons.

“I will not,” I told him, in English.

“If ye spy a spindle, ye must leave it alone,” the downstairs maid said as I left the castle, always with my governess, for I was never allowed a moment alone.

Every princeling, princess, or lesser noble who came to the castle to play was told of the restrictions upon spindles – lest they have one secreted about their person somewhere, or lest they mistakenly believe I was normal. Each servant was searched at the door, and thread was purchased from outside the kingdom. Even peasants were forbidden to have them. It was quite inconvenient for all concerned.

It should be said that I am not certain I would know a spindle if I saw one. But it seems unlikely that I ever shall.

“Why must I avoid spindles?” I asked my mother, in my earliest memory.

“You simply must,” she replied, so as not to scare me, I suppose.

“But why?” I persisted.

She sighed. “Children should be seen, not heard.”

I asked several times more before she excused herself, claiming a headache. As soon as she departed, I started in on my governess, Lady Brooke.

“Why am I never to touch a spindle?”

Lady Brooke looked aggrieved. It was frowned upon, she knew, to scold royal children. Father was a humane ruler, who never resorted to beheading. Still, she had her job to consider, if not her neck.

“It is forbidden,” she said.

Well, I stomped my foot and whined and cried, and when that failed to produce the desired result, I said, “If you do not answer, I will tell Father you slapped me.”

“You wicked, wicked girl! God above will punish you for such deceit!”

“No one punishes princesses.” My voice was calm. I was done with my screaming, now that I had discovered a better currency. “Not even God.”

“God cares not for rank and privilege. If you tell such an awful lie, you will surely be damned.”

“Then, you must keep me from such a sin, by telling me what I wish to know.” Even at four or five, I was precocious, and determined.

Finally, sighing, she told me.

I had been a long-wished for babe (this, I knew, for it had been told to me almost as often as the spindle speech), and when I was born, my parents invited much of the kingdom to my christening, including several women rumored to have magical powers.

“You mean fairies?” I interrupted, knowing she would not speak the word. Lady Brooke was highly religious, which seemed to mean that she believed in witches, who used their magic for evil, but not fairies, who used their powers for good. Still, even at four, I knew about fairies. Everyone did.

“There is no such a thing as fairies,” Lady Brooke said. “But yes, people said they were fairies. Your father welcomed them, for he hoped they would bring you magical gifts. But there was one person your father did not invite: The witch Malvolia.”

Lady Brooke went on to describe, at great length and in exhausting detail, the beauty of the day, the height of the sun in the sky, and the importance of the christening service. I closed my eyes. But when she attempted to carry me into my bed chamber, I woke and demanded, “What of the spindle?”

“Oh! I thought you were asleep.”

I continued to demand to know of the spindle, which led to a lengthy recitation of the gifts I had received from the various guests. I struggled to remain attentive, but I perked up when she began to describe the fairy gifts.

“Violet gave the gift of beauty, and Xanthe gave the gift of grace, though surely, such qualities cannot be given.”

I did not see why not. People often remarked upon my beauty and grace.

“Leila gave the gift of musical talent . . .”

I noted, privately, that I was already quite skilled on the harpsichord.

“. . . while Celia gave the gift of intelligence . . .”

It went without saying . . . .

Lady Brooke continued. “Flavia was about to step forward to give the gift of obedience – which would have been much-welcomed, if I do say so myself.” She winked at me, but the wink had a hint of annoyance which was not – I must say — appreciated.

“The spindle?” I reminded her, yawning.

“Just as Flavia, was ready to step forward and offer her much-desired gift of obedience, the door to the grand banquet hall was flung open. The witch Malvolia! The guards tried to stop her, but she brazened her way past them.

“’I demand to see the child!’ she said.

“Your nurse tried to block her way. But quicker than the bat of an eyelash, the nurse was on the floor and Malvolia was standing over your bassinet.

“Ah.” She seized you and held you up for all to see. ‘The accursed babe.’

“Your mother and father tried to soothe Malvolia with tales of invitations lost, but she repeated the word, ‘accursed,’ several times, and then she made good the curse itself.

“’Before her sixteenth birthday, the princess shall prick her finger on a spindle and die!’ she roared. And then, as quickly as she had arrived, she was gone. But the beautiful day was ruined and rain fell freely from the sky.”

“And then what?” I asked, far from being interested in the weather now that I understood that I might die by touching a spindle. Why had no one told me?

“Flavia tried to save the situation with her gift. She said that since Malvolia’s powers were immense, she could not reverse her spell, but she sought to modify it a bit.

“’The princess shall not die,’ she said. But as everyone was sighing their relief, she added, ‘Rather, the princess shall sleep. All Euphrasian citizens shall sleep also, protected from harm by this spell, and the kingdom shall be obscured from sight by a giant wood, unnoticed by the rest of the world, and removed from maps and memory until . . .’ People were becoming more nervous with each pronouncement. ‘one day, the kingdom shall be rediscovered by one who is destined to be the princess’s true love and the savior of the kingdom. The princess shall be awakened by her true love’s first kiss, and the kingdom shall return to normal and become visible to the world again.’”

“But that is stupid!” I burst out. “If the entire kingdom is asleep and and forgotten, who would be left to kiss me?”

Lady Brooke stopped speaking, and then, she actually scratched her head, as persons in stories are said to do when they are trying to work some great puzzle. At the end of it, she said, “I do not know. Someone would. That is what Flavia said.”

But even at my tender age, I knew this was improbable. Euphrasia was small, bounded on three sides by ocean, on the fourth by wilderness. The Belgians barely knew we existed, and if Euphrasia disappeared from sight and maps, the Belgians would forget us too. Other questions leaped to mind. How would we eat if we were all asleep? And wouldn’t we eventually die, like old people did? Indeed, the cure seemed worse than the original punishment.

But to each successive question, Lady Brooke merely said, “That is why you must never touch a spindle.”

And it is nigh upon my sixteenth birthday, and I never have touched one yet.

Chapter 1

“There once was a shoemaker who worked very hard, but was still very poor. . . .” The Elves and the Shoemaker

I’ve never seen a princess before. And it looks like I won’t be seeing one today either.

Let me back up: I come from a long line of shoe people. My grandfather called us cobblers, but that sounds more like a dessert than a person. My family’s run the shoe repair at the Coral Reef Grand, a posh hotel on South Beach, since before I was born, first my grandparents, then my parents, now my mother and me. So I’ve met the famous and infamous, the rich and the . . . poor (Okay, that would be me), wearers of Bruno Magli, Manolo Blahnik, and Converse (again, me). I know the beautiful people. Or, at least, I know their feet.

But, so far, I haven’t met a single princess.

“She should be here any minute,” Ryan, one of the college guys who works as a lifeguard, interrupts me as I rip the sole off a pair of Johnston Murphys a customer needs by eight.

“My friends texted me that her motorcade’s down Collins Avenue.”

“And this affects me, how?” I do want to go look for her, but I have to stay at my post.
Can’t afford to miss a customer.

“It affects you, Johnny, because anyone, any normal seventeen-year-old guy, would rip themselves away from the shoe counter if a hot-looking princess was in the lobby.”

“Some of us have to work. I have customers –”

“Yeah, shoes are important.”

“Money is.”

Ryan doesn’t usually talk to me. Like most guys my age who work here, he’s only earning money to gas the convertible he got for graduation or maybe to buy clothes. I notice he has on new Hollister polo that’s tight in the arms, probably to show off the muscles he’s always flexing.

Me, I work here to support my family, and the only workout I get involves running penny loafers through a Landis McKay stitcher. Even though I’ll be a senior in the fall, I won’t be off to college next year. No money. I’ll probably be repairing shoes until the day I croak.

“Don’t you want to see her?” Ryan looks at me like I’ve admitted I’m wearing Pull-ups or have gills. He flexes again.

Of course, I want to see her. I’ve been drooling over pictures of her on the cover of the Miami Herald, Miami New Times, Sun Sentinel, and USA Today newspapers that face out in the hotel coffee bar across the way. One tabloid claims she’s mated with an alien, but most of them show a hard-partier who frequently disgraces her family and her country. She’s in Miami for some important, top-secret business which probably involves consumption of many drinks with “tini” at the end of them.

Oh, yeah, and I know she’s beautiful.

And I, who have the most boring life of anyone, should at least get to see her, so that when I die of an aneurysm, trying to rip out a tough stitch, at least I’ll be able to say I once saw a princess.

“Mr. Farnesworth doesn’t want us out there, gawking at her. Besides, what if someone shows up and I’m not there?’

“Some kind of shoe emergency?” Ryan laughs.

“Yeah. It’s always an emergency when you can’t wear your shoes. I can’t do it.” I try to say it with finality, the way mom used to say, We can’t afford it when I was little, and I knew there’d be no more arguing.

“What’s up? My friend, Meg, sidles up toward me.

I’m glad to see Meg, who works the coffee counter next to our repair shop, but I know she’s going to be angry because her brothers, who worked last night, didn’t clean up at all. Like me, Meg works for her parents, helping out even during the school year. She’s my best friend, and usually the only friend I have time for. In middle school, I had a sort of crush on her. I even took her to our eighth grade dance. She wanted to make some other guy jealous, but for a moment on the dance floor, I thought there could be something there.
But that was a long time ago.

Anyway, Meg will understand why I can’t go with Ryan.

Ryan flexes and looks Meg up and down, like he does every girl. “I was trying to convince Johnny here to take five minutes off from the fast-paced world of shoe repair to go see Princess Vicky’s motorcade. This guy never wants to have any fun.”

Meg makes a face and lays her hand on my arm. “And why, exactly, would John want to see Eurotrash?”

“Hello?” Ryan says. “Because he’s a seventeen year old guy with normal male urges, and she’s got –“ He holds both hands out from his chest.

“Really pretty eyes.” I complete his sentence.

Meg rolls her own brown eyes. “And the IQ of a single-celled creature.”

“Anyway, he’s not going.” Ryan just has to keep putting the boot in. “The boy is in love with shoes.”

“The shoe that fits one person pinches another.” This, I say with a wink to Meg. She and I collect quotes about shoes. I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to use that one.
“Carl Jung said that.”

“Carl who?” Ryan asks.

“A Swiss psychiatrist,” I say. “Ever hear of Jungian –”

“Whatever,” Ryan says. “So you’re really not coming?”

Meg glances at me. “I can tell your customers you’ll be right back, if you want to go. But I’m sure –“

“Can you? Thanks.” I know Meg expected me to turn her down, but I really do want to go. Not that I’ll ever get closer to Victoriana than watching her check in from behind a potted palm. But still, it’s a brush with adventure, and adventure is something I get none of.

“Gotta go!” Ryan holds up his phone. “Pete at the door just texted that her limo’s in view.”

“You’ve got connections,” Meg says to Ryan.

“It’s the name of the game.” Ryan moves closer to her. “Maybe you and I could make a connection sometime – like, say, Friday night?”

I’m sure Meg will say yes. Most girls turn into puddles of drool around him. But she doesn’t even smile. “No, thanks. You’re not my type.”

Ryan looks as surprised as I feel. “What’s your type? Other girls?”

Meg shrugs, glances at me, then shrugs again. “Why don’t you go ogle your princess now?”

“You’re sure you don’t mind covering for me?” I know she does.

“Just go before I change my mind.”

Ryan glances back at Meg as we walk away. “She’s hot for you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“She is. You should go for it. She may not be that good-looking, but you can’t be too picky.”

“She turned you down flat.” I look back at Meg, who’s still looking after both of us. She flips her chin-length brown hair back from her eyes, and for a second, I remember that night in eighth grade. But when she sees me looking at her, she holds up her hands like what are you looking at. “Nope, she and I are just friends.”

Still, I wave to her before I make the turn toward the lobby.

Chapter 2

The lobby is bustling like the Calle Ocho street carnival, but without the salsa music. A housekeeper leads six swans on their morning waddle around the hotel fountain. Another removes a cover from a parrot cage. The Miami sun streams through the thirty-foot high windows at the front of the room, hitting the marble floors so they look like pure gold. It also makes it hard to see because the manager, Mr. Farnesworth, glances right in my direction. I think he’s going to come over, but then, his head snaps back, and I see why. Every bellhop in the place is entering, each carrying two Louis Vuitton suitcases. I skitter sideways, quick as a crab and stand as I’d planned, behind a potted palm, imagining what must be in those suitcases. The shoes. Pradas, Stuart Weitzmans, Dolce and Gabbana, Jimmy Choo, and Alexander McQueen!

Ryan’s right. I’m not normal. No one else would think of shoes at a time like this.

Among the suitcases, I notice a dog carrier. Now, needless to say, the Coral Reef doesn’t allow dogs, but I guess you don’t tell princesses that. It’s a large carrier, and I peer through the bars, expecting a standard poodle or an afghan. But, instead, I see a bloodhound’s black and brown face and sad eyes staring back at me.

“Hey, boy,” I say.

The dog growls.

“Nice going.” Ryan has also taken up residence behind the palm. “He sees us.”

He means Farnesworth, who’s taken his eyes off the door long enough to march over to our palm. “You! Where are you supposed to be?”

“We’re on break,” Ryan says.

“Be on break elsewhere. I don’t want you bothering the princess.”

“Excusez moi?” a voice interrupts. “You are ze hotel manager?”

Farnesworth turns and takes a step back, then a second, onto my foot. I try to jump back.
It’s her!

Farnesworth, still on my foot, stutters, unable to form words. I wonder if they’ll send a chambermaid to clean up after him when he pees his pants.

“Uh . . .” he manages.

I bow, pushing Ryan down with me. I’m really trying not to stare at her shoes, but from this angle, they’re the only thing I can see. Roberto Cavalli. Italian, black and white v-strap platforms with a woven leather upper and an architectural heel.

“’allo?” She’s still trying to make contact with Farnesworth, who’s panting like he just jogged down the beach. Sweating too. She leans toward me and gestures that I can stand. That’s when I get my first good look at her.

I’ve seen lots of pictures, but none of them prepare me for the real thing. Her beauty shocks me, which is saying a lot, considering I live in South Beach, where hot is the new average. She has long, white-blonde hair that curls down to her perfectly proportioned hips. Even though she emphasizes her body with fitted clothes and a short skirt, her huge eyes, which are bluer than the ocean outside, make her look all innocent, like a Disney princess.

“Nice dog,” I manage.
Oh, I am such an idiot.

She nods and opens the cage. The dog scampers out, looking for something to sniff, but at a signal from the princess, he comes right back and sits behind her. She strokes its head, then turns to me.

“Is he . . .” She nods at Farnesworth. “ . . . not right?”

“He’s okay, usually.”

Farnesworth’s mouth tries to move. “You . . . you’re . . .”

“I am Victoriana.”

People are like shoes. Some are like sneakers or flip flops, while others are like high-heeled pumps. Princess Victoriana is like the shoes she wears – not very practical, but beautiful.

Farnesworth finds his voice. “I didn’t expect you to . . . I mean, I thought I’d be dealing with your lady-in-waiting or . . . something.”

“She is back zere.” She gestures behind her at a woman with short hair, a plain skirt, and what looks like the Alorian version of Aerosoles. “Slow.” She looks at Ryan and me. “And zis . . . zis are some of your employees?”

Mr. Farnesworth recovers with a look of complete contempt. “Oh, them. Don’t worry. I won’t let them bother you.” He flicks his hand at Ryan. “Surely your break is over. And you . . .”

He glances at me.

“Non, non. Zere is no need to leave. I will be here, may be some time, and I would like to know zose who offer zere services.” She looks at Ryan particularly. It’s news that she’s staying a long time. Actors sometimes stay a while if they’re filming a movie, but visiting dignitaries are usually only here a day or two. She looks again at Ryan. “What is your name?”

He grins, used to attention but still flattered. “I’m Ryan. I work at the pool. Maybe if you’re there sometime, I can rub lotion on your back.”

“May be, may be not.” The princess maintains eye contact an instant longer than required, and I can tell she’s sizing Ryan up. I fantasize she doesn’t like what she sees. She turns to me. “And you? Who are you, and what do you do?”

Words fail me. Why does she want to know about me?

“Say something!” Farnesworth hisses, thumping me on the back. Like he was so eloquent!

I say, “I’m Johnny. I . . .” And the second before I say it, I’m ashamed of it. “I repair shoes. My family runs the shoe repair here.” I gesture toward the hotel shops.

“Shoes!” She claps her hands like it’s the most wonderful news she’s ever heard. “I love ze shoes! I have a suitcase of zem!”

I laugh. Of course she does. She’s a princess.

“You laugh at me? You think my love of shoes is – ‘ow you say – shallow?”

“I didn’t –”

“May be I am. But I believe zat ze shoes, zey are magical, like Cendrillon, Cinderella to you – or ze Red Shoes. I believe in magic. Do you?”

I gape at her. “Uh, I guess so.” One of the swans from the fountain walks by, and the bloodhound starts to bark, not a mean bark, but a soft, steady bark, like he’s talking to it. Victoriana places her small hand in front of the dog, and he stops.

“Where I come from in Aloria,” Victoriana says, “there is magic. Sometimes good, sometimes not so . . .” She stops and shakes her head, obviously realizing she sounds nuts and should change the subject. “You must never be ashamed of shoes, and to work for your family is honorable. I, too, am in ze family business. It is not always easy.”

I nod, thinking it seems pretty easy to me, traveling around and going to parties. But maybe it isn’t. Staring into Victoriana’s eyes, she doesn’t seem to be the girl from the newspapers and the tabloids, the party girl who cares only about clothes and drinking. Instead, her eyes are sort of sad, like she feels trapped in her life, just as I am in mine.

Farnesworth must decide that’s enough from me, because he offers her his arm. “Your check-in has already been taken care of. I can show you to your room.”

The princess looks at me an instant longer before saying, “Very well.” She ignores Farnesworth’s arm and starts toward the elevator. Farnesworth trots behind her.

Ryan and I head in the opposite direction. When we reach the hallway that goes to the pool, I turn to Ryan. “God, I think I’m in love.”

“Yeah, whoudda thought? A princess who’s obsessed with shoes. Shame you’re not better-looking. And shame you don’t work at the pool like me. I’ll probably get to see her every day in a bikini.”

“Yeah.” I’ll never see her again. Princesses don’t get their shoes repaired. They send the servants out for new ones.

He starts to whistle, then stops, maybe seeing how seriously depressed I am “They’re looking for a new lifeguard. You should apply.”

I shake my head. “Can’t.”

“Can’t swim?”

“Nah. I’m a great swimmer. But my mom needs me to work in the shoe repair. It’s just the two of us.”

“Cut the cord. You’re what, seventeen? Time to make your own decisions.” He shrugs.
“Suit yourself.”

I glance at the elevators. Victoriana’s boarding the one that goes all the way to the Penthouse. She’s scratching the dog’s ears. I picture myself with them, flying all the way to the sky.

MLots of girls I know call themselves divas. “I’m such a diva!” they say, as they’re rubbing your nose in some five-hundred dollar shoes Daddy bought them. But being a diva’s a lot more than just being a rich grrrl. It’s about singing, about getting flowers thrown onstage -- about being brilliant. I plan to be a diva someday. But first, I have to get through this audition.
And – wouldn’t you know it -- there’s a wad of phlegm stuck in my throat.
The scene: I’m in an auditorium with maybe fifty other wannabes, trying out for the musical theater program at Miami High School of the Arts. Goths sit with Goths, punk rockers with punk rockers. The girl next to me has an eyebrow ring and hair Jello-dyed acid red. Everyone here has something freaky about them, except me. I’m the one and only person here in a dress (which, maybe, is freaky).
And I bet I’m the only one here with gunk in my throat.
Don’t think about it. But I can feel it, lying behind my tongue like cafeteria spaghetti, at a life-changing audition. I clear my throat and Eyebrow Ring Girl gives me a look and nods at the person onstage.
‘Scuse me – I’ll choke more quietly in the future.
I sneak another look at her. My cheerleader friends would say she probably isn’t getting enough attention at home. But I think anyone who’d wear that outfit has to be cool, and I wonder what it would be like to want to be noticed.
Me, I’m all about not being noticed. I’m sixteen, and for the first fifteen, I was a fatgirl, invisible as they come. I was okay with that. Well, maybe not okay, but . . . used to it. But last summer, I went to fat camp and lost thirty-five pounds, and became (at least temporarily) a thin girl, a blond prettygirl. I actually made the homecoming court and dumped the hottest guy in school . . . and still became one with the walls most days.
If any of my friends knew I was here, auditioning for a performing arts school, that they’d notice. In a bad way. But I didn’t tell any of them. I didn’t even tell my mother. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever done anything all by myself.
There’s a bunch of reasons for that.
First, my friends all want me to be like them – cheerleaders, homecoming queens. I thought by losing weight, I could be like that. But now, even though I’m thin enough, I’m still not cheerleader material. Funny, changing how I looked didn’t change who I am. I picture myself doing a pyramid or making up a cheer and . . . oh, puke.
“See anything interesting?”
Too late, I realize I’m still staring at the girl with the eyebrow ring. I am a dorkus maximus.
“Um . . . I love your hair.”
“What are you doing?” she asks.
I stare at her. Is it that obvious I don’t belong here? Is it the dress?
“For the audition? Habla ingles? What are you performing?”
“Oh . . .I sing . . . opera.” I wait for her to laugh, or make a snarky comment.
“Cool.” She raises her pierced eyebrow. “You have one of those horn helmets?”
I make the face Mom calls my Diva face – eyeballs up, and trying not to snort. “Um, not yet.”
“Sorry. It’s just, you don’t look like an opera singer. You’re not . . .”
“Fat?” No. Not anymore.
The girl laughs. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
But I know it was. It always is.
The woman up front calls a name (not mine). Eyebrow Ring Girl turns to look.
Opera is the second reason I’m here. I love it. Most people think opera is a weird thing. Probably so. But it’s my weird thing – the one thing I’m really good at. Maybe good enough to get a dessert named after me someday (Peaches Melba was named after a diva) or maybe a town. Maybe even good enough to get into this school.
The biggest, hugest reason I’m here (and the reason I’d never tell anyone) is my ex-boyfriend. I need to go somewhere where everyone hasn’t already heard the sad, sad saga of me and Nick. And also, where I don’t have to see him every day.
I pop a cough drop into my mouth and make myself sit still for two whole minutes, until the girl up front finishes singing.
Omigod! What if I’m next?
“Sean Griffin,” the woman up front calls.
I actually really, really wanted to be next.
I read a book about auditioning. It said worst thing that could happen in an audition is that you don’t get the part, so you have no money, so you can’t buy food, so you die. Like . . . if you thought that the absolute worst thing that could happen at an audition was death, then you’d be less nervous about screwing up.
That so did not make me feel better.
“Here I am!” a voice sings.
The guy, Sean Griffin, is skinny and wears a purple unitard, which seriously clashes with blond hair and eyes so blue I can see them even from a distance. He looks older, and he’s been standing with the teachers, so I thought he was an assistant or something. Guess he’s just a suck-up. He walks onstage, plunks a Burger King crown on his head (Really!) and starts to sing.
Everything has its season. Everything has its time.
Show me the reason and I’ll soon show you a rhyme!

As soon as he starts singing, I’m nervous. I mean, more nervous. Lots of people at the audition were good. But Sean Griffin is the first person who’s like a professional, even in that geeky outfit. I now know why he was standing up there with the teachers, like he belonged there. He knows he’s going to get in.
I wish I was confident like that. I know I’m good, but sometimes, when everyone’s staring, I wonder if it’s just some dumb idea, thinking I’m good enough.
He finishes singing, and the applause is wild. He smiles, like he’s used to it.
“Caitlin McCourt!”
Now, it’s my turn. My throat feels worse. I wonder if it could be all in my head. Is there such a thing as psychosomatic mucus?
“Caitlin McCourt?”
“Here.” I start downstairs.
Onstage, the accompanist says, “Hey, how about a bathroom break?”
“Oh.” The teacher looks at her watch. “Okay. Caitlin, do you need an accompanist, or do you have a tape?”
I glance at the sheet music for Phantom of the Opera in my hands. But I’ve done the hardest part, I want to tell them, the standing up and walking down and having everyone stare at me in my too-cute dress part. I turn back around.
“I can play for her.” The guy, Sean, is reaching for my sheet music.
“Oh, that’s okay. I can wait. I wouldn’t want . . .”
“No worries. I can play anything. I’m a great sightreader.” He takes my book and flips it open to the page where I’ve had my thumb jammed for the past hour. “This?”
When I nod, he glances at the book. “Hard stuff.”
“I can wait if you can’t play it.” Except if I sit now, I might never get back up.
“I meant hard for you. This goes up to a C above high C, doesn’t it? That’s way high. Are you that good?”
Wow, thanks. That really helped me feel less nervous.
Actually, I’ve had that C for over a year. I write down the dates when I add new notes to my range. High C was last March 13. Now, I’m working on E-flat.
“Come on, Caitlin. It’s Caitlin, right?” Sean puts his hand on my shoulder and guides me toward the stage. My legs are all shaking.
My legs always used to shake when I sang. It hasn’t happened in a while . . . .

* * *
Flashback: Me. Sixth grade. Looking like I might explode out of my jeans any second, at middle school orientation. I was with Mom (Big mistake). I was signing up for chorus. The music teacher, Mrs. Hauser, said I could either go for girls’ chorus – no audition required – or try for concert choir, which was mostly eighth graders.
“Girls’ chorus sounds fun. Right, Caitlin?” Mom stopped fiddling with the purple alligator clip in her hair and started toward the sign up sheet on the piano. She was wearing hot pink size one capris and a tube top. Doesn’t everyone’s mother?
“Wait. I don’t want to be in Girls’ Chorus. I mean, I do want to be, if that’s all I can be in, but I want to be in Concert Choir. I mean, I want to try.”
Mom had moved away from the sign-up sheet and was nudging me, all, “Caitlin, sweetie, there’s an audition. That means you’d have to sing in front of everybody. By yourself.”
“I know. I heard her. I get it.”
“But Honey-pie, you can’t sing by yourself in front of everyone. You’re . . .”
Fat. I heard it even though she didn’t say it. I heard her, thinking it.
“You’re shy . . . you’ve never sung in front of anyone in your life, dear.”
“Can I try?” I asked Mrs. Hauser, not Mom.
“Of course you can.”
“Are you sure, honey?” Mom said. “I have appointments. You heard what she said. It’s all eighth graders.”
Mrs. Hauser stood there with an Oh-God-don’t-make-me-get-involved-in-this look. I faced Mom down for the first time ever.
“I’m staying.” I took the pen from Mrs. Hauser and wrote my name on the audition sheet. I joined the kids in the corner, and Mom sat down.
When Mrs. H. called my name, I wanted to run. Mom was right. It was one thing to sing in my room. It was a completely ‘nother thing to sing in front of fifty people – and not one of them looked like a sixth grader. But I walked up, feeling like Snow White in the movie – pre-dwarves -- when she’s dumped in the forest and all the eyes are looking at her from the darkness. My legs were shaking so hard I thought I’d fall over.
I closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and started to sing.
The world didn’t end. Halfway through, my legs stopped shaking.
I opened my eyes.
In Snow White, when the a.m. hours come, Snow realizes that the scary eyes in the night are really gentle woodland creatures. That’s how I felt that day. The people in that room were looking at me, but not in a bad way. I’d never met them, but they were like friends. They wanted to know me because I was good. I was really good. At that moment, maybe I was even a little visible.
I made concert choir that day -- the only sixth grade girl who did, thank-you-very-much -- and since then, I’ve made most things I’ve tried for.
Here and now: My legs are shaking so hard I can barely stand, so I lean against the piano like those opera singers on PBS. I’m calm. Really. I breathe. You’re good at breathing, Caitlin. Very good. You practice breathing for opera.
“Are you ready . . . Caitlin?” Sean says my name real soft.
I nod. If I could still close my eyes, I would. But of course, I’d look like a complete dork if I did that.
Right before the music starts is the quietest time in the world. I can hear other people breathing. Then, my song. I can feel it in my body. It’s too late to back out now. It’s sing or be forever known as the girl who ran away in the middle of the audition.
Concentrate!
In the song, Christine’s this opera singer who’s possessed by the Phantom of the opera. He sings through her, inside her, making his voice come through hers. I try to feel the Phantom singing through me, locked inside, making my voice climb higher, higher, until my muscles hurt from breathing. Up! I think, as I was taught, forcing the voice into my head, and through it all, I feel the Phantom inside me, hear his voice, screaming, “Sing, my Angel of Music! Sing to me!” like the voice on the CD. It seems so real, and my voice climbs higher, higher, and only when it gets to the highest note do I realize that the Phantom’s voice is real, not just in my head. It’s Sean Griffin’s voice behind me at the piano.
I gasp out my last note, a high C, and it’s over.
Then, silence again.
Then, applause. Big applause.
Sean grins at me from the piano bench. I grin back.
Okay. So I can, on occasion, rock.

* * *
Back in my seat, I listen to the fifth girl to sing On My Own from Les Miz. She’s also the worst. I feel bad for her. Then, the girl with the eyebrow ring, who does the witch’s rap from Into the Woods, and who is so good I sort of hate her, and a six foot tall football player type who actually sings I Whistle a Happy Tune from The King and I badly while everyone tries not to lose it.
And then, it’s over. “You’ll hear one way or the other next month,” the director tells us. “Thanks for coming.”
People start leaving. I want to say something to Eyebrow-Ring Girl, compliment her on how incredible she was, but she’s already gone. I stoop to pick up my music.
“Hey,” a voice says behind me.
I look up. It’s Sean Griffin. People are walking out.
“Hi,” I say. “Um, thanks for playing for me.”
“No problem. You need a ride somewhere?”
I took the train here, and I have to take a bus home from the train station. But I get in a car with some guy I don’t know, just because he’s a good singer. With my luck with guys, he’ll turn out to be a perv or a serial killer.
“Uh, no thanks,” I say. “My mom’s picking me up.”
“Oh, okay.” He grins. Up close, his eyes aren’t really blue, but they’re not green either. I wonder if they’ve changed since I first looked. Weird.
“Bye.” He walks away. When he reaches the door, he says, “Hey, Caitlin.”
“What?”
“I’ll see you at school.”
It takes me a second to realize he means this school. I laugh. “Oh . . . if I get in.”
He laughs too. But he says, “You will. With a voice like that, you can do anything you want.”
He’s gone before I can say anything else. I look around. The room’s cleared out, and I’m all alone. The sun’s streaming through the dirty windows, and I watch Sean as he goes to the street. Then I watch his back until he is totally swallowed up by the glare.

Opera_Grrrl’s Online Journal
Subject: Hi!
Date: April 5
Time: 9:37 p.m.
Feeling: Thoughtful

Weight: 115 lbs. this morning (Eek!)
Days Since I Auditioned for Miami HS of Performing Arts: 23

Okay, so here’s the deal. My former shrink, Lucia (*long* story) was after me to keep a journal. “Write your thoughts,” she said. “U don’t have to show anyone.”
I.e, a pointless exercise. No thx! I do enough of those in SCHOOL!
Besides, who wants a notebook where anyone can read my “thoughts?” Like, what if I got hit by a bus??? I can just picture it: Mom, drumming her pink-manicured nails on my hosp. bed, all “Oh, Sugar-Dumpling, I know u feel bad, but could u possibly explain this little thing on page 15?” Again: No thx!
But some of my friends started keeping these Online Journal things, & I thought that would be better. The anonymous thing is cool. The *world* can read it, but my ex-boyfriend, Internet stalkers, etc. (“etc.” meaning my mother), won’t know its me. The journal name, Opera_Grrrl, is my secret identity. Think Clark Kent/Superman, Bruce Wayne/Batman.
Okay………..some important details:
Name: Well, I’m not going to tell you that (See above)
Age: 16
Occupation: Student @ a high school in Fla (but thinking about making a change)
Hobbies/Interests: See above…………I love to sing!!!
Pet Peeves: People who think my hobbies & interests are weird
Dating Status: Unattached
The question ur all wondering about (even tho probably no 1 is reading this: The reason I had a therapist is bc I recently broke up w/ the boyfriend from HELL!!!

What is the Boyfriend from Hell? It is one who seems really perfect:

wicked hot
nice car
showed up on time
brought flowers
wrote poetry

But also:
hit me
told me i was fat
said i should only hang out w/ his friends b/c mine were all losers
said no one would ever want 2 be w/ me but him
said my singing was stupid
and, um, did i mention, HIT ME???

So this past Dec, I broke up w/ him, & I actually went to ct. and got a piece of paper that says if he comes 2 close, i can call the cops & they will throw his butt in jail.
That’s when i got the shrink 2. I went for a month or 2, sat in a circle w/ other girls who’d had bad boyfriends, talked about them, wrote poetry about them, did interpretive dances about them, role-played what we’d say if we saw them, cried, etc., etc., etc…………then i got tired of wallowing in my problems so i stopped going. i use the time for practicing my singing now. *That’s* therapy.
But every once in a while, I think about getting back together w/ Nick. How wacko does that make me???
Which is why I’m also thinking about switching schools.

"C'était sensé être mes meilleures vacances, celles pour les quelles j'ai travaillé depuis pratiquement toujours. Maintenant, je suis bani de tout ce que je connais et aime, et ça n'a juste aucun sense."

« Anna était d'une curiosité insatiable. Elle lisait sans arrêt, elle écoutait de la musique, regardait des tonnes de films et était constamment sur le Net pour se chercher de nouveaux bouquins à lire, de nouveaux disques à écouter, de nouvelles choses à voir. Il n'existait rien au monde qu'elle n'ait pas envie de connaître. Je voyais mal quelqu'un doté d'une telle soif d'explorer le monde tout faire pour le quitter. Ça ne collait pas. »

Chapitre XIII - La fête étrange
Dès qu’ils eurent disparu, l’écolier sortit de sa cachette. Il avait les pieds glacés, les articulations raides ; mais il était reposé et son genou paraissait guéri.

"Descendre au dîner, pensa-t-il, je ne manquerai pas de le faire. Je serai simplement un invité dont tout le monde a oublié le nom. D’ailleurs, je ne suis pas un intrus ici. Il est hors de doute que M. Maloyau et son compagnon m’attendaient…"

Au sortir de l’obscurité totale de l’alcôve, il put y voir assez distinctement dans la chambre éclairée par les lanternes vertes.

Le bohémien l’avait "garnie". Des manteaux étaient accrochés aux patères. Sur une lourde table à toilette, au marbre brisé, on avait disposé de quoi transformer en muscadin tel garçon qui eût passé la nuit précédente dans une bergerie abandonnée. Il y avait, sur la cheminée, des allumettes auprès d’un grand flambeau. Mais on avait omis de cirer le parquet ; et Meaulnes sentit rouler sous ses souliers du sable et des gravats. De nouveau il eut l’impression d’être dans une maison depuis longtemps abandonnée… En allant vers la cheminée, il faillit buter contre une pile de grands cartons et de petites boîtes : il étendit le bras alluma la bougie, puis souleva les couvercles et se pencha pour regarder.

C’étaient des costumes de jeunes gens d’il y a longtemps, des redingotes à hauts cols de velours, de fins gilets très ouverts, d’interminables cravates blanches et des souliers vernis du début de ce siècle. Il n’osait rien toucher du bout du doigt, mais après s’être nettoyé en frissonnant, il endossa sur sa blouse d’écolier un des grands manteaux dont il releva le collet plissé, remplaça ses souliers ferrés par de fins escarpins vernis et se prépara à descendre nu-tête.

Il arriva, sans rencontrer personne, au bas d’un escalier de bois, dans un recoin de cour obscur. L’haleine glacée de la nuit vint lui souffler au visage et soulever un pan de son manteau.

Il fit quelques pas et, grâce à la vague clarté du ciel, il put se rendre compte aussitôt de la configuration des lieux. Il était dans une petite cour formée par des bâtiments des dépendances. Tout y paraissait vieux et ruiné. Les ouvertures au bas des escaliers étaient béantes, car les portes depuis longtemps avaient été enlevées ; on n’avait pas non plus remplacé les carreaux des fenêtres qui faisaient des trous noirs dans les murs. Et pourtant toutes ces bâtisses avaient un mystérieux air de fête. Une sorte de reflet coloré flottait dans les chambres basses où l’on avait dû allumer aussi, du côté de la campagne, des lanternes. La terre était balayée, on avait arraché l’herbe envahissante. Enfin, en prêtant l’oreille, Meaulnes crut entendre comme un chant, comme des voix d’enfants et de jeunes filles, là-bas, vers les bâtiments confus où le vent secouait des branches devant les ouvertures roses, vertes et bleues des fenêtres.

Il était là, dans son grand manteau, comme un chasseur, à demi penché, prêtant l’oreille, lorsqu’un extraordinaire petit jeune homme sortit du bâtiment voisin, qu’on aurait cru désert.

Il avait un chapeau haut de forme très cintré qui brillait dans la nuit comme s’il eût été d’argent ; un habit dont le col lui montait dans les cheveux, un gilet très ouvert, un pantalon à sous-pieds… Cet élégant, qui pouvait avoir quinze ans, marchait sur la pointe des pieds comme s’il eût été soulevé par les élastiques de son pantalon, mais avec une rapidité extraordinaire. Il salua Meaulnes au passage sans s’arrêter, profondément, automatiquement, et disparut dans l’obscurité, vers le bâtiment central, ferme, château ou abbaye, dont la tourelle avait guidé l’écolier au début de l’après-midi.

Après un instant d’hésitation, notre héros emboîta le pas au curieux petit personnage. Ils traversèrent une sorte de grande cour-jardin, passèrent entre des massifs, contournèrent un vivier enclos de palissades, un puits, et se trouvèrent enfin au seuil de la demeure centrale.

Une lourde porte de bois, arrondie dans le haut et cloutée comme une porte de presbytère, était à demi ouverte. L’élégant s’y engouffra. Meaulnes le suivit, et, dès ses premiers pas dans le corridor, il se trouva, sans voir personne, entouré de rires, de chants, d’appels et de poursuites.

Tout au bout de celui-ci passait un couloir transversal. Meaulnes hésitait s’il allait pousser jusqu’au fond ou bien ouvrir une des portes derrière lesquelles il entendait un bruit de voix, lorsqu’il vit passer dans le fond deux fillettes qui se poursuivaient. Il courut pour les voir et les rattraper, à pas de loup, sur ses escarpins. Un bruit de portes qui s’ouvrent, deux visages de quinze ans que la fraîcheur du soir et la poursuite ont rendus tout roses, sous de grands cabriolets à brides, et tout va disparaître dans un brusque éclat de lumière.

Une seconde, elles tournent sur elles-mêmes, par jeu ; leurs amples jupes légères se soulèvent et se gonflent ; on aperçoit la dentelle de leurs longs, amusants pantalons ; puis, ensemble, après cette pirouette, elles bondissent dans la pièce et referment la porte.

Meaulnes reste un moment ébloui et titubant dans ce corridor noir. Il craint maintenant d’être surpris. Son allure hésitante et gauche le ferait, sans doute, prendre pour un voleur. Il va s’en retourner délibérément vers la sortie, lorsque de nouveau il entend dans le fond du corridor un bruit de pas et des voix d’enfants. Ce sont deux petits garçons qui s’approchent en parlant.

"Est-ce qu’on va bientôt dîner ? leur demande Meaulnes avec aplomb.

— Viens avec nous, répond le plus grand, on va t’y conduire."

Et avec cette confiance et ce besoin d’amitié qu’ont les enfants, la veille d’une grande fête, ils le prennent chacun par la main. Ce sont probablement deux petits garçons de paysans. On leur a mis leurs plus beaux habits : de petites culottes coupées à mi-jambe qui laissent voir leurs gros bas de laine et leurs galoches, un petit justaucorps de velours bleu, une casquette de même couleur et un nœud de cravate blanc.

"La connais-tu, toi ? demande l’un des enfants.

— Moi, fait le plus petit, qui a une tête ronde et des yeux naïfs, maman m’a dit qu’elle avait une robe noire et une collerette et qu’elle ressemblait à un joli pierrot.

— Qui donc ? demanda Meaulnes.

— Eh bien, la fiancée que Frantz est allé chercher…"

Avant que le jeune homme ait rien pu dire, ils sont tous les trois arrivés à la porte d’une grande salle où flambe un beau feu. Des planches, en guise de table, ont été posées sur des tréteaux ; on a étendu des nappes blanches, et des gens de toutes sortes dînent avec cérémonie.

... NEUF HEURES MOINS LE QUART, ET TOUJOURS PAS LE MOINDRE SIGNE DE CETTE DAMNEE TETE DE MULE!

Few places are so steeped in folklore as London, a city with almost as many ancient legends and deep-rooted customs as it has streets and landmarks, and in London Lore leading folklorist Steve Roud brings together an astonishingly rich selection of them: tales of ghosts and witches, stories about fabled events, heroes and villains, and accounts of local supersitions and beliefs. His range extends right across the capital, from Hampstead in the north, where wild beasts were once thought to roam the sewers, to Anerley Wood in the south, haunt of the much feared Norwood Gypsies, and from Hounslow Heath with its notorious highwaymen to Bethnal Green, long associated with Earl Henry de Montfort, better known as the Blind Beggar. But London Lore does more than simply retell these stories and traditions; it also delves through layers of hearsay and speculation to investigate how and why they arose in the first place. In the process, it shows how the familiar story of Dick Whittington and his cat has connections with the ancient Middle East. It explains why lions rather than ravens at the Tower of London were once felt to be inextricably bound up with the city’s fate. It pinpoints precisely where the story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, was first recorded. And it explores the origins of the once widespread custom of handing out ‘farthing bundles’ of ribbons, buttons and beads to poor children in the East End. Some of these stories and beliefs are shown to have their origins in actual historical events; others to have stemmed from contemporary preoccupations and fears. What they all reveal is the powerful hold that London has exerted on the popular imagination over the centuries, as each successive generation has reshaped existing tales and added new ones of its own.

L'oscillation dont nous venons de parler n'est pas une oscillation parmi d'autres, une oscillation entre deux pôles. Elle oscille entre deux genres d'oscillation : la double exclusion (ni / ni) et la participation (à la fois... et, ceci et cela). Mais avons-nous le droit de transporter la logique, la paralogique ou la métalogique de cette sur-oscillation d'un ensemble à l'autre ? Elle concernait d'abord des genres d'étant (sensible / intelligible, visible / invisible, forme / sans forme, icône ou mimême / paradigme), mais nous l'avons déplacée vers des genres de discours (mythos / logos) ou de rapport à ce qui est ou n'est pas en général. Un tel déplacement ne va sans doute pas de soi. Il dépend d'une sorte de métonymie : celle-ci se déplacerait, en déplaçant les noms, des genres d'être aux genres de discours. Mais, d'une part, il est toujours difficile, en particulier chez Platon, de séparer les deux problématiques : la qualité du discours tient d'abord à la qualité de l'être dont il parle. Un peu comme si un nom ne devait se donner qu'à (ce) qui d'abord le mérite et l'appelle. Le discours, comme le rapport à ce qui est en général, se trouve qualifié ou disqualifié par ce à quoi il se rapporte. D'autre part, la métonymie s'autorise d'un passage par le genre, d'un genre à l'autre, de la question des genres d'être à la question des genres de discours. Or le discours sur la khôra est aussi un discours sur le genre (genos) et sur différents genres de genre. Nous en viendrons plus tard au genre comme gens ou peuple (genos, ethnos) dont le thème apparaît à l'ouverture du Timée. Dans le contexte étroit qui nous retient à l'instant, celui de la séquence sur la khôra, nous rencontrons encore deux genres de genre.

Quelle imminence ? Quelque chose d’unique est en cours en Europe, dans ce qui s’appelle encore l’Europe même si on ne sait plus très bien ce qui s’appelle ainsi. À quel concept, en effet, à quel individu réel, à quelle entité singulière assigner ce nom aujourd’hui ? Qui en dessinera les frontières ?
Se refusant aussi bien à l’analogie qu’à l’anticipation, ce qui s’annonce ainsi parait sans précédent. Expérience angoissée de l’imminence, traversée de deux certitudes contradictoires : le très vieux sujet de l’identité culturelle en général (avant la guerre, on aurait peut-être parlé de l’identité « spirituelle »), le très vieux sujet de l’identité européenne a certes l’antiquité vénérable d’un thème épuisé. Mais ce « sujet » garde peut-être un corps vierge. Son nom ne masquerait-il pas quelque chose qui n’a pas encore de visage ? Nous nous demandons dans l’espoir, la crainte et le tremblement à quoi va ressembler ce visage. Ressemblera-t-il encore ? Et à celui de quelqu’un que nous croyons connaître, Europe ? Et si sa non-ressemblance avait les traits de l’avenir, échappera-t-elle à la monstruosité ?