The people here think I’m just like Mouse on the inside, a good girl waiting to get out, but their Find-Jesus program won’t work on me. No, I’m a different species altogether. If Mouse is a rodent, then I’m the cat. I wonder how long it will take them to figure it out.
My stepmonster, Sheila, convinced Dad that No Hope is their last hope at straightening me out, so to speak, so they’re dumping me in here along with all the other unwanted weirdo kids. Dad didn’t even take time off from work to attend my “intake” and left it up to Sheila to get me settled. I guess her idea of “settled” means pushing me inside the front doors and then speeding off in her Acura.
I’ve been through the “orientation” process, which is really just a rundown of the rules (spoiler alert—there’s a lot of them). I have a couple pairs of scratchy skirted uniforms and a blank journal, and I am now sitting here in my cell.
The room has linoleum floors and two single beds, one for me and one for Mouse, and the walls are decorated with paintings of Jesus that look like they were done by some teenager who was locked up here in the ’70s or something because ol’ Jesus is throwing down some sweet rock-and-roll hair. For some reason, none of the paintings show a whole-body shot. Each image is of a different part of his body. Dismembered Jesus really gives me the creeps.
Over my bed is a painting of his hands, palms up, the skin color a little too yellow and the nail-wound blood a little too pink and applied too thick on the canvas, as if the artist thought piling on the paint would make their total lack of talent less obvious.
There is a painting of his eyes, all sad-like, over Mouse’s bed.
The top of sad Jesus’ head with his overgrown mullet hovers over the doorway. That one has a crown of thorns and a halo. I think either one would have been enough, but what do I know?
And then there’s the one of his feet. Oh, the feet.
They look just like I always imagined God’s feet would look like. Huge, wide, stubby-toed white feet in strappy brown-leather sandals with flat soles. When I first saw the painting I had to sit down on the squeaky little bed because just looking at it made me feel dizzy.
It’s true, I thought. God really is a foot.
orca soundings
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The Unbroken Hearts Club Page 7
