Jenny and I have an ongoing argument going on. Actually, it's one of several, but this one is rather interesting. Here are our mutual stands; she says I'm prettier, and I say she's prettier. Privately, I think that with about a year's conscientious attention to my appearance, I would be prettier, but it's not going to happen. I don't want to be pretty. I'd rather not be ugly, too, but I refuse to be plain and unnoticeable. So I settle for what I am, namely, a possibly pretty girl with a too-blemished face and too much weight to actually be pretty. I think it works out well. No one ever forgets me, so I'm much less unnoticeable than most of the other people I meet. I can only identify thirty-two people, including famous people, of which I know none, and my extended family.
Or maybe I do know someone famous: Me! I've had my picture published in three widely read newspapers and a magazine for mouse-lovers, works of poetry printed in several more, including the LA Times, and three prizes for various works of literature. My extended family all knows me, and they number about a thousand. So does everyone at my school, which has over twice as many people in it. Plus I know me, which counts for a lot. I don't think I'd be able to live with someone I didn't know, much less think the thoughts of and sleep with that person.
Besides Mom, Dad, and Jenny, I know Jennie, who is purportedly my best friend. Jennifer Michelle Smolenski. I know Brian, who Jenny-my-sister likes to tease me about. I know Jennie-my-friend's four brothers, three year old sister, and parents, my own four grandmothers, or two grandmothers, one great grandmother and one grandmother-in-law, and my grandfather. There are also my three aunts and three uncles, plus another two I know of but wouldn't recognize. Also my eight first cousins and one first cousin once removed.
That's all. I keep to myself too often. I do not know any one, and so I do not understand human personalities. I ask questions, hoping to receive answers that I may effectively put into my books. My questions are rejected for falling under the category of ridiculous. My mother will not accept such questions into her scientific world, and my father will not refute her in front of their children. The daughter of a chemist and an economist may not comfortably have such an imagination coupled with such a taste for fantasy.
As a linguist, I must have a mind like a computer. However, I see no need to reject fantastic fiction completely from my realms of belief. I will never fly, muscles straining to reach higher altitudes, if it is impossible for me to grow wings. My doctoral dissertation may well be on folklore and its relation to growth of tonalities. It would tie nicely into my other major of music. I am too much of a scholar for my own good.
In high school, I had my first experience with schoolwork interfering with my chores. I rarely had less than eighty mice now, and I was having difficulty cleaning their cages even once a week. I had not gone to the pet store in two weeks. My mother complained of the smell constantly.
My parents and I were sitting outside, by the pool. They were drinking lemonade, and I was reading Golding and not enjoying it. Mom looked at me, interrupting my concentration, and said, "Amy, when are you going to get rid of those mice?" She thinks her voice is matter-of-fact. As a matter of fact, it is caustic, abrasive, and sarcastic. She will not believe that.
I decided to make a renewed effort to enjoy that horrid book.
"Amy?" said Dad gently. "You can't keep them if you won't be responsible for them. We know how much you love them, but do you think it is really healthy for them to live in such crowded conditions, so rarely cleaned? It's like a slum."
A giant fist clutched at my stomach and my throat, and I realized that my eyes had caught fire.
"Do you want them to be sick and unhealthy? We can't have them giving birth to so many." I fed them well, I wanted to say. It gave an illusion of plenty, so they regularly produced three times as many as normal. I had learned the facts of life from my mice and no other source. I really and truly did not want to learn any more.
"I don't want the snakes to eat them," I mumbled.
"I'll let them go in the mountains," said Mom, taking a drink. "Go choose the ones you want me to take and the ones you want to keep. Try to keep them all the same gender."
I put it off for two days. Mom kept bugging me about it, implying that I was only doing so to annoy her. Dad tried to reason with me. Finally, I herded every last mouse into one easily carried cage and put them by the door. I put the other cages in storage. I crept to the cage by the door and selected one mouse, the one closest in color to Goldenrod. She was Miel, which means honey. I put her in a basket with some cloths and sat on my bed, staring at her running on the exercise wheel for a long time.
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