Read Online Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Margaret Atwood
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to control yourself,” she said kindly, patting me on the beret as I heaved and choked. She didn’t know what a lot of territory this covered.
That blue-black evening, as we crunched our way home over the snow, Elizabeth paused under the last streetlight before the bridge and looked at the others. Then, without warning, they all took off down the hill in a flurry of hilarious giggles and disappeared into the darkness of the ravine before I knew what was happening, shouting back, “The bad man’s gonna getcha!” – abandoning me at the top of the hill to make the crossing by myself. First I called, then I ran after them, but they were too far ahead. I sniffled over the bridge, wiping my mucous nose on the backs of my mittens and glancing fearfully behind me, though of course no child molester or exposure artist in his right mind would have been abroad in near-zero weather. They would all have been lurking in railroad stations or the backs of churches, but I didn’t know this. I heaved my way up the final hill; they were waiting in ambush at the top.
“Are you ever a crybaby,” Elizabeth said with scorn and delight, and that set the pattern for the rest of the year.
The game for the three of them was to think up ingenious variations. Sometimes they would just run off; other times they would threaten to run off. Sometimes they would claim that their running off was a punishment, deserved by me, for something I had done or hadn’t done that day: I had skipped too heavily in the fairy ring, I hadn’t stood straight enough, my tie was rumpled, I had dirty fingernails, I was fat. Sometimes they would say they wouldn’t run off, or would swear to come back and get me, if I would only performcertain acts: I had to crawl around in the snow, barking like a dog, or throw a snowball at a passing old lady, whereupon they would point at me and jeer, “She did it! She did it!” Sometimes they would ask me, “What would the bad man do to you if he caught you?” It wasn’t enough for me to say I didn’t know; they would merely take flight, giggling behind their hands: “She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know!” I spent half an hour one night standing at the top of the hill, singing over and over in a quavering voice, a hundred times exactly, “We’re the Brownies, here’s our aim, Lend a hand and play the game,” before I realized they weren’t going to keep their promise and retrieve me. Once they told me to stick my tongue onto an iron fence on the way down to the ravine, but it wasn’t cold enough and my tongue didn’t freeze to the fence as they’d hoped.
The funny thing was that though the conditions, directions and demands were issued by Elizabeth, I knew it was the other two who thought them up. Lynne was especially inventive: her position was precarious, she didn’t have strength of character, she could so easily turn into me. I couldn’t tell my mother about any of this because I felt that whatever she would say, underneath it her sympathies would lie with them. “Stand up for yourself,” she would exhort. How could a daughter of hers have turned out to be such a limp balloon?
Sometimes, when they’d left me alone in the darkness and cold, I would stand there almost hoping that the bad man would really come up out of the ravine and do whatever he was fated to do. That way, after I’d been stolen or killed, they would be punished, and they would be forced to repent at last for what they’d done. I imagined him as a tall man, very tall, in a black suit, heaving up out of the snow like an avalanche in reverse, blue-faced and covered with ice, red-eyed, hairy-headed, with long sharp teeth like icicles. He would be frightening but at least he would be an end to this misery that went on and seemed as if it would go on forever. I would be taken away by him, no trace of me would ever be found. Even my motherwould be sorry. Once I actually waited for him, counting under my breath – he would come after a
That blue-black evening, as we crunched our way home over the snow, Elizabeth paused under the last streetlight before the bridge and looked at the others. Then, without warning, they all took off down the hill in a flurry of hilarious giggles and disappeared into the darkness of the ravine before I knew what was happening, shouting back, “The bad man’s gonna getcha!” – abandoning me at the top of the hill to make the crossing by myself. First I called, then I ran after them, but they were too far ahead. I sniffled over the bridge, wiping my mucous nose on the backs of my mittens and glancing fearfully behind me, though of course no child molester or exposure artist in his right mind would have been abroad in near-zero weather. They would all have been lurking in railroad stations or the backs of churches, but I didn’t know this. I heaved my way up the final hill; they were waiting in ambush at the top.
“Are you ever a crybaby,” Elizabeth said with scorn and delight, and that set the pattern for the rest of the year.
The game for the three of them was to think up ingenious variations. Sometimes they would just run off; other times they would threaten to run off. Sometimes they would claim that their running off was a punishment, deserved by me, for something I had done or hadn’t done that day: I had skipped too heavily in the fairy ring, I hadn’t stood straight enough, my tie was rumpled, I had dirty fingernails, I was fat. Sometimes they would say they wouldn’t run off, or would swear to come back and get me, if I would only performcertain acts: I had to crawl around in the snow, barking like a dog, or throw a snowball at a passing old lady, whereupon they would point at me and jeer, “She did it! She did it!” Sometimes they would ask me, “What would the bad man do to you if he caught you?” It wasn’t enough for me to say I didn’t know; they would merely take flight, giggling behind their hands: “She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know!” I spent half an hour one night standing at the top of the hill, singing over and over in a quavering voice, a hundred times exactly, “We’re the Brownies, here’s our aim, Lend a hand and play the game,” before I realized they weren’t going to keep their promise and retrieve me. Once they told me to stick my tongue onto an iron fence on the way down to the ravine, but it wasn’t cold enough and my tongue didn’t freeze to the fence as they’d hoped.
The funny thing was that though the conditions, directions and demands were issued by Elizabeth, I knew it was the other two who thought them up. Lynne was especially inventive: her position was precarious, she didn’t have strength of character, she could so easily turn into me. I couldn’t tell my mother about any of this because I felt that whatever she would say, underneath it her sympathies would lie with them. “Stand up for yourself,” she would exhort. How could a daughter of hers have turned out to be such a limp balloon?
Sometimes, when they’d left me alone in the darkness and cold, I would stand there almost hoping that the bad man would really come up out of the ravine and do whatever he was fated to do. That way, after I’d been stolen or killed, they would be punished, and they would be forced to repent at last for what they’d done. I imagined him as a tall man, very tall, in a black suit, heaving up out of the snow like an avalanche in reverse, blue-faced and covered with ice, red-eyed, hairy-headed, with long sharp teeth like icicles. He would be frightening but at least he would be an end to this misery that went on and seemed as if it would go on forever. I would be taken away by him, no trace of me would ever be found. Even my motherwould be sorry. Once I actually waited for him, counting under my breath – he would come after a
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