Read Online Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs - Free Book Online

very much.
    “The sink caulking. You know, that stuff around the sink and between the tiles? She peels it away and then just pops it in her mouth.” Hope broke into laughter again.
    All I knew was, I had to see this lady. Now. “Can . . . I mean, is there any way . . .” I wasn’t sure how to ask.
    “Would you like to meet her?”
    “Yes.” I reached for the box of old croutons and took one out.
    “We can try. But she usually doesn’t meet new people.”
    A door was slammed. Then Agnes came walking down the creaky stairs. “Oh Joranne, Joranne, Joranne,” she was saying under her breath. She came into the TV room where Hope and I were sitting. “That Joranne is going to drive me insane.”
    “What is it now?” Hope said.
    “She didn’t like her spoon.”
    “What’s the matter with her spoon?”
    “She said there was a spot on the spoon I brought her for her soup. I took that spoon and I didn’t see any spot. So I wiped it off on my shirt and handed it back to her and she just closed the door in my face.” She wound her index finger around next to her ear; sign language for crazy .
    But I believed Joranne. Unlike her, I’d seen the kitchen. And I was sure that any spoon that came from that mess would have at least one stain. If she only knew. This made me want to meet her even more.
    “We’ll go talk to her,” Hope said. She got up from the couch.
    “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Agnes warned before walking away. “She’s in rare form tonight. Got every light in the room burning.”
    “Never mind that,” Hope said. “Come on, Augusten. Let’s go see her.”
    I followed Hope up the stairs but I didn’t like the idea that we were both on the stairs at once. I let her stay three steps ahead.
    At the top of the stairs, I stood back in the hallway and Hope knocked on the tall white door.
    Nothing.
    Hope knocked again.
    Nothing.
    She glanced over at me like, see ? Then she knocked again and said, “Joranne, come on, open up. It’s me, Hope. And I’ve got a friend here I want you to meet. His name is Augusten. He’s twelve and his mother is a poet and you’ll really love him.”
    A moment later, the door opened very slowly.
    Hope stood up straighter.
    A frail old lady peered out into the hall, squinting against the bare lightbulb that was attached to a fixture on the wall. “Who?” she said, sounding exactly like an owl. It came out more like hoooooooo .
    “Augusten,” Hope said. Then she turned to me. “Augusten, this is Joranne.”
    I moved forward and stuck out my hand for her to shake but she recoiled. So I quickly tucked my hand back at my side and said, “Hi.”
    She said “Hello” with great dignity. There was an elegance about her, a certain sophistication. Like she could be the queen of some Danish country or a professor of literature at Smith.
    For a moment, we just stared at each other. I was looking at a real, live crazy person. She was so crazy that she had to live in the psychiatrist’s house. And her room was so bright that it looked like a stage. She was dressed all in white, even a white shawl. And she looked very clean and glowy, like a ghost except not transparent.
    “It’s nice to meet you,” she said.
    She didn’t seem crazy.
    Then she turned to Hope and her voice changed from one of formality back into the wolfish whine. “Agnes brought me a dirty spoon. She’s soiled me !”
    Then Joranne burst into tears. She sobbed and pulled a Kleenex out from the cuff of her gown. Her thin veneer of composure began to crack and crumble down all around her. Now she was a crazy lady.
    “Oh, Joranne. It’s okay. Agnes didn’t mean it. I’ll get you another spoon.”
    “What am I going to do?” she sobbed. I could have sworn that she briefly eyed the white rubber piping along my sneaker bottoms.
    When she brought her hands to her face to blot her nose, I noticed her hands were bright red, and etched with cracks. They were raw.
    “It’s okay, Joranne. I’ll go