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49 chapter seventeen clever lucy and Foolish KeTzia and merry My mother had three daughters and one was Ketzia the cuckoo. Ketzia was hospitalized early on in her days, leaving me home with Merry, who always ignored me. Except when Ketzia was home—then Merry showered me with affection just to make Ketzia feel bad. Of course my mother liked me the best because I was easy. Ketzia was difficult, very needy; and Merry was mean, very unpleasing. As for me, Lucy? I agreed to any clothes our mother picked out at the mall, and wore the same shade of lipstick as her. How I loved coming home after school! It was the most wonderful feeling. I sat at the kitchen counter, my chin cupped in my palms. My mother would make me a ham and cheese sandwich with mayo and I’d carry it into the den, where very often, my mother vacuumed while I watched TV. Unlike Ketzia, who became annoyed by the sound, or Merry who disappeared to her room or out with a boy, I would sit on the couch with my knees folded under my skirt, and joyously watch as the vacuum went back and went forth, nibbling now and then on the sandwich. 50 After the cleaning, often there was nail polish or cooking to do. Clear nail polish, of course—vanity is never a virtue. Clear polish protected the nails for the housework, and added just a hint of shine. It was very clean! Like the kitchen! It was curious to me that my sisters had such immense emotional problems. Those are difficult for me to imagine . What could possibly cause such desperation in a very good home? Unlike my sisters, I enjoyed school—though I knew the other girls, including Merry, were often quite mean. This simply did not affect me. I learned quickly that if one did not show any weakness,the girls would avert their meanness, direct it elsewhere (usually toward my class’s version of Ketzia). Such an easy lesson to take away from the very first day of middle school; it is difficult for me to imagine a person not fathoming this. And I could not claim ethical responsibility for the girls who were bullying Ketzia, for they would have bullied her whether or not they also could bully me, and there was no stopping their nastiness. Some girls will always be mean. One must rise above it in spirit, you see. Merry, one of the mean ones, may have had her own social problems but you never would know, looking at her—no, her problems were more of a secretive sort. She was cloaked, inscrutable, and dangerous; you never could get an answer from her. Ketzia would blush and would cry and would cower. Merry would stare. Different people have different problems, unless they are problem-free. 51 Did I have troubles? No! I was happy! Happy happy happy! Every day when I woke up I felt a rush of glee. I would open my curtains and look out at the street. There, robins would gather and blue jays and crows. Sometimes they stopped on my sill. The baby birds loved my windowsill especially and would sit there with their light fluffy feathers just staring at me. I would pat the air in my bedroom, looking at them, pretending to pat them. Darling birdies! On the summer lawn, often I could spy a sweet and grey rabbit. From the woods in every season I could hear the murmurs of people who walked in the morning—I found these sounds comforting, the sounds of a town rising and waking. And the oak trees and maples would spread their leaves protectively over the dead-end of our street and shade it kindly—ours was a marvelous scene to behold and how lucky I felt to be part of this blessed existence. From our house I could even have walked to the streetcar and ridden it downtown. But I chose not to go there. Unlike Ketzia, who would ride the streetcar and come home with more holes in her ears, or new green streaks in her hair, and with the smell of clove cigarettes and coffee and wine on her body and in her garments, I had no reason to sully myself or reveal weakness of character through physical change. And unlike Merry, who would sneak into the woods with vodka and boys, I felt my body to be like...

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