KateGawiel

CAITI,IN CASS

FOILWRAPPING

T.yrng not to look into the flames, Jane studied the names carved into the side table. She pulled at her wet curls and stmggled to focus on Larry's unabridged lips. He paused to take a sip of his black coffee. To people like Larry, coffee was caffeinated holy water. Jane didnt go to college, had no interest in politics and couldnt sleep at night. To people like Jane, coffee was a non-drowsy sedative. Apathetic people should drink hot cocoa-which Jane would have done had the shop not mn out. She was grateful that Larry had been so nice to her, but sitting by the fire she suddenly realized what a different person hed become. She couldnt blink without worryng how he would interpret it. Maybe it was just the fire lapping up the little energy she had left.

She thought of the first thing shed lost in this manner. Hed left in a flurry of green and red tissue paper-before even her youngest brother had opened his eyes. When she woke, she didnt have to realiz.ehe was gone, because she had never been quite sure hed existed anfray. She remembered how they pulled the melted chocolates from their stochngs that morning, fascinated by how they molded in their hands. Nothing seemed different. After all, shed never heard his bells

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ring, even on the quietest December nights. Now Jane realized that it had all just been preparation. An illusion wrought to setve as youths first letdown; it was a magic-marker warning that this would not be the only rruth to disappear up the

chimney. Jane wa^s six when her half-brother Larry adopted the furry monstrosity. She was terrified of squirrels. She discovered this particular squirrel by accident when she was loohng under the bed for her Fisher Price tape recorder. Nexr door, Jane's scream stirred Mrs. Krump from an afghan-coated slumber. The police arrived shortly after. But it was only Larys squirrel: Sir Archer Alder- Larryjust called him Aldi. It was only little Atdi (knighted for supreme gallantry and loss of tail in the Blender War of rg%). And Jane learned that maybe squirrels werent so bad. Until one day in September, he left; vanished up the chimney during a rousing bout of acorn fetch. Jane and Larry never saw him again (though, in years to come, Lurry would swear that hed seen those marble eyes staring up at him from every small cat or large rodent he encountered). Bythe time shewas fifteen Jane had developed an aversion to chimneys. When Lurry suggested they sit near the fire she was uneasy. She sat down without protest because her clothes were wet and all of the other seats were taken. Larry went on about the state of the world. He had a lot to say about the war and the 'white trash we have living in this counrry." Benveen the Redneck Republicans and Conservative Liberals,

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