The Lost Girl by Anne Ursu

Author:Anne Ursu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Reconstruction

After Iris got home, she ran right up to Lark’s room, where it looked like a tiny tornado had hit the dollhouse world.

“I threw up in class today,” Lark said when she entered. She didn’t even look at Iris.

“I know,” Iris said.

“In front of everyone.”

“I know.”

“How do you know? Was everyone talking about it?”

“No! I asked Jenny and Natalie on the bus, because Mom left me a note that you’d gone home sick, that’s all.”

“Did they laugh?”

Kind of? “No, definitely not.”

“Everyone in class laughed. Except Mr. Hunt. He got all red and weird and sent me to the nurse’s office. Did they tell you what we had to do?”

“Owl pellets.”

“Do you know what those are?”

“Well . . . yeah.”

“Well, I didn’t know. I thought it was, like, owl food or something. So when I found out, I was like, I can’t do this; I’m going to have to pretend to be sick or something. But I couldn’t tell Mr. Hunt I was sick—what if he knew I was pretending and he got mad at me? So then I thought, you know what? I’m just going to do this. How gross can it be? And I’m standing there looking at this . . . thing, and I have my little knife, and everyone else is cutting into theirs and pulling out bones.”

While Lark talked, Iris made her way over to Lark’s bed, grabbing Esmeralda and holding her tight.

“And I can’t do it. I can’t put the knife in. And meanwhile all these skeletons of these poor animals are reconstructing themselves. People are, like, guessing what they have. A bunny! A frog! A mouse! And all I can think is that maybe the process will keep going and the animals will take on flesh and fur and come back to life and then I can open the window and send them all to freedom. And then Mr. Hunt says, ‘Lark, is there a problem?’ And everyone turns to look at me. Everyone. And Tommy says something about Crow Girl, I don’t even know what. So I just plunge my knife into the pellet and pull out this little bone and—”

She mashed her lips together.

“I tried. I did! But none of the other kids seemed to mind at all, like maybe they were grossed out at first but then they all kind of got into it. Like it was a game. Like a kit from the Science Museum, only it’s not a kit from the Science Museum at all. It was a real bone. It was so tiny.”

“I know.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“What? Nothing.”

“Something’s wrong with me. Everyone else is fine. Everyone’s fine with the math drills and the mouse remains. But I’m not. I threw up in front of everyone.” Her eyes were red now.

“There’s nothing wrong with you!” Iris’s voice had edges, and Lark blinked up at her. “There’s nothing wrong,” she repeated softly. “You thought it was gross and you got sick. It happens.”

“Why does it only happen to me?”

Her eyes were looking up at Iris desperately, as if Iris could give her an answer and make it all okay.

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