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[Assistant] Then Lily went, no, I don't know your grandmother, do I Mia? Isn't that curious considering the fact that you know all my grandparents? The Moskovitzes have me over every year for Passover dinner, and yet I haven't met any of yours.


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[Assistant] Well, of course the reason for that is that my mom's parents are like total farmers who live in a place called Versailles, Indiana, only they pronounce it Versailles.


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[Assistant] My mom's parents are afraid to come to New York City because they say there are too many foreigners, by which they mean foreigners here, and anything that isn't 100% American scares them, which is one of the reasons my mom left home when she was 18 and has only been back twice, and that was with me.


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[Assistant] Let me tell you, Versailles is a small, small town. It's so small that there's a sign on the door at the bank that says, if bank is closed, please slide money under door.


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[Assistant] I'm not lying either. I took a photo of it and brought it back to show everyone because I knew they wouldn't believe me. It's hanging on our refrigerator.


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[Assistant] Anyway, Grandpa and Grandma Thermopolis don't make it out of Indiana much.


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[Assistant] And the reason I'd never introduced Lily to Grand Mayor Rinaldo is because Grand Mayor Rinaldo hates children.


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[Assistant] And I can't introduce her now because then Lily will find out I'm the Princess of Genovia and you can bet I'll never hear the end of that.


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[Assistant] She'd probably want to interview me or something for her TV show.


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[Assistant] That's all I need. My name and image plastered all over Manhattan Public Access.


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[Assistant] So, I was telling Lily all of this about how I had to go out with my grandmother, not about my being a princess of course, and as I was talking I could hear her breathing over the phone in that way she does when she's mad, and finally she just goes,


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[Assistant] Oh, come over tonight then and help me edit and slam the phone down. Geez.


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[Assistant] Well, at least Michael didn't tell her about the lipstick and pantyhose. That would have really made her mad.


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[Assistant] She never would have believed I was only going to my grandmother's. No. Way.


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[Assistant] This was all like 9.30 while I was getting ready to go to Grand Mers.


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[Assistant] Grand Mare told me that for today I don't have to wear lipstick or pantyhose. She said I could wear anything I wanted. So I wore my overalls. I know she hates them, but hey, she said anything I wanted. Hee hee hee. Oops, gotta go. Lars just pulled up in front of the plaza. We're here.


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[Assistant] Boris, I've come to ask for your favour. What do you mean celebrate what? Don't you know? The emperors will have a public meeting today.


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[Assistant] They'll ride from opposite ends of Tilsit, meet in the middle and exchange decorations.


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[Assistant] There's a banquet tonight and in a few days, peace will be signed. Peace? What peace?


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[Assistant] Anyway, I have this friend- I actually saw the first meeting between the emperors on the 13th of June. I've made notes about it for posterity.


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[Assistant] While you're here, Nikolai, please do me the favor of calling him the Emperor Napoleon. I can't have you speak of him with disrespect.


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[Assistant] You're dining with French officers? One of them is the aide de cap to the Emperor Napoleon himself.


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[Assistant] Well I wouldn't call it stealing exactly. It's against the rules to take provisions intended for one part of the army to another. Imagine if everyone did that. Denisov is not everyone.


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[Assistant] He's an exceptional commander and he wanted to save his men from starvation. This infantry officer was lining his own pockets. I'm really not interested in the details. He stole. He's lucky he wasn't shot on the spot.


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[Assistant] You have all these connections, you can put them to good use. I would seem to be condoning the breaking of army rules. It would be the end of my career. So you won't help?


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[Assistant] I'll show you when we go out later. We'll have some supper in Bald Hills with my father and Maria and my son. Oh. I heard about your duel with Dalekon. Oh, I'm so grateful I didn't kill him. Why? It's good to kill a vicious dog. To kill a fellow man is wrong.


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[Assistant] I don't think it's given to us to judge what's right and what's wrong, Pierre. People think they know and they're always mistaken.


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[Assistant] We all recognize evil. I can only know what is evil for myself, but that's not an evil I can inflict on anyone else. I believe there are only two real evils anyway. Remorse and illness. My only ambition in life is to avoid those evils. But what about the salvation of mankind?


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[Assistant] Well, for glory. For glory is nothing more than the desire to do something spectacular for others. And it ruined my life.


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[Assistant] But it's your peasants who've actually built it and you've probably only added to their burden. Even so, there's now a hospital and one of your serfs has a stroke. He's dying.


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[Assistant] But you keep him alive and now he goes around for another ten years, crippled and a burden to his family.


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[Assistant] Anyway, you have to wash. The point is to make life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive. That's not my fault. And I must somehow find a way to go on living as best I can without bothering anyone. That's all. Come. Let's go round the estate and we'll take the ferry to Bald Hills.


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[Assistant] I've rebuilt the bridges, and installed some fire hoses here.


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[Assistant] Oh, how neat those cottages look. I believe everyone has a right to live with dignity and comfort, so I had all the peasant cottages repaired. In that little room, that's there, eh, the priest comes...


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[Assistant] I understand why such a teaching might be attractive, but it doesn't convince me. Only life and death convince me.


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[Assistant] What convinces me is to see a being who is dear to me and bound up with me and before whom I am guilty.


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[Assistant] You've come anyway. Look, we've been talking and the sun's gone down. It's already dark.


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[Assistant] Do you see those stars reflected on the water? If only you were right after all.


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[Assistant] It's been many months since we last saw each other and had that important conversation on the ferry.


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[Assistant] Do you remember how I told you that my life was over and I wished only to live out the rest of my days doing as little harm as possible?


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[Assistant] It was in this spirit that I went to the Ryazan estates of which I am trustee for my son.


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[Assistant] I decided on the way to call on the provincial marshal of the nobility who lives not far from those estates.


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[Assistant] He's a stupid old man, according to my father, and I was not looking forward to my visit to the Count. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day, but


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[Assistant] I felt as withered as an old oak we had passed along the way to the estates.


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[Assistant] An oak as gnarled and as wintery as my heart.


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[Assistant] I had reached the estate and was driving up the garden avenue leading to the house when I suddenly heard the merry laughter of some young girls.


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[Assistant] I wondered how they could be merry when life was so dark, and I was irritated with them. They ran across the path of my carriage. At the head of this little group, I saw a dark haired girl. Slender. So slender. And with very large, dark eyes.


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[Assistant] Even from where I was, I could see the laughter in those eyes.


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[Assistant] She was wearing a yellow cotton dress and some strands of hair were escaping from the white kerchief tied around her head. Why do I remember such details? The girls didn't even see me. They seemed so happy. So free.


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[Assistant] After a tedious day with my host waiting for papers that never arrived, I was forced by his irrepressible hospitality to spend the night there. I couldn't sleep.


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[Assistant] I wanted to get home. It was a hot night and I opened the window. The night was very still.


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[Assistant] And a row of silver birches glistened under my window.


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[Assistant] The moon was almost full and there were no stars in the sky. I looked at the immense sky above.


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[Assistant] That same sky I had seen on the battlefield of Astelitz and also on that evening we had our talk, yeah.


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[Assistant] A sky that still seemed to promise an answer to a question I could not formulate.


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[Assistant] I could feel one of them lean way out of the window. I heard her dress and even her breathing.


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[Assistant] On the way home, I looked again for the old oak I had seen before.


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[Assistant] That oak with its gnarled and broken branches, denuded of leaves, and impervious to the spring. At first I couldn't find it. And I asked the coachman to try it back a little.


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[Assistant] Tourism has been down in Genovia. Grandma reminded me. Ever since we banned cruise ships from docking in the bay. But who needs day trippers with their sticky film cameras and their awful Bermuda shorts?


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[Assistant] If that woman had all measured a few shots of the casinos and the beaches where we have the only naturally white sand along the Riviera, are you aware of that, Emilia? Monaco has to import their sand.


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[Assistant] That woman might have a few redeeming qualities after all.


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[Assistant] I suppose I will have to allow your father to continue seeing her.


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[Assistant] I was hoping it was so that she could make sure I'm not carrying any contraband cough syrup.


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[Assistant] But it's more likely because of what I said last night on TV.


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[Assistant] Particularly, I would guess the part about how divisive and click-ridden it is around here.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, all the other people in the school who have never been invited to a party given by a popular kid have rallied around me.


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[Assistant] It's like I've struck a blow for dweebs everywhere or something.


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[Assistant] The minute I walked into school today, the hip hoppers, the brainiacs, the drama freaks, they were all, hey, tell it like it is, sista. No one's ever called me sista before. It's somewhat invigorating.


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[Assistant] Only the cheerleaders treat me the way they always have. As I walk down the hall, their eyes flick over me from the top of my head all the way down to my shoes. And then they whisper to each other and laugh.


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[Assistant] Well, I suppose it is amusing to see a five foot nine flat-chested Amazon like myself roaming loose in the halls. I'm surprised no one has thrown a net over me and hauled me off to the Natural History Museum. Of my own friends, only Lily.


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[Assistant] And Chimica, of course, aren't entirely thrilled with last night's performance.


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[Assistant] Lily's still unhappy about my spilling the beans about the socioeconomic division of our school population.


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[Assistant] Not unhappy enough to turn down a ride to school in my limo this morning however. Interestingly,


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[Assistant] Lily's chilly treatment of me has only served to bring her brother and I closer. This morning in the limo on the way to school,


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[Assistant] And the warm feeling I had when he pronounced all my problems correct didn't have anything to do with pride.


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[Assistant] Sunday, October 26th, 9pm. Another email from Josie Rocks. This one went, Josie Rocks. Hi Mia, I just saw the ad for your interview. You look great. Sorry I can't tell you who I am.


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[Assistant] I'm surprised you haven't guessed by now. Now stop checking your email and get to work on your algebra homework. I know how you are about that. It's one of the things I like best about you. Your friend.


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[Assistant] Okay, this is going to drive me insane. Who could it be? Who? I wrote back right away, that Louie, who are you?


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[Assistant] I was hoping that would get the point across, but he so totally did not write back.


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[Assistant] I was trying to figure out who I know who knows that I always wait until the last minute to do my algebra homework. Unfortunately though, I think everyone knows it. But, the person who knows it best of all is Michael.


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[Assistant] If only Josie Rocks were Michael Moskovitz. If only, if only, if ONLY. But I'm sure he isn't. That would simply be too good to be true.


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[Assistant] And really excellent things like that only happen to girls like Lana Weinberger. Never to girls like me.


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[Assistant] Knowing my luck, it will totally be that weird, chilly guy. Or some guy who breathes through his mouth like Forrest. Why me?


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[Assistant] Wednesday, October 29th, GNT. I don't believe this. I really don't. Lily and Hank are missing. That's right. Missing. Nobody knows where they are. Boris is beside himself. He won't stop playing mauler.


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[Assistant] Even Mrs. Hill now agrees that shutting him into the supply closet is the best way to maintain our sanity.


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[Assistant] I mean, when you're a musical genius and the girl you've been French kissing on a fairly regular basis suddenly disappears with a guy like Hank, it has to be demoralizing. I should have seen it coming.


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[Assistant] Lily was excessively flirty at lunch. She kept asking Hank all these questions about life back in Indiana, like if he was the most popular boy in his school and all, which of course he was.


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[Assistant] I personally don't believe being the most popular boy at Versailles, which in Indiana speak is pronounced Versailles by the way, high school is such a big accomplishment. Then she was all, do you have a girlfriend?


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[Assistant] Hank got bashful and said that he used to only AMBER.


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[Assistant] And said Amber must be suffering from a borderline personality disorder if she couldn't see what a fully self-actualized individual Hank was.


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[Assistant] I was so revolted by this display, I could hardly keep my veggie burger down.


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[Assistant] For instance, there's the Transit Museum, which is fascinating.


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[Assistant] Seriously, she actually said the Transit Museum was fascinating. Lily Moskovitz.


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[Assistant] And on Halloween there's a parade in the village and then we are all going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Have you ever been to that before? Hank said that no, he hadn't. I should have known right then that something was up, but I didn't.


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[Assistant] The bell rang and Lily said she wanted to take Hank to the auditorium to show him the part of the My Fair Lady set that she had painted herself. A street lamp.


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[Assistant] Feeling that even a momentary alleviation from Hank's constant stream of reminders of our last visit together?


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[Assistant] Remember that time we left our bikes in the front yard and you were all worried someone might come in the night and steal them? Would be a relief. I said, Okay. And that was the last any of us saw of them. I blamed myself.


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[Assistant] Hank is apparently simply too attractive to be released amongst the general population. I ought to have recognized that.


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[Assistant] I ought to have recognized that the pull of an uneducated but completely gorgeous farm boy from Indiana would be stronger than the pull of a not so attractive musical genius from Russia.


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[Assistant] Now I have turned my best friend into a two-timer and a class ditcher. Lily has never skipped a class in her life. If she gets caught, she will get detention.


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[Assistant] I wonder if she'll think sitting in the cafeteria for an hour after school with the other juvenile delinquents will be worth the fleeting moments of teenage lust she and Hank are sharing. Michael is no help.


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[Assistant] I have pointed out to him that for all we know, Lily and Hank could have been kidnapped by Libyan terrorists, but he says he finds that unlikely.


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[Assistant] He thinks it more reasonable to assume that they are enjoying an afternoon showing at the Sony iMacs. As if.


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[Assistant] Hank is totally prone to motion sickness. He told us all about it when we drove past the cable car to Roosevelt Island this morning on the way to school.


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[Assistant] What are Mama and Papa going to say when they find out I lost their grandson? Top five places Lily and Hank could be. One, Transit Museum. Two, enjoying some corned beef at Second Avenue Deli. Three,


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[Assistant] Looking up Dionysus Thermopolis' name on the wall of immigrants at Ellis Island. 4. Getting tattoos on St. Mark's Place.


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[Assistant] Five, making wild, passionate love back in his room at the Soho Grand, oh god.


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[Assistant] Mr. Giannini is not here today. Instead, we have a substitute teacher named Mrs. Krakowski.


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[Assistant] It is very strange that Mr. G isn't here, because he was certainly in the loft this morning.


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[Assistant] We played a game of foosball before Lars showed up in the limo. We even offered Mr. Jearide to school, but he said he was coming in later. Really later it looks like. A lot of people aren't here today actually.


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[Assistant] Michael, for instance, didn't catch a ride with us this morning.


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[Assistant] Lily says that is because he had last minute problems printing out a paper that is due today. But I wonder.


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[Assistant] If it is really because he is too scared to face me after admitting that he is Josie Rocks.


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[Assistant] Well not that he actually admitted it, but he sort of did, didn't he?


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[Assistant] Dear Daddy Longlegs, You should see the way this college is studying. We've forgotten we ever had a vacation.


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[Assistant] 57 irregular verbs have I introduced to my brain in the past four days. I'm only hoping they'll stay till after examinations. Some of the girls sell their textbooks when they're through with them, but I intend to keep mine. Then, after I've graduated,


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[Assistant] I shall have my whole education in a row in the bookcase.


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[Assistant] And when I need to use any detail I can turn to it without the slightest hesitation.


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[Assistant] Julia Pendleton dropped in this evening to pay a social call and stayed a solid hour. She got started on the subject of family and I couldn't switch her off.


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[Assistant] She wanted to know what my mother's maiden name was.


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[Assistant] On the topmost branches of her family tree, there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine, silky hair and extra long tails.


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[Assistant] I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, entertaining letter tonight, but I'm too sleepy and scared. The freshman's lot is not a happy one. Yours, about to be examined, Judy Abbott.


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[Assistant] Dear Daddy Longlegs, I hope you aren't the trustee who sat on the toad. It went off, I was told, with quite a pop. So probably he was a fatter trustee.


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[Assistant] Do you remember the little dugout places with greetings over them by the laundry windows in the John Greer home? Every spring, when the hop-toed season opens,


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[Assistant] But somehow, one of the fattest, biggest,


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[Assistant] And that afternoon at the trustees meeting.


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[Assistant] Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author?


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[Assistant] Such a lot of troubles. I didn't hear the rising bell this morning.


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[Assistant] I forgot to take any blotting paper, and my fountain pen leaked.


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[Assistant] In trigonometry, the professor and I had a disagreement touching a little matter of logarithms. On looking it up, I find that she was right. We had mutton stew and pie plant for lunch. Hate them both. They taste like the asylum. Nothing but bills in my mail, though I must say that I never do get anything else. My family are not the kind that write.


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[Assistant] The mighty merchant was a divinity who distributes blessings in return for virtuous deeds. But when I got to the second verse and found him twirling a button, it seemed a blasphemous supposition, and I hastily changed my mind. The rest of the class was in the same predicament.


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[Assistant] And the skirt was so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is sweeping day.


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[Assistant] We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to listen to a speech about womanly women. And then,


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[Assistant] Just as I was settling down with a sigh of well-earned relief to the portrait of a lady, a girl named Apolly


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[Assistant] A dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A. I wish Mrs. Lippard had named me Zabriskie.


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[Assistant] Came to ask if Monday's lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70. And stayed one hour. She has just gone.


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[Assistant] Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage. But to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh, I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop.


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[Assistant] I'm going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I'm going to shrug my shoulders and laugh. Also if I win. Anyway, I'm going to be a sport.


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[Assistant] You will never hear me complain again daddy dear because Julia wears silk stockings and centipedes drop off the wall. Yours ever, Judy. Answer soon.


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[Assistant] Dear Daddy Longlegs, I love college and I love you for sending me.


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[Assistant] A senior who wears spectacles and is always asking us please to be a little more quiet. And two freshmen named Sally McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton.


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[Assistant] After you've lived in a ward for 18 years with 20 roommates, it is restful to be alone.


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[Assistant] This is the first chance I've ever had to get acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. I think I'm going to like her. Do you think you are?


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[Assistant] I'm little of course, but terribly quick and wiry and tough. While the others are hopping about in the air, I can dodge under their feet and grab the ball. It's loads of fun practicing. Out in the athletic field in the afternoons.


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[Assistant] I meant to write a long letter and tell you all the things I'm learning. Mrs. Lippett said you wanted to know. But the seventh hour has just rung.


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[Assistant] I smiled a little and said no, I thought I could pull through.


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[Assistant] I never heard of anybody being asylum sick. Did you?


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[Assistant] Monday, September 14th, English.


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[Assistant] One more period until I make a fool of myself in front of the entire school. Look at her!


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[Assistant] I know. She fully thinks she's all that. You can so tell.


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[Assistant] I bet she doesn't even need those glasses. She probably just wears them to distract from the fact that she has horrible, squinty little eyes. Totally. And those cargo pants? Hello. So last year, I think. Mia, are you pumped? You don't look pumped.


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[Assistant] In fact, you look as crappy as you did in P.E. Did you get any sleep at all last night?


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[Assistant] How was I supposed to sleep knowing, as I did, that today I'm going to get flayed alive in front of the entire student body, like that guy in Horatio Hornblower? Nobody is going to get flayed alive, except maybe Lana, because you are going to flatten her.


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[Assistant] Lily, I'm not. I'm no good at public speaking, you know that. And evolutionarily speaking, Lana has the advantage of both looks and the fact that her socio-political group is the one to whom the rest of us willingly tithe. What are you talking about? Just trust me, I'm going to lose. You aren't. I have a secret weapon. You're going to shoot her?


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[Assistant] I have a little something up my sleeve that if the student body looks unconvinced, I will pull out. But only if Mia looks as if she needs it. I need it! I need it! Patience, my young padawan.


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[Assistant] Lily, please, if you know something, you've got to tell me. I'm dying here. Between your brother and this and the snails, I'm completely fried. Mia, she wants to see you. In the hallway.


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[Assistant] Breathe, just breathe, and you'll be alright. Just like Drew in Ever After.


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[Assistant] That's easy for you to say, Lily. She didn't stomp all over YOUR dreams.


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[Assistant] Monday, September 14th, third floor stairwell. Who does she think she is?


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[Assistant] I mean, really? Does she think just because I'm blonde? Well, okay, dishwater blonde, but still. And a princess that I'm stupid too?


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[Assistant] Mia, she said after dragging me out into the hallway so we can talk in front of everyone.


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[Assistant] I've spoken with your father. He came in on Friday to talk to me about your schoolwork.


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[Assistant] Mia, I had no idea you were so upset over your grades in my class. You should have said something.


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[Assistant] Uhm, hello, I believe I did. I asked to rewrite the paper, remember Ms. Martinez?


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[Assistant] Uhm, oh, okay. Can I talk to you about how worried I am about Britney's too hasty marriage and subsequent leave of absence from the entertainment industry? No, I don't believe I can, can I, Ms. Martinez? Because you don't like slick popular culture references.


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[Assistant] I know I'm a harsh grader, Mia, but really, a B is a very good grade for my class. I've only given out one A so far this semester.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I know, because I saw it on Lily's writing sample.


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[Assistant] The only reason I didn't feel comfortable giving you an A is because I still don't think you're working up to your potential.


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[Assistant] You're a very talented writer, Mia, but you need to apply yourself.


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[Assistant] And stick to topics that are a little more substantive than Britney Spears. This is what's wrong with this school.


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[Assistant] That people don't understand that Britney Spears is a substantive topic. She is a human barometer by which the mood of the country can be determined.


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[Assistant] When Britney does something outrageous, people reach excitedly for their copies of Us Weekly and In Touch magazines.


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[Assistant] Yes, there might be murders and natural disasters and other downers in the news, but then there's Britney.


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[Assistant] French kissing Madonna on the MTV Video Music Awards and suddenly things don't seem quite so bad as they did before. I guess my outrage must have shown on my face because a second later Ms. Martinez was all, Mia, are you alright? But I didn't say anything. Because what could I say? Great.


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[Assistant] The late bell for fourth period just went off. I'm going to get a tardy from Mademoiselle Klein when I finally get to French. Not that I care.


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[Assistant] What's a tardy compared to what's going to happen to me in precisely 40 minutes in front of the whole school?


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[Assistant] I understand that obesity is epidemic in the US and all of that.


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[Assistant] I know that the average American is 10 pounds heavier than their BMI says they should be, and that we all need to walk more and eat less.


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[Assistant] But seriously, is any of that an excuse for forcing teenage girls to have to change clothes, much less shower in front of one another? I so think not.


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[Assistant] Like it's not enough that I even have to take physical education.


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[Assistant] And it's not enough that I have to take it first thing in the morning.


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[Assistant] And it's not enough that I have to strip down in front of virtual strangers. No.


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[Assistant] I also have to do it in front of Miss Lana Weinberger, who also happens to have first period P.E., and who took the liberty of pointing out in front of everyone, as we were changing into our gym clothes before class,


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[Assistant] That she really liked my Queen Amidala panties.


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[Assistant] Which I only wore for good luck on my first day back to class. Although evidently they don't work anymore.


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[Assistant] In a tone that suggested she did not like them at all.


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[Assistant] And then she wanted to know if Genovia was suffering from an economic crisis, since its royals seemed to be shopping for their underwear at Target.


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[Assistant] As if all of us can afford to get our underwear from agent provocateur like Lana and Britney Spears. I hate her.


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[Assistant] Lily told me not to worry about it. That Lana will be getting what she deserves shortly. Whatever that means.


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[Assistant] I know! When was the last time we had a teacher who wore anything that wasn't corduroy?


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[Assistant] That is so how I want my hair. So Chloe on Smallville. I know! And her glasses!


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[Assistant] Cat's eye. With rhinestones. Could she be more Karen O? Who's Karen O? Lead singer for the YAYAYAYS. Oh, right. I was thinking Maggie Gyllenhaal. I think it's Gyllenhaal. I think maybe it's Jellienhaal.


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[Assistant] Anyway, so Maggie's brother is the one who went out with Kirsten Dunst, right? Right. So cute!


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[Assistant] If people who are bad at algebra are supposed to be good at geometry,


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[Assistant] Then I should be the Stephen freaking Hawking of geometry.


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[Assistant] But guess what? I don't understand a word of this. Plus, Mr. Harding,


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[Assistant] Yeah, could he be any meaner? He already made Trisha Hayes cry over her isosceles triangles, and that's virtually impossible since she's one of Lana Weinberger's cronies.


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[Assistant] And also I'm pretty sure she's a female cyborg like in Terminator 3. He's being totally nice to me.


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[Assistant] But that's just because one of his colleagues is my stepdad. Oh, and the princess thing of course.


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[Assistant] Euler diagram equals relate two or more conditional statements to each other by representing them as circles.


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[Assistant] Oh well, at least I have one good teacher. Ms. Martinez is so cool. It's so nice to have a teacher who is still close enough to our age to know about stuff like rubber spike bracelets and the OC.


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[Assistant] As Ms. Martinez was collecting our writing samples on how we spent our summers, she was like,


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[Assistant] And I just want you guys to know that you can come to me with questions about anything, not just English.


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[Assistant] I really want to get to know all of you as people, not just as my students.


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[Assistant] So if there's anything, anything at all you want to talk about, feel free to stop by.


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[Assistant] There is an open door policy in my classroom and I will always be here for you. Whoa!


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[Assistant] A teacher at Albert Einstein High who doesn't disappear into the teacher's lounge the minute class is over? Unbelievable!


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[Assistant] Except I sort of wonder how long Ms. Martinez is going to hang on to her open door policy, because as I was leaving, I noticed like 10 people scurrying up to her desk to talk to her about their personal problems. Lily was totally the first one in line.


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[Assistant] I hope Ms. Martinez counsels Lily just to let the whole Boris thing go.


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[Assistant] I didn't want to say anything to Tina, but her boyfriend's summer transformation into a hottie is fully why Lily is wigging out today, not PMS like I told Tina.


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[Assistant] If Orlando Bloom had no fashion sense and breathed from his mouth, I mean.


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[Assistant] I hope Lily doesn't wear Ms. Martinez out so much that she doesn't have time to read our writing samples tonight.


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[Assistant] Because I'm sure that when she's done with mine, she's going to want to submit it to a literary agent or something and get me a book deal.


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[Assistant] I realize fifteen is pretty young to have a multi-book deal with a major publishing house, but I've handled the princess thing pretty well so far. I'm sure I could handle a couple of book deadlines.


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[Assistant] Mia, the new kid, second row from door, three seats down. Boy or girl? Shamika. Boy, he's wearing pants.


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[Assistant] Hello, so am I. I forgot to shave my legs this morning. Oh. Oh! Yeah, see what I mean? Well, what's his slash her name? Perrin. At least that's what Mademoiselle Klein said when she called Roll. Is Perrin a boy's name or a girl's name? I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. Wait, I wasn't paying attention during Roll.


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[Assistant] Did Mademoiselle Klein say paren or paren?


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[Assistant] Because if she's a girl, it would be Perrine in French, right?


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[Assistant] Yeah, but Mademoiselle Klein doesn't call Roland French. She just said Perrin in English with no accent. So in other words, this is a mystery. Totally. I just want to know whether or not to think he's cute.


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[Assistant] Okay, here's what we'll do. We'll keep an eye on him slash her and see which bathroom he slash she goes into before lunch.


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[Assistant] Because everyone goes to the bathroom before lunch to put on lip gloss. But not boys.


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[Assistant] Exactly. If he doesn't go to the bathroom, he's a boy, and then you can like him. But what if he's a girl who just doesn't wear lip gloss?


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[Assistant] Argh. Mysteries are okay in books, but in real life, they kind of suck.


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[Assistant] Dear Daddy, Spring has come again. You should see how lovely the campus is. I think you might come and look at it for yourself. Master Jervie dropped in again last Friday, but he chose a most unprepitious time.


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[Assistant] Because I had a feeling that your secretary would say no. But it was entirely regular.


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[Assistant] I meant to have written a lot about the budding trees, and the new cinder path in the athletic field, and the awful lesson we have in biology for tomorrow, and the new canoes on the lake, and Catherine Prentiss who has pneumonia.


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[Assistant] And Prexy's Angora kitten that strayed from home and has been boarding in Ferguson Hall for two weeks until the chambermaid reported it.


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[Assistant] They belong to a sort of club on a lovey little lake in the middle of the woods.


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[Assistant] They go canoeing on the lake and take long walks through trails to other camps and have dances once a week in the clubhouse.


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[Assistant] Jimmy McBride is going to have a college friend visiting him part of the summer. So you see, we shall have plenty of men to dance with. Wasn't it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask me? It appears that she liked me when I was there for Christmas. Please excuse this being short. It isn't a real letter. It's just to let you know that I'm disposed off for the summer. Yours, in a very contented frame of mind, Judy.


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[Assistant] Things you keep in a box. So mom got the postcard today.


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[Assistant] It says Congratulations in big curly letters. And at the very top is the address of Studio TV 15 on West 58th Street.


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[Assistant] After three years of trying, she has actually made it.


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[Assistant] She's going to be a contestant on the $20,000 pyramid, which is hosted by Dick Clark. On the postcard there's a list of things to bring.


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[Assistant] She needs some extra clothes in case she wins and makes it to another show.


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[Assistant] Where they pretend it's the next day, even though they really tape five in one afternoon.


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[Assistant] Berets are optional, but she should definitely bring some with her. Unlike me.


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[Assistant] Mom has glossy red hair that bounces around and might obstruct America's view of her small freckled face.


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[Assistant] And then there's the date she's supposed to show up. Scrawled in blue pen on a line at the bottom of the card.


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[Assistant] I checked the box under my bed, which is where I've kept your notes these past few months. There it is, in your tiny handwriting.


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[Assistant] The words all jerky looking, like you wrote them on the subway. Your last proof. I still think about the letter you asked me to write.


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[Assistant] It nags at me, even though you're gone and there's no one to give it to anymore. Sometimes I work on it in my head, trying to map out the story you asked me to tell.


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[Assistant] About everything that happened this past fall and winter.


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[Assistant] It's all still there. Like a movie I can watch when I want to. Which is never.


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[Assistant] It was a while before I realized that the kid who punched Sal went to our school.


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[Assistant] We were working on our projects for Main Street, which is a scale model of a city block that we're constructing in the back of our classroom.


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[Assistant] Mr. Tompkins class studies buildings every year. Mom says he's a frustrated architect. Why is he frustrated? I asked. It's complicated. She said it had to do with the war. Teachers didn't have to go fight in Vietnam.


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[Assistant] So a lot of young men who didn't want to fight became teachers. Instead of what they really wanted to be, she meant...


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[Assistant] Jay Stringer, who is a 12-year-old genius and the head of the Main Street Planning Board, had already built an entire cardboard building, complete with fire escapes and a water tower. And he'd just started two phone booths that he said would have tiny doors that folded open and closed.


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[Assistant] Anne-Marie was busy with her pebbles and her extra strength glue, working on a stone wall for the park that Jay Stringer had approved the week before.


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[Assistant] Julia was making a tinfoil UFO that she said would fly up and down the street on an invisible wire. The UFO hadn't been approved yet, but Julia was going ahead with it anyway.


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[Assistant] She had written proposal pending on a piece of paper and taped it to the end of a shoe box full of foil and fishing line.


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[Assistant] Alice Evans was trying to make fire hydrants out of clay, which so far just looked like pathetic lumps.


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[Assistant] Having to pee so badly all the time must have made it hard for her to concentrate.


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[Assistant] I worked on the diagrams for my playground proposal.


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[Assistant] My slide looked too steep, and then too flat, and then too messy, because I had a race so much.


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[Assistant] I would have to ask for another sheet of graph paper, which always made J. Stringer sigh and roll his eyes because he brought it from home.


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[Assistant] The classroom phone rang, and after he answered it, Mr. Tompkin asked if anyone wanted to go be an office monitor for a while. I raised my hand.


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[Assistant] The school's secretary usually gives office monitors a few bit of honeys, or Hershey's Kisses.


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[Assistant] I grabbed my book and rode the banisters down to the first floor, where I found Wheelie at her desk in the main office.


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[Assistant] She's called the secretary, but as far as I can tell, she basically runs the school.


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[Assistant] And she tries to do it without getting out of her desk chair. Which has wheels. Which is why everyone calls her wheelie.


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[Assistant] She rolls herself around the office all day by pushing off the floor with her feet. It's like pinball in slow motion.


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[Assistant] The dentist needs a runner, she said to me, kicking herself over to a desk, where she picked up a sheet of paper.


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[Assistant] It's weird to go to a school for almost seven years and then one day discover that there's a dentist's office inside it. But that is exactly what happened.


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[Assistant] Wheely stood up, and I followed her out of the office and around the corner to a short dead-end hallway I had never thought about before.


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[Assistant] There was one open door, and on the other side of it was a real dentist's office.


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[Assistant] We walked into a waiting area and I could see into another room with a regular dentist chair. It had a little white sink attached and one of those big silver lights over it.


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[Assistant] The walls were covered with posters about eating apples and plaque and brushing your teeth.


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[Assistant] Wheely called out, Bruce? And a guy with a short gray beard popped his head into the waiting room.


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[Assistant] He was wearing one of those green doctor tops and he gave me a big perfect smile. Hey there, are you my first appointment? No, this is Miranda, Wheelie said.


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[Assistant] They go to the dentist at school? I said. That's so weird. Wheely snatched back the paper and said,


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[Assistant] There are 98 sixth graders in this school. 89 of them are in attendance today. So if you can't do this politely, you can go straight back to your classroom and I'll find another one for the job.


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[Assistant] I felt my face go hot and actually thought I might cry.


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[Assistant] Sometimes when I'm caught off guard, I cry at almost nothing.


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[Assistant] The dentist put a hand on my shoulder and smiled again.


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[Assistant] He was like a professional smiler. Which makes sense for a dentist, I guess.


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[Assistant] My services don't cost anything, Miranda. Some families don't have the money to pay a dentist. Or they could really use the money for something else. Oh.


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[Assistant] I was thinking I shouldn't let my mother find out about this. She's always complaining about how healthcare should be free for everyone.


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[Assistant] I bet she would have me signed up for the dentist at school in no time.


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[Assistant] The dentist looked at Wheelie, and she forced a little smile and handed me the list again.


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[Assistant] Then she fished a warm bit of honey out of her pocket and gave it to me right there in front of the dentist.


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[Assistant] Even though Luisa had once told me that you might as well whack your own teeth with a wrench as eat bit of honeys. I set out with my list.


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[Assistant] Don't get the kids all at once, the dentist called after me. Bring them in twos.


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[Assistant] I decided to get the little kids first. I knocked on their classroom doors and their teachers came hurrying to see my note. And the kids were handed over to me.


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[Assistant] I walked the two kindergartners to the dentist's office, read my book in the waiting room for a while, and then went back for a second grader and a fourth grader. It was a lot of climbing up and down stairs. Not in a million years could I imagine Wheelie doing this.


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[Assistant] When I got back to the dentist with my second drop, one of the kindergartners was already waiting to go back to class. She had this big smiley tooth sticker on her shirt. I brought her back to her classroom and then went for the last kid on my list. A sixth grader like me. Marcus Heilbronner. In class 6506. I'd never heard of him.


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[Assistant] I knocked on the little window in the classroom door, waving my paper. The teacher, Mr. Anderson, came over and I showed him my list. Marcus? He called and a boy stood up.


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[Assistant] It was the boy who hit Sal. He got in a very short haircut, but he was definitely the same person. My brain started yelling at me.


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[Assistant] It's the kid who hit Sal. He goes to your school? The kid who hit Sal goes to your school?


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[Assistant] And meanwhile the kid had walked over to where I was standing with Mr. Anderson. Dentist appointment, Mr. Anderson whispered.


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[Assistant] Marcus nodded, went back to his desk, picked up a book, and then walked right past me and out the door.


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[Assistant] I followed a few steps behind him He knew the way


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[Assistant] Welcome back, Marcus, the dentist called from the exam room. Nice haircut!


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[Assistant] The fourth grader was in the big chair, spitting into the little white sink.


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[Assistant] The other two kids were all stickered up and waiting to go back to class.


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[Assistant] Marcus sat down heavily and opened his book, which was called Concepts in Mathematics.


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[Assistant] Things that burn. Anne Marie's apartment didn't involve keys.


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[Assistant] Instead she had a doorman who slapped her five and a dad who opened the door upstairs.


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[Assistant] No, Anne-Marie said. He works from home. He illustrates medical journals. Is your mom here too? She shook her head. She's at work.


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[Assistant] Anne-Marie's bedroom was about the same size as mine, but it had nice curtains and the walls were completely covered with all kinds of pictures and photographs, which I couldn't stop looking at. There must have been a hundred of them.


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[Assistant] We've known each other for a long time, Anne-Marie said, sitting down on her bed, which had some kind of Asian bedspread and about 50 pillows on it. Who? She blushed. Oh, I thought you were looking at the pictures of Julia.


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[Assistant] That's when I noticed that her room was covered with pictures of Julia.


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[Assistant] Maybe not covered exactly, but there were a lot of them.


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[Assistant] The two of them in pajamas, or in the park, or standing together all dressed up outside some theater.


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[Assistant] I'm on a deadline, he said to me. When I'm on deadline, I cook. Do you like mustard? Try the dipping sauce. I'll be right back with some apple cider.


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[Assistant] He was back in 30 seconds with a glass of cider for me, but he handed Anne-Marie what looked like plain water. She didn't seem to notice. Anne-Marie's rug was spongy and soft, almost like another bed, and I lay down on it.


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[Assistant] Mustard always makes my lips burn, but I didn't care. It was worth it.


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[Assistant] The winner's circle. Mom is getting very good at the speed round.


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[Assistant] She almost always gets seven words in 30 seconds now. No matter who is giving the clues and who is guessing.


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[Assistant] The second part of the $20,000 pyramid is called the winner circle because you have to win the speed round to get there.


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[Assistant] In the winner's circle, the celebrity partner gives the clues and the contestant has to guess. Not words, but categories.


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[Assistant] So if the celebrity says, tulip, daisy, rose, the contestant would say, types of flowers.


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[Assistant] That's an easy one. Some of the categories are harder to figure out, like Things You Recite Poetry The Pledge of Allegiance


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[Assistant] Or, things you squeeze. A tube of toothpaste. Someone's hand.


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[Assistant] The last category is always incredibly hard to guess. Maybe...


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[Assistant] Things you prolong, or things that are warped.


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[Assistant] The last category is what stands between the contestants and the big money. Mom says it doesn't help that some of these celebrity partners are as dumb as a bag of hair.


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[Assistant] If mom wins her first speed round and correctly guesses all the categories in the winner's circle, she'll win $10,000.


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[Assistant] If she wins the second speed round, the winner's circle is worth $15,000.


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[Assistant] If she wins a third time, she'll go for $20,000. That's what I mean by big money.


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[Assistant] During the speed round, you can point or gesture all you want. If the word is nose, you can point to your nose. But the rules change in the winner's circle. No hand movements of any kind are allowed.


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[Assistant] Which is why I'm tying Richard's arms to my desk chair. I'm using the clothe hitch.


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[Assistant] You've got it reversed again, Richard says, watching me. That end should go through the loop. That's it? Right.


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[Assistant] Mom is looking at us like we're crazy. Is this really necessary?


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[Assistant] She has to practice, he tells her, for when you win the sailboat. Mom rolls her eyes. I get my cards ready.


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[Assistant] I've written everything out in fat block letters so Richard can read them from a distance.


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[Assistant] I'm going to hold them up one at a time behind mom's head, where Richard can see them. In the real show.


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[Assistant] They have these big panels that spin around behind the contestants head to reveal the next category. But obviously we don't have that kind of technology.


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[Assistant] She's even written down what Dick Clark says at the beginning of every winner circle.


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[Assistant] He always uses the same words. Here is your first subject. Go.


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[Assistant] Mom has to guess the names of six categories before it goes off.


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[Assistant] Here is your first subject, I say, trying to sound like Dick Clark. Go! I hold up the first card so Richard can see it. The card says,


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[Assistant] Things you climb, Richard nods and starts giving mom clues. A jungle gym. A mountain.


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[Assistant] Hi, thanks, mom guesses. Richard shakes his head. Uhm, stairs. Things that go up, she yells. He shakes his head again. A ladder.


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[Assistant] Things you climb, ding, I say, and hold up the next card.


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[Assistant] Fancy things! Mom yells. Romantic things!


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[Assistant] Fries. French things. Ding. Next card.


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[Assistant] A pillow, Richard says. A kitten. Soft things? A cotton ball.


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[Assistant] Puffy things. Fluffy things. Ding. Next card. A baby carriage. A shopping cart.


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[Assistant] Things that carry things, mom guesses. Things with wheels.


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[Assistant] Richard shakes his head, sinks, and says,


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[Assistant] A button. Things you push. Ding!


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[Assistant] Sal and I don't wait for each other these days. Not purposely. But if we happen to be leaving school at the same time, if he isn't going to a friend's or to basketball practice, and I'm not going to Anne-Marie's or Julia's or Colin's, then Sal and I walk home together. And we are better this way. Together because we want to be. He understood that before I did. We walk up to Broadway, past Jimmy's,


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[Assistant] We walk to Amsterdam, past the garage, where the boys still say stuff to us and we ignore them. We walk past Marcus' door.


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[Assistant] And when we are safely across, Sal always gives a little salute. And sometimes I look up and shake my fists at the sky.


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[Assistant] It snowed a little on the second to last day before Christmas vacation. Snow always puts me in a good mood.


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[Assistant] Mr. Tomkin let us skip the math workbooks and spend the whole morning on our Main Street projects. Anne-Marie helped me start my swings. So far, the perfect day.


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[Assistant] By the time we walked to Jimmy's, the snow had stopped and the sidewalk was just slushy enough to make my sneakers uncomfortably wet.


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[Assistant] Mom had slept through the weather report, so I was the only one without boots.


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[Assistant] Colin started to push open Jimmy's door, but Jimmy jumped out from behind the counter and leaned against the door so it slammed in our faces.


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[Assistant] Hey! Colin smiled, thinking it was a joke, and shoved back. But I could see Jimmy's face better than Colin could. It wasn't a joke.


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[Assistant] Get out! Jimmy called through the glass. Don't come back here anymore. You're lucky I don't call the police. Anne-Marie put her hand on Colin's shoulder. I think he's serious. What?


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[Assistant] Colin saw our faces and then looked up at Jimmy through the door. What's going on? He yelled. Jimmy had one foot up against the bottom of the door.


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[Assistant] He glared at us. Some people on the street looked over, but nobody stopped.


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[Assistant] Of course we told him through the door, that we didn't, that we wouldn't. But there was no way he was letting us in.


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[Assistant] We went to the pizza place and talked about who could have taken Jimmy's two dollar bills.


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[Assistant] He ran the place alone, aside from the 40 minutes a day that we were there.


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[Assistant] He usually put his back-in-five-minute sign in the window and locked the door. But not every time.


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[Assistant] Sometimes he just ran into the back for a minute, and if someone came in, they waited. Someone could have taken the bank then.


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[Assistant] But who in the world would have known to take it in the first place?


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[Assistant] It was a faded plastic bank in the shape of a cartoon character. It didn't look remotely valuable. Let's write him a letter, Anne Marie said. Or no, we'll get him a card.


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[Assistant] She used her spoon to scrape up the last of her lunch, which her dad packed for her every day in a cleaned out yogurt container.


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[Assistant] Come on, she said standing up. It'll be my treat.


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[Assistant] So we went into Gold's stationery and bought Jimmy a greeting card.


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[Assistant] I wanted to get one that said, with sympathy, for Jimmy's lost bank.


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[Assistant] But Anne-Marie said we should pick something that was blank inside.


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[Assistant] She picked a card with roses on it, which I thought was kind of strange, considering it was for Jimmy, and roses are supposed to symbolize love. She said the card looked sincere.


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[Assistant] But she looked like she'd been hoping for a more revealing answer.


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[Assistant] Can you put this on my dad's account? She asked the cashier.


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[Assistant] The cashier smiled and handed Anne-Marie a spiral notebook with a beaten up cover. Anne-Marie flipped it open and wrote her name and the date. A charge account at Gold's.


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[Assistant] I thought of the fat, smelly markers that cost $2.50 each. The leather diaries that locked with little keys. The battery operated fans that you could wear on a string around your neck on hot days.


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[Assistant] After school, Anne-Marie and I went to her house. Her dad brought us some weird kind of thin ham rolled up so we could eat it with our fingers. We wrote on Jimmy's card.


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[Assistant] Dear Jimmy, we did not take your Fred Flintstone bank. We don't know who could have taken it. Maybe someone came in when you went to the bathroom. Can we come back to work?


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[Assistant] Signed, your employees, Anne-Marie, Miranda, and Colin.


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[Assistant] I put the car to my knapsack so that I could slip it under Jimmy's door the next morning on my way to school.


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[Assistant] Then we lay on Anne-Marie's rug and planned all the stuff we were going to do over Christmas vacation. Anne-Marie wanted to start teaching me how to draw, even though I told her I was probably hopeless.


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[Assistant] We were going to go to the movies, and her dad even said he would take us ice skating in Central Park. I tried not to wonder what Sal would be doing.


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[Assistant] I figured he'd be playing basketball right up until the first big snow.


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[Assistant] Things in an elevator. Near's day was weirdly warm and sunny.


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[Assistant] Sal's basketball was going strong by about nine in the morning.


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[Assistant] I sneaked a look down into the alley and saw him running back and forth in just a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.


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[Assistant] He was wearing the watch Luisa had given him for Christmas. She'd come up to show it to us beforehand.


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[Assistant] It was kind of old fashioned, with Roman numerals and a leather band.


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[Assistant] And I hadn't been sure Sal would like it, but it looked like he did.


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[Assistant] Mom was sleeping late. I wrote her a note. I went out. I'll get you a bagel.


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[Assistant] The laughing man wasn't on the corner. Maybe he didn't work holidays. Bells was closed. Everything felt kind of peaceful and sad and deserted.


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[Assistant] My feet carried me to school, which was closed, of course.


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[Assistant] The yard gate was open, and I went in and sat on the jungle gym for a few minutes, letting myself feel how strange it was to be there alone.


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[Assistant] I was sort of deliberately trying to weird myself out, I think. To get my energy up. To call Anne-Marie.


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[Assistant] Ten days of silence had grown into a question that my brain shouted inside my head. Is Anne-Marie even your friend anymore?


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[Assistant] There was a payphone on the corner. I had a dime in my coat.


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[Assistant] As I dialed, I noticed someone leaning over the garbage can across the street.


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[Assistant] When he pulled himself upright, I saw it was the laughing man.


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[Assistant] He stood there with his hands on his hips looking down at the garbage.


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[Assistant] I quickly turned my back to him worried that he might recognize me and come over. The receiver of the payphone was cold against my ear.


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[Assistant] Only after it started ringing did it occur to me that if my mother was sleeping, Anne-Marie's parents might be sleeping too. Yellow! Anne-Marie's dad answered the phone.


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[Assistant] He sounded as if he'd been up for hours, just sitting by the phone and hoping, hoping, hoping it would ring. Hi, it's Miranda. Hi Miranda! Happy New Year!


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[Assistant] Hi! I mean, Happy New Year to you too! I was wondering if Anne-Marie is there?


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[Assistant] She is, but she's in the shower. Are you by any chance outside, Miranda? It sounds like you might be at a payphone. Oh, yeah, I am actually. In the neighborhood? Uhm, yeah, I'm right by school.


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[Assistant] Well, come on over. I'm pouring you some orange juice right now. Uh, okay. You can surprise Anne-Marie. Would I ever.


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[Assistant] I walked up the hill where the sunlight seemed to touch everything like it was a hyper kid running all over a toy store. It bounced off the dirty metal lamp posts, the shiny brass awning posts, even the sunglasses of a woman walking her dogs with a cup of coffee in one hand. Everything shined.


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[Assistant] Anne Marie's doorman was standing just outside the building's polished doors. He smiled and waved me in.


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[Assistant] On the way up, it hit me that it was truly strange to come over here without talking to Anne-Marie first.


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[Assistant] But at the exact same time I got nervous about that.


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[Assistant] I also got this other feeling, which I can only describe as love for Anne-Marie's elevator.


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[Assistant] The wood paneling. The cloth covered stool in one corner.


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[Assistant] The little bell that went off every time we passed another floor.


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[Assistant] It was all so nice and cozy that I thought it would be wonderful to stay inside it forever.


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[Assistant] Or at least to sit down on the little stool and close my eyes for a while. The whole thing was beyond weird.


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[Assistant] And then the elevator stopped on Anne-Marie's floor, and of course I got out, because that's what people do when the elevator gets to their floor. Anne-Marie answered the door in her robe with wet hair. Hi, I started.


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[Assistant] I just called to say happy new year, and your dad said, she smiled, come on in. It was the best morning. Anne-Marie showed me her Christmas presents.


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[Assistant] She got all kinds of cool art stuff, and we ended up spreading it all over the dining room table and drawing comic strips on this special comic strip paper that came with stickers for the talking bubbles and the thinking bubbles.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, her dad kept bringing in these plates of bacon and, for me, french toast strips I could pick up with my hands. Then mom called.


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[Assistant] I had completely forgotten about her. She was frantic, she was angry, and she was coming to get me. Even Anne-Marie's dad looked mad.


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[Assistant] Better get your coat on, he said when I hung up the phone, even though my mom couldn't possibly get to Anne-Marie's apartment that fast.


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[Assistant] So I waited by the door, overheating in my coat, and Anne-Marie waited with me.


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[Assistant] So, about what happened at Jimmy's, I said.


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[Assistant] I was so grateful that she had something to apologize for that it didn't really occur to me to think about how it had actually made me feel. But I have thought about it since then. It didn't make me feel good.


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[Assistant] We heard the elevators ding, and I opened Anne-Marie's front door before mom had a chance to ring the bell.


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[Assistant] I thought I might be able to escape without Anne-Marie's parents talking to her. No such luck.


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[Assistant] Jerry? Mom called out, and Aunt Marie's dad came rushing over saying, Oh, you're here. I didn't hear the bell.


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[Assistant] They crosstalked for a while. Then hit one of those natural breaks in the conversation and both turned to look at me.


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[Assistant] Let's go, mom said coldly. And I said, thanks for having me.


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[Assistant] And now Marie's dad smiled at me, but only because he's the nicest person on earth.


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[Assistant] The elevator opened right away, so there was no awkward waiting.


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[Assistant] On the way down, I knew I should apologize, but I just waited for Mom to jump all over me. Instead, she burst into tears, which made me cry.


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[Assistant] So we both cried through the lobby, past the doorman, and out into the sunlight, where we magically stopped. She took a deep breath and looked at me. I was scared, she said. When you didn't come back, I got really scared. Don't ever do that again. I nodded. Okay, she said. What now? I don't know. Maybe a movie?


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[Assistant] So that's what we did. We went to the movies and ate candy and popcorn and held hands for a few minutes on the way home.


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[Assistant] The laughing man was at his regular post, doing his kicks into the street. When he saw us, he yelled, Smart kid! But having mom there made it different.


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[Assistant] Like walking down the street with a blanket wrapped tight around me.


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[Assistant] Richard was leaning up against our building, reading a newspaper.


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[Assistant] Seriously, would it kill you to give me a key?


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[Assistant] And mom shrugged and said it was only 3.30 and she didn't much feel like going upstairs anyway. So we turned around and went to eat at the diner.


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[Assistant] Which was full of people just waking up and having breakfast.


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[Assistant] It was a sad day when Walter Hartright left us. Laura stayed in her room all day and I felt sad and depressed. Poor Mr. Gilmore must have had a dull time.


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[Assistant] And the next morning, when Laura reappeared looking pale and ill, I thought he seemed rather anxious about her. I was anxious too. Laura is such a sensitive and loving person.


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[Assistant] That it was no surprise to me to find that she had grown fond of Walter. Indeed, I have grown fond of him myself.


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[Assistant] But I honestly believe that time will cure Laura of these feelings.


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[Assistant] Two days after Walter left, Sir Percival Glide arrived. He is 45 years old, but seems younger.


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[Assistant] He is handsome, and only a little bald, has perfect manners, and is pleasant, agreeable, and respectful. I really must try to like him.


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[Assistant] In the afternoon, while Laura was out of the room, Sir Percival referred to Anne Catherine's letter.


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[Assistant] I read Mr. Gilmore's letter to my lawyer, he said, and I want to give you a full explanation.


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[Assistant] Mrs. Catherick, you see, worked for me and my family for many years.


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[Assistant] Her marriage was unfortunate in that her husband deserted her and her only child, a girl,


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[Assistant] Became mentally ill and needed to be put in an asylum.


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[Assistant] So in recognition of Mrs. Catherick's services, I agreed to pay the expenses of a private asylum for the girl.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately the girl discovered this and consequently developed a hatred for me.


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[Assistant] She recently escaped from the asylum, and I'm sure she wrote this letter because of her hatred for me. It's all very sad.


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[Assistant] She was easily frightened, easily confused.


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[Assistant] Had she ever, I asked, been wronged by a man and then abandoned?


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[Assistant] Her innocent puzzled face told me that was not the answer.


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[Assistant] All the time we were talking, she was cleaning the gravestone with her cloth. Mrs. Fairley was my best friend, she murmured. And her daughter? She looked up at me, then away again, as though hiding her face in guilt.


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[Assistant] Is Miss Fairleigh well and happy? She whispered anxiously.


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[Assistant] I decided to try and surprise a confession from her.


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[Assistant] She was not well or happy this morning after receiving your letter. You wrote it, didn't you? It was wrong to send such a letter. Her face went deathly pale. Then she bent down and kissed the gravestone.


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[Assistant] But Ms. Fairley knows that the person you describe is superciful glide.


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[Assistant] The moment I said his name she gave such a scream of terror that my blood ran cold.


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[Assistant] A face now full of fear and hatred told me everything.


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[Assistant] Without doubt the person who had shut her away in the asylum was Sir Percival Glide.


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[Assistant] The next morning, I sent my letters of recommendation to the professor's employer.


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[Assistant] And in the evening I walked to Hampstead to say goodbye to my mother and Sarah.


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[Assistant] When I left them at midnight, a full moon was shining in a dark blue starless sky, and the air was soft and warm.


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[Assistant] I decided to take the long route home and walk across Hampstead Heath before joining the road into the centre of the city.


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[Assistant] After a while I came to a crossroads and turned on to the London Road. I was lost in my own thoughts, wondering about the two young ladies in Cumberland, when suddenly my heart seemed to stop beating. A hand had touched my shoulder from behind.


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[Assistant] I turned at once, my hand tightening on my walking stick.


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[Assistant] There, as if it had dropped from the sky, stood the figure of a woman dressed from head to foot in white clothes. I was too surprised to speak.


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[Assistant] Poor Lady Glide was shaking so much that she gave me the letter to read to her. It was very short, I remember it, word for word.


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[Assistant] Dear Laura, please come whenever you like. Break the journey by sleeping at your aunt's house. Sorry to hear of Marion's illness. Your fond uncle, Frederick Fairleigh. Lady Glide didn't try to argue any more.


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[Assistant] And we went back upstairs. It seemed quite a sensible plan to me, Miss Halcombe, and I couldn't understand why Lady Glide was so terrified of Count Fosco. She walked up and down her room, whispering, Poor Marion, in that horrible man's power.


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[Assistant] I must find her, even if I have to follow her to Count Fosco's house.


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[Assistant] The next day I helped Lady Glide get ready and went with her to the station.


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[Assistant] If Marion has already left for Limeridge, I won't stay at the Count's house, she told me. Go and stay with Mrs. Vasey, my old governess.


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[Assistant] As the train pulled away I saw her pale, frightened face at the window. I felt so sad for her. Then I came back here. Imagine my surprise, Miss Halcombe, when I saw Mrs. Rubell walking in the garden.


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[Assistant] What are you doing here? I said. You went to London with the Foscows and Miss Halcombe. And then it all came out. You were still in the house.


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[Assistant] While I was out of the way in Torquay, they moved you to a room in an unused part of the house and kept you hidden.


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[Assistant] Perhaps they drugged you, I don't know. Then Sir Percival appeared and gave me this explanation. It was all for his wife's own good, he said. She needed a change of air, and would not have gone to Limeridge if she had known that you were still in the house.


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[Assistant] He spoke in such a violent, angry way that I did not dare to express my opinion.


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[Assistant] Later when I felt stronger we talked again.


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[Assistant] Tell me everything you can remember from the day I fell ill, I begged Mrs. Mitchelson. I must know what happened.


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[Assistant] Well, Miss Halcombe, on that first morning a servant found you lying on your bed in a fever, holding a pen tightly in your hand.


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[Assistant] The doctor was called at once, a Mr Dawson, who said you were very ill. The Countess and I acted as your nurses. Lady Glide wanted to help, but she was so upset at seeing you unconscious that she couldn't stop crying.


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[Assistant] The count spent three days down by the lake at that old boathouse.


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[Assistant] And I remember he came in once when I was going through the hall. Sir Percival came rushing out of the library saying, Have you found her?


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[Assistant] But it was obvious that Mrs. Mitchelson didn't, so I said nothing. Your fever got worse, Mrs. Mitchelson went on.


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[Assistant] The Count said we needed a nurse to help us, so Madame Fosco took the train to London and came back with Mrs. Rubell.


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[Assistant] Is that the foreign lady who was looking after me before you appeared, Mrs. Mitchelson?" I asked.


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[Assistant] She didn't say very much, but she was a capable nurse. I had no complaints about her work.


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[Assistant] But in fact, Miss, the Count recognized you had typhus fever before Mr. Dawson did. He, the Count, that is, went away to London for a week.


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[Assistant] And when he came back, he took one look at you and said, typhus.


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[Assistant] Mr Dawson sent to London for another doctor who came and said the same thing.


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[Assistant] Then we had a very worrying ten days, when your life was in danger, but at last the doctor said you were through the worst, and with good nursing care you would recover.


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[Assistant] Lady Glide was so overcome by this happy news that she became ill herself and had to be put to bed.


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[Assistant] A slim, fair-haired man with a scar on his left cheek was standing near us. I saw him look at Peska, and then follow the direction of his eyes to the count. Peska repeated that he did not know him.


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[Assistant] And as he spoke the Count looked our way again. The eyes of the two Italians met.


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[Assistant] In that second I was suddenly convinced that while Pesca may not have known the Count, the Count certainly knew Pesca.


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[Assistant] Not only knew him, but, more surprisingly still, feared him as well.


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[Assistant] The Count's face had frozen into a dreadful stillness.


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[Assistant] The cheeks as pale as death, the cold grey eyes staring in terror.


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[Assistant] Nearby, the man with the scar also seemed to be watching with interest the effect that Pesca had had on the Count.


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[Assistant] How the fat man stares, Pesker said, looking round at me. But I've never seen him before in my life.


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[Assistant] As Pesca looked away, the Count turned, moving quickly towards the back of the theatre, where the crowd was thickest.


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[Assistant] I caught Pesker's arm, and, to his great surprise, hurried him with me after the count.


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[Assistant] The slim man with the scar had apparently also decided to leave, and was already ahead of us.


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[Assistant] By the time Peska and I reached the entrance neither the Count nor the slim man was in sight. Peska.


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[Assistant] I said urgently, I must speak to you in private. May we go to your lodgins to talk? What on earth is the matter? cried Besker. I hurried him on without answering.


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[Assistant] The way the counter left the theatre, his extraordinary anxiety to avoid pesca, made me fear that he might go even further and out of my reach.


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] Okay.


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[Assistant] Oh, Laura, I said when she had gone, you shouldn't have called the Count a spy. We shall both regret it. But he is a spy, Marion.


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[Assistant] He told Sir Percival, who watched and waited all morning for me and Anne Catherick, but she didn't come.


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[Assistant] I found a note from her hidden in a hole in the sand. She said she'd been followed yesterday by a fat old man.


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[Assistant] He hadn't caught her, but she was afraid to come back this afternoon.


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[Assistant] She hid this note very early in the morning and said she would see me again soon to tell me Sir Percival's secret. What happened to the note? I said. Have you got it? No. While I was reading it Sir Percival appeared.


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[Assistant] He took it from me and demanded to hear everything Anne Catherick had said.


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[Assistant] And felt such furious hatred for Sir Percival that I dared not speak. But he didn't believe me, Laura went on.


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[Assistant] He said he knew she had told me more and that he would lock me up until I had confessed the truth.


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[Assistant] I must act now to protect you. Who knows how long I will be allowed to stay here. I thought hard for a few minutes.


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[Assistant] I will write two letters and give them to Fanny to take with her. I can't trust the post bag here anymore.


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[Assistant] One for Mr. Curl, telling him of your bruises and Sir Percival's violent behaviour. And who is the other letter for? asked Laura anxiously. For Mr. Fairley, I said.


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[Assistant] Your lazy, selfish uncle. I'll make him invite you for a visit to Limeridge without your husband.


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[Assistant] Uh, uh.


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] So, in fact, he also mentioned an energy problem. You can also read it in the book.


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you are familiar with Yujia philosophy, uh, in Yujia philosophy, in Yujia Sutra, uh, and in many Yujia philosophies, they will use the water pattern on the lake, which is the wave of our consciousness. What is the bottom of the lake? It is the image of this lake to explain the whole, not the whole, part of this concept of Yujia philosophy, the main concept. For example,


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh, uh.


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] So, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh.


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[Assistant] Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh.


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[Assistant] Uh, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh,


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[Assistant] You can focus on your feet, your hips, or a certain movement, or your whole body, or when you walk, focus on your breathing.


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[Assistant] We all say, who doesn't know how to walk? But where is the challenge? We've all walked before.


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] There is no need to complete many steps. Just walk.


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh.


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] So, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Uh, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, uuuh.


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh, uh, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So uhm, uh, uh,


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[Assistant] So uhm,


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh,


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[Assistant] So uhm, uh,


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[Assistant] Duan wei zhi fen hao, ruo ne zuo zhen de xin can.


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[Assistant] This is the 14th day. That's it for the 14th day. Thank you.


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[Assistant] I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.


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[Assistant] Now come, my aerial. Bring the corollary, rather than want a spirit. Appear, of Berkeley.


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[Assistant] This is Tom Jones reading I Want to Live from Hoppers Magazine.


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[Assistant] She wondered how many times a week he had to do this. Plenty, no doubt. At least every day. Maybe twice. Three times. Maybe on a big day, five times. It was the ultimate bad news, and he delivered it dryly, like Sergeant Joe Friday.


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[Assistant] He was a young man, but his was a tough business and he had gone freeze-dried already. Hey, the bad news wasn't really a surprise. She knew. Of course, you always hope for the best. She heard that she didn't hear. What? She offered timidly. She had hoped for better. Geez, give me a break. What was he saying? Rest and uterus? Double trouble.


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[Assistant] She knew it would be the uterus. There had been the discharge, the bloating, cramps, the fatigue, but it was common and easily curable provided you got it at stage one. Eighty percent cure. The breast, that one came out of the blue and that could be really tricky. That was fifty-fifty.


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[Assistant] Strip out the lymph nodes down your arm and guaranteed chemo. God, chemo. The worst thing in the world. Goodbye hair. There'd be scarves, wigs, a prosthetic breast, crying your heart out in support groups, etc. Mrs. Wilson. The voice seemed to come out of a can. Now the truth was revealed and all was out in the open. Yet, how? Tell me this.


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[Assistant] How would it ever be possible to have a life again? The voice from the can had chilled her to the core.


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[Assistant] Outside snowflakes tumbled from the sky kissing the pavement. Each unique, wonderful, worth an hour of study, a microcosm of the whole.


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[Assistant] All inspiring, absolutely fascinating, a gift of divinity gratis. Yet, how abhorrent they seemed. They were white, but the whole world had lost its color for her now that she had heard those words. The shine was gone from the world.


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[Assistant] Had she been queen of the universe for a million years and witnessed glory after glory, what would it have mattered now that she had come to this?


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[Assistant] You live, you die. That's how it is. Life in the big city. It happens to everyone. It's part of the plan. Who was she to question the plan? The only bad part was her throat. Her throat was on fire. Intubation.


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[Assistant] The nurse said she'd phone the doctor and maybe he'd authorize more dope. Oh god, please. Anything. Okay, let's just fudge a little bit. No one needs to know.


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[Assistant] The nurse said, twisting the knob on tube control central, delotted.


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[Assistant] Cartoons, oh god, thank god, delighted. Who invented that drug? Read him a letter, knight him.


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[Assistant] Award the Nobel Prize to the Lotted Man. Where was that knob? A handy thing to know. Woo. Wham-o.


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[Assistant] Swirling, robbing ecstasy and who is that nurse?


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[Assistant] Lawrence Nightingale, Mother Teresa would be proud. Oh boy. Wasn't just relief from the surgery.


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[Assistant] She suddenly realized how much psychic pain she'd been carrying and now was gone with one swoop of a magic wand. Cartoons. Lists. His voice wasn't in a can, never had been. It was a normal voice, maybe a little high for a man. Not that he was effeminate.


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[Assistant] The whole problem with him was that he didn't seem real. He wasn't a flesh and blood kind of guy. Where was the empathy?


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[Assistant] Spread throughout your abdomen. It looks like little grape nuts actually. It's exceedingly rare and it's a rapid form of cancer. We couldn't really take any of it out. I spent most of my time in there on tangling adhesions. We're going to have to give you cisplatinum.


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[Assistant] If it weren't for the adhesions, we could pump it into your abdomen directly. You wouldn't get so sick that way.


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[Assistant] Thus adhesions are a problem and may cause problems further along.


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[Assistant] It's a shame, he said, looking at her chart. You're in such perfect health, otherwise. She knew this was going to happen, yet she heard herself say, Doctor, do you mean I've got to take? Hemo? Yeaah.


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[Assistant] But don't worry about that yet, let's just let you heal up for a while. He slammed her chart shut and...


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[Assistant] Whiz. Bang. He was outta there. Goodbye. See ya.


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[Assistant] The guessing game was over, and now it was time for the ordeal. She didn't want to hear any more details. He said something about a 20% five-year survival rate. Might as well bag it. She wasn't a fighter, and she'd seen what Kimo had done to her husband, John. This was it. Innis. She had to laugh. Got giddy. It was like in that song. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. When you're totally screwed,


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[Assistant] She was walking with her little cart and tubes by the third day. A daily constitutional through the ward.


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[Assistant] Okay, the Dilaudid was permanently off the menu, but morphine sulfate wasn't half bad.


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[Assistant] No more cartoons, but rather a mellow glow.


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[Assistant] Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.


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[Assistant] On the morphine she was walking a quarter of an inch off the ground and everything was softer. Mercifully so. Maybe she could hack it for a thousand miles.


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[Assistant] Those people in the hospital rooms, gray and dying, that was her. Could such a thing be possible to die, really? At some point she guessed you did die, but her, now, so soon, with so little time to get used to the idea. No, this was all a bad dream. She'd wake up.