The Attic Window

I kept my misery about the move as quiet as I could. That wasn't as quiet as it ought to have been, but I was eleven and a half, which is a misery of its own, perhaps especially for a girl. I understood why we had to move. Great-aunt Liesl had taken care of my mother after my Uncle Ernest was born and my grandmother had post-partum depression which she never got over. So when Aunt Liesl fell and broke her hip and needed someone to live with her and take care of her it had to be my mother, I could see that.

The place wasn't bad. Outside I explored the woods and almost forgot to be miserable. Inside I spent too much

time thinking about the neighbors I'd left behind, especially Derek, who was twelve, and whom I wanted alternately to hit very hard and to melt passionately into if only I could figure out what people were supposed to do with their noses when they kissed and if only I wasn't concentrating on not losing the chess game. I wrote self-pitying things in my journal, and I read a lot of novels, and one rainy afternoon six weeks after we moved I decided to explore the attic.

I could have explored it as soon as we moved in, probably, but I told myself first that I’d have to ask permission, that I’d have to get Aunt Liesl to trust