STORIES
Joy
Williams
THE EXCURSION
Jenny lies a little . She is just a little girl, a child with fears.
She fears that birds will fly out of the toilet bowl. Starlings with slick
black wings. She fears trees and fishes and the bones in meat. She lies
a little but it is not considered serious. Sometimes it seems she forgets
where she is. She is lost in a place that is not her childhood . Some–
times she will say
to
someone, Mrs. Coogan at the Capt'n Davy
Nursery School, for example, that her mother is dead, her father is
dead , even her dog Tonto is dead. She will say that she has no toys ,
that she lives with machinery she cannot run , that she lives in a house
with no windows, no view of the street, that she lives with strangers .
She has
to
understand everything herself.
Poor Mrs . Coogan! She pats Jenny 's shoulder. Jenny wears pretty
and expensive dresses with blue sneakers. The effect is charming. She
has blond hair falling over a rather low brow and an interesting,
mobile face . She does everything too fast. She rushes to bathtimes
and mealtimes and even
to
sleep . She sleeps rapidly with deep, heart–
breaking sighs . Such hurry is unnecessary .
It
is as though she rushes
forward to meet even her memories.
Jenny does not know how to play games very well. When the
others play , she is still. She stands with her stomach thrust out,
watching the others with a cool , inward gaze . Sometimes , something
interrupts her, some urgent voice , perhaps, or shout, and she makes a
startled , curious skip . Her brown eyes brim with confusion. She turns
pale or very red . Yes, sometimes Jenny has bad days . The crayons are
dead, the swings are dead, even little Johnny Lewis who sits so pa–
tiently on his mat at snacktime will be dead. He is thirsty and when
