A List of Cages

by Robin Roe

My eyes are pulled to the only thing out of place—the big steel trunk at the foot of the bed. My parents got it for me to take to camp the summer I turned nine. They told me I was brave to go off on my own, but I got so homesick I couldn’t even make it through the first night.

His brown hair is sloppy, as if he tried to comb it in one direction, got bored, and combed it in the other, then switched five more times.

The walls and floors are much darker and smell older here. It’s empty and just big enough for me to lie down in one direction but not the other. There’s one window, round like a porthole on Elian’s ship, where I can look down at the

courtyard where no one ever goes.

Instead she said no one is evil, only unhappy, and unhappiness festers inside like a sore.

For the millionth time I wish she’d titled her lists, because the entire notebook is like this. A list of places. A list of colors. A list of songs. But no titles. No context. No way to understand what they mean.

The way he’d said spoiled wasn’t the way you’d talk about an overindulged child, but how you’d describe meat left out in the sun. Spoiled meant ruined. He’d warned me that if I pulled that in his house, he’d be done with me too.

“All right, Punky Brewster,” she says, which means she thinks I’m being a punk. It doesn’t make sense. I found that ’80s sitcom on YouTube, and despite the character’s name, she was a nice little girl. Same thing with the Rudy Ruettiger—what Mom calls me when she thinks I’m being rude. I’ve seen the movie about the plucky Catholic kid who finally got to play for Notre Dame. I’ve told her it would make more sense to call me Rudy the next time I persevere and overcome all obstacles, but she doesn’t care about making sense.

There’s one that if it had a title would be called A List of Fears. All of the words end in phobia, except for number sixteen: kayak angst.

Because when you’re between two shores and no one can see you, you don’t really exist at all.

The boy assigned to me—Julian—looked like an anime character, with too much shiny black hair that fell just short of his enormous round eyes.

I knew how much it sucked to be separated from your class for something you couldn’t control.

The only time I’ve ever taken out one of her pawns was when I got the Sorry card and had no choice. Even then I took out the player farthest from her HOME, so it wouldn’t be as mean. But afterward I found her watching me, not the board, and she looked unhappy.

He’s smiling brightly, but I don’t really know what he’s thinking, because you can’t always believe smiles.

Today his shoes are red high-tops, like Superman’s boots.

Losing Julian—for Mom, for me—it was like a death.

“How are you, Julian?” There’s a certain inflection to my name, the same tone people use to say honey or sweetheart.

The wind picks up, but instead of putting his sweatshirt back on, he just fits the hood over his head. As he walks forward, it billows behind him like a cape.

All of Adam’s friends are so pretty, but she’s like me, one of those people you aren’t supposed to talk to if other people are around to see.

It seems unfair, the way unhappiness flows out of a person, just to ricochet.

A girl turns onto our hall, eyes red and sad, and as she passes, Adam sends her a smile. Her whole face brightens and she sends him a smile back. Hate ricochets, but kindness does too.

“Because people heal a whole lot faster when they’re with someone who loves them.”

She goes on, insulting herself, pitying him, explaining away everything he did as if it’s okay for him to hurt her. It’s not.

The things I know stay in my head as I stand on my own two feet at the end of the day, and I walk back to my room with my journal to write my list of cages.

matter where he was. I remember when Julian was a little kid, he was so stubborn, but maybe that’s a good thing to be—a force of will that doesn’t die no matter how many horrible things happen to you.

“And when you smile…my grandmother calls them big-soul smiles. She says some people have souls so big that they spread out, touching everyone they pass.”

“Nothing means anything! People just go. They don’t finish.”

Today I just want to listen.

sky. It’s as if the lights strung through the trees have moved to float above us. Beautiful and too many to see all at once. Ten million stars.