Excerpt from THE MUSIC OF DOLPHINS
by Karen Hesse
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I do not sleep. I watch out the window. I think about what Doctor Troy said.
She did not recognise herself.
I know he talked about me.
I remember the girl on the television. I remember each place she went. It is like remembering the notes of a song. I cannot froget that big-ear girl, the girl with Sandy and Doctor Beck. I look at my reflection in the mirror. There is a thin face, brown skin, short hair.
Doctor Troy said, She did not recognise herself. He must be wrong. I was not in the television. I could not be in that little life behind the glass and this big life all at the same time. Unless the life behind the glass is a remembering. Can they reach inside me and take a remembering? When I first came here, Doctor Beck put many wires on my head and told me to sleep. Did she take my rememberings then? I am so confused. The girl behind the glass, the girl with long hair, the plae where she stood made me think of the rocks where I drank the freshwater, the cay where I ate from the tide pools.
I think about the girl, naked. Her hair so long and black. Her skin gray and white with streak of salt. And her little circle scars.
I look in the mirror again. There are the big ears, the big, big ears. There are the little scars.
Doctor Troy said, She did not recognise herself.
The girl was me! Mila.
From The Music of Dolphins, copyright © 1996 by Karen Hesse.
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