Wire Mesh Mothers

26

Mistie wanted to go home. Yesterday at school the teacher had said they were going to do something fun, but the girl with the gun had gotten in the car and made them do other things. Nothing had been fun.

The girl was really mean, meaner than Daddy sometimes. She hit the teacher and hurt her. She hadn’t hurt Mistie yet but maybe she would. Mistie wanted to go home and watch television. She wanted to watch Princess Silverlace. She wanted to watch Sesame Street and count with the Count. She wanted to sit behind the trailer and play with the seed pods and repeat the little saying her sister Valerie thought was so funny, “Mama had a baby and its head popped off.” She wanted to sleep on her bed. She wanted to see Tessa Kessler and sit beside her on the bus.

Last night the girl had tied Mistie’s hands behind her back. She couldn’t sleep like that, and whined until the girl woke up and said, “You little brat, you’re keeping me awake!” But she untied Mistie’s hands from the back and tied them in the front. That was better, but Mistie still could hardly sleep.

In the morning she told the teacher to drive into a town and go through the Burger King drive-in. That was okay. The girl didn’t ask the teacher what she wanted but she did ask Mistie. Mistie said, “I don’t know,” and the girl laughed and said, “You got vocal cords after all!” and she got Mistie a biscuit with sausage and egg on top. Mistie hated egg, and let the yellow, greasy bits drop to the floor, but she ate the biscuit and the sausage and drank the cup of Coke, too.

Then the teacher drove to a bank and this time the teacher got some money out of a machine and the girl said, “We set for Texas! Yee-hah!”

Mistie didn’t know where Texas was, but hoped it was near MeadowView Trailer Park so she could go home and watch TV.