“Every Tuesday a man comes and gets me out of social studies and we go to a room and talk about it all.

Last week he spread out pictures of flat bats for me to comment on. I mostly saw flat bats. Then I saw big holes a body could fall right into. Big black deep holes through the table and the floor. And then he took off his glasses and screwed his face up to mine and tells me I’m scared.

I used to be but I am not now is what I told him. I might get a little nervous but I am never scared.”

—Kaye Gibbons, Ellen Foster, 1987.