The girl crept out from her hiding place. Nostrils flaring, she paused, smelled the air, then streaked across the room, running low to the ground. Julia had never seen a kid move so fast. She disappeared into the bathroom.
Ellie whistled. “So that’s what Daisy meant when she said the girl ran like the wind.”
Julia slowly walked toward the bathroom.
Ellie followed her.
The girl was sitting on the toilet, with her pull-up big-kid diaper around her ankles.
“Holy cow,” Ellie whispered. “Did you teach her that?”
Julia couldn’t believe it herself. “She walked in on me today, when I was going to the bathroom. The sound of the flushing scared her to death. I would have sworn she’d never seen a toilet before.”
“You think she taught herself? By seeing you once?”
Julia didn’t answer. Any noise could ruin this moment. She inched into the room and gathered up some toilet paper. She showed the girl what to do with it, then handed it to her. The child frowned at the wadded up paper for a long time. Finally, she took it and used it. When she was finished, she slithered off the toilet, pulled up her diaper/underwear, and hit the white tape-covered lever. At the flushing noise, she screamed and ran, ducking between Julia’s and Ellie’s legs.
“Wow,” Ellie said.
They both stared at the girl hiding in the forest of potted plants.
In the quiet room, the girl’s breathing was loud and fast.
“This whole thing just gets stranger and stranger,” Ellie said.
Julia couldn’t disagree with that.
“Well,” Ellie said at last, “I need to get back to the office. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her back pocket and handed it to Julia. “These are Peanut’s and Cal’s home numbers. If you need to go to the library again, they’ll stay at the house with the kid.”
“Thanks.”
Julia walked Ellie to the door, let her out, then shut it again. She didn’t bother locking it. So far, the girl seemed terrified of the doorknob.
She went to the table, where she made a few more notes, then set her paper and pen away.
“It’s dinnertime.”
The girl remained hidden in the plants, watching her.
“Food.” She tapped the tray Ellie had left.
This time the girl moved. She crept out from the cover of green leaves and came to the table, where she started to attack the food in her usual way.
Julia grabbed her wrist. “No.”
Their gazes clashed.
“You’re too smart for this, aren’t you?” Julia got up, still holding the bird-thin wrist, and moved around to stand beside the girl. “Sit.” She pulled out a chair and patted the seat. “Sit.”
For the next thirty minutes they stood there, locked in a battle with a one-word soundtrack.
Sit.
At first the girl howled and snorted and shook her head, trying to pull free.
Julia simply held on to her, shaking her head, saying, “Sit.”
When the histrionics didn’t work, the girl shut up. She stood perfectly still, staring at Julia through slitted, angry eyes.
“Sit,” Julia said, patting the chair again.
The girl sighed dramatically and sat down.
Julia released her instantly. “Good girl.” She washed the child’s hands with baby wipes, then walked back around to the other side of the table and took her seat.
The girl attacked the food, eating as if it were a recent kill.
“You’re at the table,” Julia said. “That’s a start. We’ll work on manners tomorrow. After your bath.” She reached down for her notebook and put it in her lap, flipping through the pages while the child ate. Maybe there was an answer in here, but she doubted it. This was a case of questions.
A paragraph she’d written this afternoon caught her eye.
A perfect mimic. The child can repeat birdsong note for note. It almost seems as if they’re communicating, she and the bird, although that’s not possible.
“Is that the answer, little one? Did you see me using the toilet and simply mimic me? Was that a skill you needed to learn in the wild?”
She wrote down: In the absence of people, or society, how do we learn? By trial and error? By mimicry of other species? Perhaps she learned to learn fast and by observation.
Julia lifted her pen from the page.
It felt like half an answer at best. A child who’d grown up in the wild, within a wolf pack or among other animals, would have learned to mark territory with urine. She wouldn’t see the point in using a toilet.
Unless she’d seen one before, however long ago. Or she recognized a new pack leader in her and wanted to belong. “Who are you, little one? Where do you come from?”
As always, there was no answer.
While the girl was eating, Julia slipped out of the room and went downstairs.
The house was quiet.
In the carport she found the two cardboard boxes that held the town’s donations. One was filled with clothes. The other held all kinds of books and toys.
Julia went through everything again, condensing the best, most useful items into one box, which she carried back upstairs and set down on the floor with a thud.