The Wormlips Scrapbook

I descend the cold tile stairway in my nightgown, blinking myself awake. I cross the cold tile floor, wrapping my shawl more tightly around me. I walk toward the…

—“VENGAAAAA.” I hear the ear-splitting cry of the beady-eyed crow, Reyna, the housekeeper. It is too early to be dealing with her impenetrable Spanish and her disdain for me. “Get over here,” she yells. “Hang your laundry out back. Don’t put it here on the sofa!”

Last night my house-mother Magdalena had told me to put my clothes on the sofa for pickup by the dry cleaner. Sadly, I don’t have “dry cleaner” in my vocabulary. Plus, I think sometimes The Crow purposely doesn’t understand.

I retreat with my coffee to my room, but have to reemerge for breakfast. The Crow sits across from me and we eat in silence. As every day, it is moldy papaya with yogurt. I surreptitiously try to slice off the grody bits, but it is impossible to be invisible in front of The Crow. I glance up. Her head is bent, but her mean eyes watch my every action. I almost expect her to start pecking lice from under her wing. I eat half of what’s on my plate. She leaves the room for a moment and I run to the trashcan, scrape in my papaya and sit back down. The carrion-eater returns. “Nawwwwwk. Don’t put your fruit in the trash!”

Magdalena returns. As I eat my ham and eggs, The Crow starts cawing to Magdalena: “She left her clothes on the sofa. She wasted the food. She threw it in the trash.” She thinks I don’t understand. I continue to look down at my plate. “ She wasted it. She didn’t eat any of it…”

I couldn’t take it. “I did too! I ate most of it.” I wanted to explain. “Pero tengo alergia a…” But I didn’t know how to say “mold,” and I also realized that would sound pretty rude: “Can’t eat your food cuz I can’t eat rotten stuff.”

I need a place to hide away, as John Lennon once said.

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