Burned

Burned

Ellen Hopkins

Did You Ever

When you were little, endure

your parents' warnings, then wait for them to leave the room, pry loose protective covers and consider inserting some metal

object into an electrical outlet?

Did you wonder if for once

you might light up the room?

When you were big enough to cross the street on your own, did you ever wait for a signal, hear the frenzied approach of a fire truck and feel like stepping out in front of it?

Did you wonder just how far

that rocket ride might take you

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When you were alraost grown, did you ever sit in a bubble bath,

Perspiration pooling, notice a blow-dryer plugged in within easy reach, and think about dropping it into the water?

Did you wonder if the expected

rush might somehow fail you?

And now, do you ever dangle

your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home?

I, Pattyn Scarlet Von Stratten, do.

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I'm Not Exactly Sure

When I began to feel that way.

Maybe a little piece of me

always has. It's hard to remember.

But I do know things really

began to spin out of control after my first sex dream.

As sex dreams go, there wasn't

much sex, just a collage of very hot kisses, and Justin Proud's

hands, exploring every inch of my body, at my fervent

invitation. As a stalwart Mormon

high school junior, drilled

ceaselessly about the dire

catastrophe awaiting those

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who harbored impure thoughts,

I had never kissed a boy, had never even considered

that I might enjoy such an unclean thing, until literature opened my eyes.

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See, the Library
was my sanctuary. --Then I started high

Through middle -- school, where the school, librarians -- not-so-bookish were like guardian -- librarian was half

angels. Spinsterish --angel, half she-devil, guardian angels, -- so sayeth the rumor with graying hair -- mill. I hardly cared. and beady eyes, -- Ms. Rose was all

magnified through --I could hope I might

reading glasses, -- one day be: aspen and always ready -- physique, new penny to recommend new --hair, aurora green

literary Windows -- eyes, and hands that to gaze through. -- could speak. She

A. A. Milne. Beatrix --walked on air. Ms.

Potter. Lewis -- Rose shuttered old

Carroll. Kenneth -- Windows, opened

Grahame. E.B. -- portals undreamed of.

White. Beverly -- And just beyond,

Cleary. Eve Bunting. --what fantastic worlds!

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I Met Her My Freshman Year

All wide-eyed and dim about starting high school, a big new school, with polished hallways and hulking lockers and doors that led

who-knew-where?

A scary new school, filled with towering

teachers and snickering sTudents, impossible schedules, tough expectations, and endless possibilities.

The library, with its paper perfume, whispered queries, and copy

machine shuffles, was the only familiär

place on the entire campus.

And there was Ms. Rose.

How can I help you?

Fresh off a fling with CS.

Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle, hungry for travel far from home,

I whispered, "Fantasy, please."

She smiled.
Follow me.

I know just where to take you.

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I shadowed her to Tolkien's

Middle-earth and Rowling's

School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, places no upstanding Mormon should go.

When youfinish those,

Yd be happy to show you more.

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Fantasy Segued into Darker Dimensions

And authors who used three whole names:

Vivian Vande Velde, Annette Curtis Klause.

Mary Downing Hahn.,

By my sophomore year, I was deep into adult horror--King, Koontz, Rice.

You must try classic horror,
insisted Ms. Rose.

Poe, Wells, Stoker. Stevenson. Shelley.

Theres raore to life than monsters.

You'll love these authors:

Burroughs. Dickens. Kipling. London.

Bradbury. Chaucer. Henry David Thoreau.

And these:

Jane Austen. Arthur Miller. Charlotte Bronte.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. J. D. Salinger.

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By my junior year, I devoured increasingly

adult fare. Most, I hid under my dresser:

D. H. Lawrence. Truman Capote.

Ken Kesey. Jean Auel.

Mary Higgins Clark. Danielle Steel.

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I Began

To view the world at large through borrowed eyes, eyes more like those

I wanted to own.

Hopeful

I began to see that it was more than okay--it was, in some circles, expected--to question my

little piece of the planet.

Empowered

I began to understand that I could

Stretch if I wanted to, explore

if I dared, escape

if I just put one foot in front of the other.

Enlightened.

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I began to realize that escape

might offer the only real

hope of freedom from my

supposed God-given roles--

wife and mother of as many

babies as my body could bear.

Emboldened.

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I Also Began to Journal

Okay, one of the things expected of Latter-

Day Saints is keeping a Journal.

But I'd always considered it just another

"supposed to," one not to worry much about.

Besides, what would I write in a book

everyone was allowed to read?

Some splendid nonfiction chronicle about sharing a three-bedroom house with six younger sisters, most of whom

I'd been required to diaper?

Some suspend-your-disbelief fiction about how picTure-perfect life was at home, forget the whole dysfunctional truth about Dad's alcohol-fueled tirades?

Some brilliant manifesto about how God

whispered sweet insights into my ear,

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higher truths that I would hold on to forever, once I'd shared them through testimony?

Or maybe they wanted trashy confessions--

Daydreams Designed by Satan.

Whatever.
I'd
never written but a few

words in my mandated diary.

Maybe it was the rebel in me.

Or maybe it was just the lazy in me.

. But faithfully penning a journal was the furthest thing from my mind.

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M
s.
Rose Had Other Ideas

One day I brought a Stack of books, most of them banned in decent LDS

households, to the checkout counter.

Ms. Rose looked up and smiled.

You are quite the reader, Pattyn.

You II be a writer one day, I'll venTure.

I shook my head. "Not me.

Who'd want to read anything

I have to say?"

She smiled.
How about you?

Why don't you start with a journal?

So I gave her the whole l

owdown about why journaling was not my thing.

A very good reason to keep a Journal just for you. One

you don't
have
to write in.

A day or two later, she gave

me one--plump, thin-lined, with a piain denim cover.

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Decorate it with your words,
she said.
And don't be afraid of what goes inside.

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I
Wasn't Sure What She Meant

Until I opened the stiff-paged volume and started to write.

At first, rather ordinary fare

garnished the lines.

Feb. 6. Good day at school. Got an A on my history paper.

Feb. 9. Roberto has strep throat. Greatl

Now we'll all get it.

But as the year progressed, I began to feel I was Irving in a stranger's body.

Mar. 15. Justin Proud smiled at me today.

I can't believe it! And I can't believe

how it made mefeel. Kind of tingly all over, like I had an itch I didn't want to scratch.

An itch you-know-where.

Mar. 17. I dreanicd about Justin last night.

Dreamed he kissed me, and I kissed him back, and I let him touch me all over my body

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and I woke up all hot and blushing.

Blushingl Like I'd done something wrong.

Can a dream be wrong?

Aren't dreams God's way of telling you things?

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Justin Proud

Was one of the designated

"hot bods" on campus.

No surprise all the girls

hotly pursued that bod.

The only surprise was my

subconscious interest.

I mean, he was anything but a good Mormon boy.

And I, allegedly being a good Mormon girl, was supposed to keep

my feminine thoughts pure.

Easy enough, while struggling with Stacks of books, piles of paper, and mounds of adolescent angst.

Easy enough, while chasing after a herd of siblings, each the product of lustful, if legalfy married, behavior.

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Easy enough, while watching

other girls pant after him.

But just how do you maintain

pure thoughts when you dream?

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Suppose That's the Kind of Thing

Some girls could ask their moms.

But Mom and I didn't talk a whole lot about what

makes the world go round.

Conversation tended to run toward who'd wash the dishes, who'd dust and vacuum, who'd change the diapers.

In a house with seven kids, the oldest always seemed to draw

diaper duty. Mom worked real

hard to avoid Luvs. In fact, that's the hardest she ever

worked at anything. Am I saying

my mom was lazy? I guess I am.

As more of us girls went off to school each day, the house

got dirtier and dirtier. If we

wanted clean clothes, we loaded the washer.

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If we wanted clean dishes, we had to clear the sink.

Mom watched a lot of TV.

She didn't have a job, of course.

Dad wouldn't hear of it, which

made Mom extremely happy.

I think she saw her profession as populating the world with girls.

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Steven Girls

That's all Mom ever

managed to give Dad.

He named every one after a famous general, always

planning on a son.

A son, to replace the two his first wife had given him, the two he'd lost.

Janice,
I heard him tell Mom

more than once,
if you don't

pop out a boy next time,

I'm getting my money back on you.

But she carried no

money-back guarantee.

And the baby girls

just kept coming.

In reverse order: Georgia

(another nod to General George

Patton, my namesake);

Roberta (Robert E. Lee);

Davie (Jefferson D.);

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Teddie (Roosevelt);

Ulyssa (S. Grant);

Jaclde (Pershing).

Oh yes, and me.

No nicknames, no shortcuts, use every syllable, every letter, because there would

be no "half-ass" in Dad's house.

It s disTurbing, I know.

But Dad was Dad so Mom went along.

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