The Walrus

The Walrus

This morning, I woke up to find a walrus at the breakfast table.

No one else seemed to notice, that was the weird thing. They all just kept doing their normal morning things, my mother with the paper and my father wielding a spatula. My brother was snarfing down bacon and eggs as though he hadn't eaten in days. It's possible that he hadn't. Jason goes on hunger strikes a lot, against nuclear weapons or pesticides or duck hunting; I've told him that this doesn't help, but he hasn't listened to me since he was four.

The walrus was calmly eating a slice of toast.

I sat down next to him.

"Charlotte," my mother said, "your Uncle Peter is going to be staying with us for a few days."

"Could you pass the jam, please?" the walrus asked me.

I looked around and decided to act like everyone else. "Strawberry or grape?"

"Hmm, strawberry, I think."

I'll stop there, because clearly you don't believe that my uncle is a walrus. I see you shaking your head at me, like I'm crazy or something. There was a walrus in my kitchen this morning, and the fact that no one else realized it says a lot about their powers of observation, don't you think?

What do you mean, what do I think? I just told you. I hate ambiguous questions like that.

Anyway, I went back upstairs to my room and combed the cobwebs out of my hair, then I headed off to school.

How do I feel about school?

Oh, it's all right, I guess. It's not very interesting. We never learn useful things, like how to balance a checkbook or hotwire cars. I used to go to a boarding school for criminal masterminds, but I got kicked out because I didn't apply myself. That, and my pickpocketing grades weren't as good as they could have been. I'm kind of clumsy.

I'm not changing the subject. You're changing the subject. You asked me about school; what do you want me to say? We're still talking about school, just a different school than you were thinking of. I'm not a mind reader. Anymore.

I guess the school I go to now is okay, but it's not as interesting; that's my point.

I always eat lunch with my friend Nina, who is sort of a superhero. She can turn anything she touches into raspberry jello. You might think that that isn't very useful, but if someone's pointing a gun at you, they're in for a surprise. Plus, sometimes you just want some jello.

Nina took a bite of her sandwich. (She doesn't turn everything she touches into jello, just the things she wants to turn into jello. Otherwise it would be incredibly inconvenient and more than a little indecent, I'd think.)

"Jess," she told me, "You know those secret tunnels under the school?"

I nodded. The tunnels were built in the 1950s when everyone was scared of the Soviets. The idea was that if the Soviets ever invaded West Halifax High, the staff and students could escape through the tunnels. I don't know why the Soviets would have wanted to invade a high school, but apparently it happened once. My father told me that.

"Sophia," he used to say, "Never leave your Christmas wreath up for longer than a month. It attracts too much attention."

"Dad," I pointed out, "I don't have a house."

"I apologize," he said solemnly, and flew away.

What? You want to know what Nina and I are planning to do with the tunnels?

It's a secret, but I guess I can tell you, since you're sworn to confidentiality and all that. We're going to explore them and map them, so we know where they go, and then we're going to expand them so that they reach underneath the nearest grocery store. Then we're going to sneak into the grocery store at night and take all the red Skittles out of the packages—since they're the only ones worth dealing with—and arrange them in crop circles all over the aisles.

Ha! You thought we were going to steal things, didn't you? Well, that's the problem with people today. You assume anyone under the age of twenty is a criminal.

How do I feel about that?

I hate that question. It's so arbitrary. One person could say that they're feeling sad and really mean that their life isn't worth living and they want to kill themselves, and another could say that they're feeling sad and really mean that their sister ate the last strawberry-banana yogurt.

No, I'm not sad. I'm just providing examples, see?

You guys read too much into everything. Like, what if I said that I was a compulsive liar? Would you believe me?

Well, you shouldn't. Because if I was telling the truth, then I wouldn't really be a compulsive liar. And if I was lying, then I wouldn't be a compulsive liar, but I would still be lying in that one instance.

I'm not really a compulsive liar. It was just an example.

No one believes me about things, though, which is really strange, considering that anyone can see these things. I read somewhere that you actually see a lot more things than your brain can process, so it just picks out a very small percentage of things to notice. You won't perceive anything else, even if it's dancing right in front of you. Maybe you guys just notice the wrong things.

I think I know what's wrong with me, deep down. I…I've never told anyone this, but I guess I can tell you.

You promise not to tell my parents? My dad would go ballistic and my mom would cry. I don't think they'd ever accept me again.

All right.

Here we go. Hang on, let me take a deep breath first. This is really hard to say.

I…

I think I'm turning into a waffle iron.

It started off small, you know, with the little signs. Itchy scalp, a tan that wouldn't go away, shortness of breath.

I should have been more careful. I knew it was going around at school. My other friend, Alex, turned into a toaster last week. His family won't even speak to him anymore.

You're eyeing me incredulously again. Don't they train you not to do that kind of thing? What if you got somebody in here that really was crazy, and your disbelief sent them completely over the edge? How would you feel about that, huh?

Well, I just think you should be more compassionate, that's all. There's no need to get snippy.

My mother says that. "Lucy," she says, "there's no need to get snippy."

I always imagine a giant pair of scissors, just going snip, snip across the words that are floating around your head.

I know that words don't actually float around your head when you speak. That would be crazy.

But listen, I'm sure you're a busy guy. I'm busy too. I have a restaurant to run. So what do you say we cut this short…

Five more minutes? All the more reason, wouldn't you think? I don't really need to be here. Just because I see things differently than other people. You know what they're doing? They're medicalizing difference of opinion! If someone got sent to a crazy doctor's office because they supported one presidential candidate over the other, there'd be an uproar. But someone points out the fact that there's a walrus at your breakfast table, and everyone goes nuts!

And nope, you can't ask me any questions about that. Look at the clock. Our time's up. I'm out of here. Good luck with your real patients, doc. It's been fun.

Psychiatrists. They just don't understand people.