Page 72 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

This one comment about my hands made me want to cut them off & just throw them away.
Has anyone ever spoken to you like that

Never mind, I just avoid looking at my hands now, hahaha sob

Never been good at comebacks, so I just pick up rocks and pretend to clobber her when
her back is turned.

How’s it going with Gustav anyway

Radha, what exactly do you like about this WENCH?

Her dad genuinely thinks she’s human . . .

—

FOR EVERY TEN MESSAGES from Tyche there were perhaps three or four from
Myrna (all in praise of Tyche) and one from Gustav. One night, just as Radha
had lain down on her bed, he sent a photo of his glove puppet Cheon Song Yi
wielding a tube of lipstick like a sword. Accompanying text: Somebody stop her.
As for Gustav, all that could be seen of him was a full, shapely lower lip stained
orchid pink from Song Yi’s lipstick attack. He was positioned behind the puppet,

but it was one of those photos where the background very gradually becomes the
foreground. At first glance Radha snorted and rolled her eyes. Then she tilted her
head, took another look, and slowly crossed and uncrossed her legs. Still
studying the photo, she absentmindedly traced the shape of her own mouth and
sucked the tip of her index finger. The bedroom ghost and I looked at each other

and silently agreed to vacate the room.
—

I MISSED DESIRE. And I was glad my friend’s heart had been given a puzzle to
work on while it ached over Myrna Semyonova. Even if it became necessary to
drop Gustav, Radha had other tutoring options. Her classmates were a friendly
bunch, lacking in the competitive spirit their teachers would have liked to see.

They worked on one another’s ideas. Their puppets swapped costumes, props,
catchphrases, and sometimes even characters. This kind of camaraderie made the
ostracization of Rowan Wayland all the more marked.

—

HISTORY OF PUPPETRY was the hour of the week in which Radha and others

played with paper, making puppets with pinned joints and hands and feet that