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had known since first grade, the one with whom I used to play down by the creek on Sundays only after the others had left, to someone whose attention the girls in my class compete for. Suzie refuses to notice that Arlo has shed his baby fat, his bowl haircut and fidgety mannerisms, probably because he’s never taken much notice of her, and these days, even less so. But she’s right: Arlo is the one who I am fixing to meet at the Horse Thieves Picnic. Suzie pulls a face at me and mouths the word freak .
Snip, snip, snip.
    Worse than freak now.
    He starts cutting more quickly. Bits of hair fly about.
    I can’t think of something nice. Mama’s face is all, but she’d be crying, seeing this.
    It goes on for ages and when I think there can’t surely be anything left to cut, he throws a thick wet towel over my head.
    I struggle for breath. He’s going to smother me. I wrestle and kick and the chair tips all the way backward and I land upside down. My skirt is up around my waist. The smell of my urine is shameful.
    He rights the chair, then smooths my skirt back over my knees. “I do not want to give you chloroform again. Please, sit still now. This is the tricky part.”
    I try to be still, but I’m shaking too hard. He lathers my head with something that smells like tar. The package on the table reads, VAN’S CARBOLIC HOUSEHOLD SOAP .
    “Please, no,” I beg when he picks up the plastic razor.
    It scrapes my scalp. The blade is too dull. It nicks and cuts. He daubs where blood runs down my temple. My head is stinging all over, but the sound is just as terrible. The sound of scraping; the sound of skin crawling; the sound of the razor tapping against the bowl.
    I can’t think of anything except the word freak .

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    When he’s done shaving me, he comes back with a nail trimmer. I dig my fingers into my palms, but he pries each one loose and clips my nails down to the quick. He sweeps up my hair from the floor and the table, bags my nail trimmings, and stuffs it all in a tin can.
He undoes the straps. “Easy now.”
    I run my hand over my head. It’s bristly in places, slick in others. I can’t imagine how hideous I must look. I burst into tears.
    He lets me have a drink. This time I really do need to use the facility.
    There are locks on all the other doors in this place, some with the kind that uses buttons and some that need keys, but this toilet door barely latches. I pull down my wet underwear. I squat over the commode. What’s to become of me? I can’t bear to go with him being able to hear me.
    When I leave the stall, he hands me a rag, an ugly polyester nightgown, and big white granny briefs. I go back into the toilet. I put on the underwear. I decide I will just sit here forever, or until someone comes, but he raps on the door, and I have to get up.
    “One more thing.” He gives me a queer look, like he’s almost embarrassed to say.
    It doesn’t matter what that thing is; that there is more makes me drop to my knees. I bend my head till it reaches the floor in front of his shoes. Those ugly beige moccasins. It feels so terrible that my braids are not beside me, that my bangs are not there to offer some small relief from the cold concrete floor.
    He pulls me up by the armpits. I am set down on the cot. He places the bar of carbolic soap, the rag, and a bucket of water beside me. Then he hands me a razor. “You are going to have to do down there.”
    “What?”
    “I will be checking, so don’t try to pretend.”
    He draws the doctor’s office curtain around me. I look at the razor for a long time. I cannot understand what is happening.
    “Are you done yet?”
    I stand up and turn my back to the curtain. I pull down the underwear. I make a little lather in my hand. Raising my skirt, I shave myself without looking.
    When I am done, I slide the bucket and razor under the curtain.
“Very good.” He flings back the curtain. He hands me a wet napkin and asks me to wipe myself because he has to be