is me. Thinking her way into life, or out of it. A sad girl, girl-sad. No matter how you look at it, or from where she looks. The dollhouse in the cellar. Fenced by the fury of the ironing board, the washing machine. Chocolate wafer biscuits in the built-in cupboards. She can eat a whole boxful without telling herself. Teeth, tongue, throat. Crunch. Her dreams? Memory’s verb hasn’t been dropped yet. Only her body has surreptitiously been put together, like a devil’s Lego set. The pieces all fit. She makes others laugh. Her mother’s lips wide. She knows what that means without having been taught. The boy she was supposed to be can do it, too. He would tell her not to trip on the word "Bordsteinkante." So much harder to pronounce than "curb." He’d help her to pick herself up. She doesn’t talk to him. She talks to her sister, whom he doesn’t trust. Regardless, she’s needed in the little girl’s bedroom on the second floor: the furniture is yearning to be rearranged. To be touched exclusively by small, soft hands. When someone asks her how old she is, she just smiles.