The kitchen was not like ours, a mad science lab, but instead had lace curtains on the windows and a clock radio and a picture of Jesus on the wall smiling sadly at you and pancakes on the griddle and Grandma Barlow gave me one. We don’t have syrup but we have plenty of sugar, she said, and heaped it on. The Outside Girl picked up her purse from the back of the kitchen chair and she finished her coffee and set her mug in the sink even though she said, Do you want me to wash this? and then she put on lipstick that was the color of frosting and she said, This is a good place for you, Perley. I’ll see you again soon, to take you to an appointment, she said. Don’t I have to go to school? I asked, but she said, It’s an adjustment period. When it’s time for your appointment, I’ll write you an excuse. You will like the appointment, Perley, it’s with a counselor, a nice person who is there to help you. And I knew about the Wolf Council where they make important decisions just by being together with their minds and their yellow eyes, and afterward they stand in their pack on the hilltop and they howl at the moon, so I was like, Sweet, and I kept eating my pancake and looking at the next pancake which was also on the griddle and the Outside Girl zipped up her hoodie and left.

Grandma Barlow sat down across from me and she leaned on her elbows and said, You are welcome here, Perley, and you are safe here. You’ll soon see there is a way we do things, with chores and the like, you will catch on, and I was like, Yes, ma’am.