The Icarus Girl

That night, Jess reads from her mother’s old copy of Little Women before bed. However, the story seems different from the last time Jess read Little Women. This time, Beth, the character Jess most identified with previously, seems meaner. Jess eventually falls asleep and has a dream about the woman with the long arms from the painting in the Boys’ Quarters.

That Friday, at school, the nurse tells Jess that she can eat lunch in the nurse’s office, like she usually does, but that she must go out to the playground once she’s finished eating. On the playground, Jess continues reading Little Women. Colleen approaches Jess, along with two of their classmates, Andrea and Sonia. Colleen, Andrea, and Sonia taunt Jess. Colleen pokes Jess in the forehead, and Jess hits Colleen. Andrea tries to push Jess, but Jess jumps on her, biting and attacking her. The teacher on duty intervenes and makes Jess sit on the wall for the rest of playtime. Jess sits on the wall and tries to continue reading, but Colleen screams at Jess from across the playground, demanding that Jess apologize and calling Jess’s family weird. When Jess ignores her, Colleen comes over and knocks Little Women out of Jess’s hands and stomps on it in the dirt. Jess starts speaking to Colleen in a low, monotone voice, slowly getting louder. Jess says that her family isn’t weird, Colleen’s family is weird, because Colleen wets herself and her mother yells at her. Colleen insists that Jess is lying but runs off to the bathrooms, crying. Even though she is not supposed to leave the wall, Jess follows Colleen to the bathroom, because “she had begun to feel as if she had done something very bad and only had a few minutes to make amends before she was punished. There would be […] consequences if she didn’t make an effort to sort it out” (115). Jess apologizes to Colleen, and Colleen asks Jess how she knew she wets herself. Jess wonders, “How had she and TillyTilly been able to do the things they had done yesterday? Because now there was no question that it had really happened” (116).

Jess’s father picks Jess up after school. As they walk home, Jess tells her father about getting into a fight with Colleen and Andrea. Jess’s father explains that it’s not okay to hit someone even if they started it and makes Jess promise that it won’t happen again. When Jess and her father get home, Jess’s mother is on the phone. They can tell that the school called to tell Jess’s parents about the fight. Jess is afraid “of getting one of the rogue slaps to the side of the head that Sarah would sometimes give if she thought Jess had behaved badly” (119). Jess’s father tells Jess’s mother that he already spoke to Jess and asks her not to hit Jess, stating, “It doesn’t matter whether you were brought up that way or not” (119). Instead, Jess’s mother retrieves two heavy pineapple tins from the kitchen and makes Jess kneel in the corner, holding a pineapple tin in each hand, for half an hour. While Jess holds the pineapple tins, TillyTilly shows up. Jess begs TillyTilly to give Jess magical powers like her. Jess asks TillyTilly to come to her school, but TillyTilly says she is much older than Jess. TillyTilly wraps her arms around Jess’s shoulders, comforting her. Soon, TillyTilly disappears and Jess’s mother returns to tell Jess the half hour is up. Jess can’t believe the half hour passed so quickly and wonders, “What was it about time and TillyTilly?” (124).

On Sunday, Jess plays in the park with TillyTilly. Jess tells TillyTilly that her parents are taking her to see a psychologist named Dr. McKenzie later that afternoon. TillyTilly tells Jess not to go, but Jess says she has no choice because her parents are making her. Jess explains that she’s scared, but she also wants to go, because she feels different than her classmates. Jess confesses, “It makes me […] weird. I don’t want to be weird and always thinking weird things and being scared, and I don’t want to have something missing from me” (127).

Jess meets Dr. McKenzie and his wife, Mrs. McKenzie, at their house. Jess notices photographs of their daughter, Siobhan. Siobhan appears in the doorway and gestures to Jess to follow her upstairs. In her bedroom, Siobhan pulls out a chocolate box and offers one to Jess. Siobhan is hiding the chocolates from Mrs. McKenzie, who doesn’t let Siobhan have sweets. Jess tells Siobhan that she is supposed to talk to Siobhan’s dad, because she gets sad and scared sometimes. Jess picks up a copy of Hamlet on the floor that Siobhan tells her belongs to Dr. McKenzie. Jess says that her mother is reading Hamlet to her, and Siobhan is impressed that Jess can understand Shakespeare. Siobhan suggests that maybe Jess gets scared and sad because she is so clever.

Later, Jess and Dr. McKenzie talk at the table while drinking hot chocolate. Jess is surprised at how easy it is to talk to Dr. McKenzie.