“A stick insect is a type of insect that appears to be a stick, yet is not a stick but an insect,” Mrs Terwiliger was saying. “Isn’t that fascinating, dear? Gurl? Are you admiring my monkeys? They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”
Beautiful was not the word that Gurl had been thinking of. Creepy, bizarre, freakish—those were the words that she had been thinking of. And now that she was thinking of it, those words sort of summed up the whole night. What was that thing that chased her down the street? And here, all these ugly monkeys, some with hats and waistcoats, some with bugles or drums, some grinning very unmonkeylike grins—no, they were not beautiful. Noodle was beautiful, but how would Gurl ever get her back? How could she get them out of here? And then, even if she could get them out of here, where would they go?
Mrs Terwiliger reached across the desk, plucked up the fezwearing monkey and wound a key in its back. She set it down on the desk and it promptly began clapping its cymbals, its mouth opening and closing. Noodle, still in the backpack on the desk, peered out at the clanging thing with her ears flat to her head.
The monkey kept banging away, and the sound went right up Gurl’s spine and into her brain, ringing there like a fire alarm. She wanted to shut it up somehow, to tell it something to make it quiet. A secret. She felt something inside her opening up, yearning to spill her innermost thoughts. Yes, it wanted her secrets: her secrets would make it happy. Monkeys loved to hear secrets.
But she didn’t know any secrets. It was obvious she was as changeable as a chameleon. That was no secret, at least not to Mrs Terwiliger. And Noodle was sitting right there, peeking her head out of the backpack, so she wasn’t a secret either. Wasn’t there anything she could give to this noisy, banging monkey to shut it up? There’s the umbrella man that came out of the subway, a little voice in the back of her head whispered. You could tell that secret. Why don’t you? If you do, it will be quiet and then you can relax, maybe even take a nap…
Noodle howled, snapping Gurl out of her reverie, and the monkey stopped clanging. Feeling slightly dazed, Gurl looked at Mrs Terwiliger. She could have sworn that the matron was disappointed, but about what she had no idea.
The monkey seemed to have another effect on Gurl; she was visible. “Ha, there you are,” said Mrs Terwiliger. She pulled another monkey from the shelf behind her, this one with a purple waistcoat and a pair of maracas. “This monkey is one of my favourites,” said Mrs Terwiliger, her rubbery lips twisting like licorice. “They talk too, you know.”
“They talk?” said Gurl, too startled to keep her mouth shut.
“If you give them a penny they do. Do you have a penny? Oh, silly me! Orphans don’t have extra pennies, do they, dear? I’ll lend you one, how about that?” Mrs Terwiliger opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a penny. She tucked the penny into the purple waistcoat. Then she sat down and set the monkey in front of Gurl.
The monkey’s eyes rolled until they focused in on Gurl. It opened its mouth and yelled: “MONKEY CHOW!”
Gurl was so surprised that she jumped. The chair fell over backwards and she went with it.
“Oops!” said Mrs Terwiliger, rushing out from behind the desk to help Gurl right herself. “I should have warned you that they can be a bit…er…vehement about what they have to say.” And then she added, “Although I do wish that when they talked, they would have something of substance to offer.” She glared at the monkey. The monkey shook its maracas over its head before going completely still.
Gurl rubbed the back of her head where it had connected with the floor. The umbrella man, the talking monkey—she was having some kind of nightmare, but she was too tired to wake herself up.
On the wall next to the desk, the only space not taken up with shelves of monkeys, there was a full-length mirror. Gurl imagined Mrs Terwiliger spent many hours twirling around in her chair, gazing at herself. “What do you want?” Gurl asked wearily.
Mrs Terwiliger leaned her liposuctioned posterior on the desk. “What do you think! What’s best for you, of course. What’s best for Hope House. And I think that there’s a way for you to help me to do what’s best.”
“There is?” said Gurl.
“Absolutely!” said Mrs Terwiliger. “We’re going to have to start small, I think. With some shoes.”
“Shoes?”
Mrs Terwiliger frowned (as much as a woman who’d had weekly Botox shots to paralyse the muscles in her forehead could frown). “Gurl, I’m surprised I have to explain this to you. I am the matron of Hope House, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And as the matron, I represent the children wherever I go, correct?”
“Uh. I guess.”
“So I can’t walk around looking like last season, can I? I have a certain responsibility, a certain image to maintain. For the sake of Hope House. And your sake. So I’d like you to pick me up a few things.”
“Besides the shoes?”
“I did see some gorgeous new scarves at Harvey’s.”
Gurl was more dazed than ever. “You want me to go shopping?”
“Tomorrow afternoon you’ll go to Harvey’s an hour before closing,” said Mrs Terwiliger. “Then you’ll hide in one of the changing rooms until you hear the workers lock up. Then you can turn on the stick insect act and fetch me some of those scarves. You can’t miss them. Silk scarves in the display case at the back of the store. Oh, I wouldn’t mind some new gloves. Shoes, the highest heels you can find. Size six. And a coat. Make it a fur coat. Fox, if they have it.”
Go to Harvey’s? Hide in the dressing room? Make like a stick insect? “Wait a minute. You want me to steal for you?”
“Steal? Who said anything about stealing? It sounds so harsh.”
“But that’s what it is!” Gurl said. “I can’t do that! What if someone sees me?”
Mrs Terwiliger looked at her as if she were as dumb as one of the mechanical monkeys. “You’re invisible. Who’s going to see you, silly?”
“But it just happens!” Gurl said. “I can’t control it!”
“Oh, you’ll learn,” said Mrs Terwiliger.
“I don’t want to learn. I don’t want to become a thief.”
“What does it matter what you want?” Mrs Terwiliger said sharply, then caught herself. “You’re an orphan, Gurl. I’m offering you an opportunity. You act as if I’m asking you to commit a crime!”
“You are asking me to commit a crime,” said Gurl.
“Just a little one. It barely even counts. It’s not like robbing a bank.”
“I won’t do it!” said Gurl.
“You will,” said Mrs Terwiliger. From behind her chair, she hauled out a large birdcage, which she put on top of the desk. Then she opened the clasp on the backpack, deftly scooped Noodle from the interior and tossed her into the cage.
“Don’t hurt her!” said Gurl, skin tingling.
“You’re invisible again. Now, see how easy that was?” said Mrs Terwiliger as she latched the cage. “I’m going to keep your pet in a safe place and you’ll do a couple of things for me. Just to prove that I can trust you again. You do want me to trust you, right? And when you’re done with your errands, a few teeny-tiny errands, then you can have the