'He has a summer job,' Larch said. 'Of course, some other opportunity might develop.'

Melony shrugged. 'He might go to school, I suppose,' she said.

'Oh, I hope so!' Larch said.

'I suppose you want him to be a doctor,' Melony said.

Larch shrugged. It was his turn to feign indifference. 'If he wants to be,' he said.

'I broke someone's arm, once,' Melony said. 'Or maybe it was something in the chest.'

'The chest?' Larch asked. 'When did you do this?'

'Not too long ago,' Melony said. 'Pretty recently. I didn't mean to.'

'How did it happen?' Dr. Larch asked her.

'I twisted her arm behind her back-she was on the floor-and then I stepped on her shoulder, the same shoulder of the arm I twisted.'

'Ouch,' said Dr. Larch. I

'I heard it,' Melony said. 'Her arm or her chest.'

'Perhaps her collarbone,' Larch suggested. Given the position, he guessed it would be the collarbone.

'Well, whatever it was, I heard it,' Melony said.

'How did that make you feel?' Wilbur Larch asked Melony, who shrugged.

'I don't know,' Melony said. 'Sick, I guess, but strong,' she added. 'Sick and strong,' she said.

'Perhaps you'd like to have more to do?' Larch asked her.

'Here?' Melony asked.

'Well, here, yes,' Larch said. 'I could find more things for you to do here-more important things. Of course, I could also inquire for you about jobs-outside, I mean. Away from here.'

'You want me to go, or do more chores, is that it?'

'I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. You told me you didn't want to leave, once-and I'll {285} never force you. It's just that I thought you might be looking for a change.'

'You don't like how I read, huh?' Melony asked. 'Is that it?'

'No!' Dr. Larch said. 'I want you to keep reading, but that's only one of the things you might do here.'

'You want me to do what Homer Wells did?'

'Homer did a lot of studying,' Dr. Larch said. 'Perhaps you could assist Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna, and me. Perhaps you'd be interested in just observing-to see if you liked it.'

'I think it's sick,' Melony said.

'You disapprove?' Larch asked, but Melony looked genuinely puzzled.

'What?' she asked.

'You don't believe we should perform the abortions, is that it?' Larch asked. 'You don't believe in terminating a birth, in aborting the fetus?'

Melony shrugged. 'I just think it would make me sick,' she repeated. 'Delivering babies-yuck,' she said. 'And cutting babies out of people-yuck, again.'

Larch was confused. 'But it's not that you think it's wrong?' he asked.

'What's wrong about it?' she asked him. 'I think it's sick. Blood, people leaking stuff out of their bodies – sick,' Melony said. 'It smells bad around here,' she added, meaning the hospital air-the aura of ether, the scent of old blood.

Wilbur Larch stared at Melony and thought., Why, she's just a big child! She's a baby thug!

'I don't want to work around the hospital,' Melony said flatly. 'I'll rake leaves, or something-stuff like that is okay, if you want me to work more, for my food or something.'

'I want you to be happier than you are, Melony,' Dr. Larch said cautiously. He felt miserable for how neglected the creature before him was.

'Happier!' said Melony; she gave a little jump in her {286} chair and the stolen barrette dug into her. 'You must be stupid, or crazy.' Dr. Larch wasn't shocked; he nodded, considering the possibilities.

He heard Mrs. Grogan calling him from the hall outside the dispensary.

'Doctor Larch! Doctor Larch!' she called. 'Wilbur?' she added, which gave Nurse Edna a tremor, because she felt a certain possessiveness regarding the use of that name. 'Mary Agnes has broken her arm!' Larch stared at Melony, who for the first time managed to smile.

'You said this happened “not too long ago”?' Larch asked her.

'I said “pretty recently,” ' Melony admitted.

Larch went into the dispensary, where he examined Mary Agnes's collarbone, which was broken; then he instructed Nurse Angela to prepare the child for X-ray.

'I slipped on the shower room floor,' Mary Agnes moaned. 'It was real wet.'

'Melony!' Dr. Larch called. Melony was hanging around in the hall. 'Melony, would you like to observe how we set a broken bone?' Melony walked into the dispensary, which was a small, crowded area-especially with Nurse Edna and Mrs. Grogan standing there, and with Nurse Angela leading Mary Agnes away for her Xray. Seeing everyone together, Larch realized how old and frail he and his colleagues looked alongside Melony. 'Would you like to participate in the setting of a broken bone, Melony?' Larch asked the sturdy and imposing young woman.

'Nope,' Melony said. 'I got things to do.'She waved the copy of Little Dorrit a trifle threateningly. 'And I gotta look at what I'm gonna read tonight,' she added.

She went back to the girls' division, to her window there, while Dr. Larch set Mary Agnes's collarbone. Melony tried again to comprehend the power of the sun in Marseilles.

The very dust was scorched brown,' she read to herself, 'and something quivered in the atmosphere as if the {287} air itself were panting.' Oh, Sunshine, she thought, why didn't you take me anywhere? It wouldn't have to have been to France, although that would have been nice.

She daydreamed as she read and therefore she missed the transition between the 'universal stare' of the sun in Marseilles and the atmosphere of the prison in the same town. Suddenly, she discovered she was in the prison. 'A prison taint was on everything…' she read. 'Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside…' She stopped reading. She left Little Dorrit on her pillow. She stripped a pillowcase off a bed neater than her own, and into the pillowcase she stuffed her canvas bag of toilet articles and some clothes. She also put Jane Eyre in the bag.

In Mrs. Grogan's rather Spartan room, Melony had no difficulty locating Mrs. Grogan's purse-she robbed Mrs. Grogan of her money (there wasn't much), and also took Mrs. Grogan's heavy winter coat (in the summer, the coat would be useful if she had to sleep on the ground). Mrs. Grogan was still at the hospital, worrying about Mary Agnes Cork's collarbone; Melony would have liked to say good-bye to Mrs. Grogan (even after robbing her), but she knew the train schedule by heart -actually, she knew it by ear; the sound of every arrival and departure reached her window.

At the train station she bought a ticket only as far as Livermore Falls. She knew that even the new and stupid young stationmaster would be able to remember that, and he would tell Dr. Larch and Mrs. Grogan that Melony had gone to Livermore Falls. She also knew that once she was on the train she could purchase a ticket to some place much farther away than Livermore Falls. Can I afford Portland? she wondered. It was the coast that she would need to explore, eventually-because, below the Cadillac's gold monogram on that Red Delicious apple, inscribed (also in gold) against the vivid green background of the apple leaf, she had been able to read OCEAN VIEW ORCHARDS. That had to be within {288} sight of the coast, and the Cadillac had a Maine license plate. It mattered not to Melony that there were thousands of miles of coastline in the state of Maine. As her train pulled away from St. Cloud's, Melony said to herself -so vehemently that her breath fogged the window and obscured the abandoned buildings in that forsaken town from her view-'I'm gonna find you, Sunshine.'

Dr. Larch tried to comfort Mrs. Grogan, who said she wished only that she'd had more money for Melony to steal. 'And my coat's not waterproof,' Mrs Grogan complained. 'She should have a real raincoat in this state.'

Dr. Larch tried to reassure Mrs Grogan; he asserted that Melony was not a little girl. 'She's twenty-four or twenty-five,' Larch reminded Mrs. Grogan.