The Stranger

It's past 3:37 and Teacher-man is not in the room. All the kids are gone when the hand plucks me from my deep slumber.
"There's somebody you have to meet," she says.




It is very secretive and I am worried.




We drive for hours.


Once out of the car the people meet huddled off to one side whispering while they have me play WE!

The wrong 

name 

for a game 

I play 

all alone.

I am introduced to a group of very nice, though somewhat stiff young ladies. They are uncomfortable talking with me, nothing like Doll.

The girl in blue is so unsteady she needs me to hold her up.

Is one of them the somebody I am to meet?

Then I am hustled surreptitiously into a basket, and whisked into another room all amid people whispers.

I think of

Teacher-man

his kids

Classroom

Fire-Haired Girl

Drummer

Doll

Where am I being taken?

The lights are bright and an old, old cat is carried out. He is so small and shriveled it's good we are not outside or he might fly away on a breeze.

There was an uncle Mort from my past. A vague memory. A cat that followed no rules but his own. Could this be him? The cat doesn't speak. A nebulous connection, yes. But what is it?