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Claire

I overheard two teenage girls on the bus. One girl hung up her cellphone and stared at it.

Melissa What happened?

Sarah She just got really pissed and said, “FUCK BRIAN!” and hung up.

Melissa Give it an hour, you’ll be buds again.

The phone rang.

Sarah It’s okay, it’s okay, calm down…

Melissa Ask her if she needs to get out of the house.

Sarah Do you need to get out of the house? … Deep breath. Deep breath. … Hello? It’s alright. Don’t worry. … It’s easy for me to say. Do you need to get out or you just don’t want to go out? … Do you want – me and Melissa are on the way to an appointment, and we’ll call you right back.

She hung up.

Sarah She’s bawling. Bryan – she asked him what’s for dinner and he said I don’t know and her mom was bitching at her ’cause she didn’t go to school today and she’s like, “I’m trying so hard not to kill myself!”

Melissa By the time we get there Bryan will be calm again.

Sarah She said she didn’t want to go. I’ll call her back. … Mandy? Okay, we’re going to the appointment, then we’ll come over there, okay? Okay. We’ll be there soon.

She hung up.

I found it endearing, the way they immediately said they’d be there as soon as they could. “We may be teenagers with absolutely no power, but you know what? We can come and be with you.”

Yesterday I had my headphones on and was listening to myself doing Claire the cat’s voice so I could be sure to get it right. When I’d heard it twice through, I tried it out loud a few times.

“Harriet says to tell you that she’s not currently talking to you because no one who would bring up such a humiliating episode is her friend.”

Todd called, “That’s ENOUGH, Danny Torrence,” and I realized that hey, Claire does sound an awful lot like the little kid in The Shining, the only movie Todd finds scary. So I crept up to the door and invited him to play with me, forever and ever. He didn’t think it was as funny as I did.