One: Strange little bit of everything

She was a strange little bit of everything, that Girl, her papa said. She looked a strange little bit of everything, too. Her punk pink hair stuck up short from her head like a puff cloud of cotton candy. Her milky white skin was spattered with tan freckles and a few were tattooed together in a blue smiley face on her shoulder. Maybe sometimes she wore colors, but mostly it was black and white. Like her soul, she said with a purple-lipsticked smile.

She liked to think she was a flamingo, sometimes.

Mostly she ran around with her guitar strapped on her back and snapped pictures of anything worth it. Sometimes she stopped and played a song on a street corner. Sometimes she went into a coffee shop and thought deep things. Sometimes she sat with her back against a brick building and snarled at people who walked by. She liked to think that she was a rebellious youth.

People called her Punky.

Her papa just called her Girl.

“Girl,” he said one day, “I think you and I should go to the beach.”

So they packed up their swimsuits and towels, Girl made a lunch, and they went to a sandy white beach. First they made a sandcastle with turrets and a princess locked in the tower. Then they splashed in the waves and Girl found a black seashell.

“It’s your soul seashell, Girl,” her papa said, and he poked a hole in it and made it a necklace for Girl. Then Girl spread out her towel and warmed up in the sun and they ate sandwiches with watercress and roast beef and cream cheese in the middle.

“Papa, when does my life start?” asked Girl.

“It already has, Girl,” he said. “You just haven’t done anything with it yet.”

Girl finished her sandwich and took a picture of her papa.

“Now I’m going to make it start,” she said.

Then Girl started to write. She wrote about Papa and black seashells and flamingos. She made songs about life and finding places and love. She sang them to her papa, and he sighed.

“Girl,” he said, “Your life has started. But you don’t have to do big things to have a good life. I have a good life, but all I do is take care of you and wash windows. You know this, don’t you?”

Girl nodded, but in her head she said, I will do big things with my life.

Her papa smiled at her, and she smiled at him, but he was sad, for he knew she wanted to be Big. He knew she wanted to do Big things.

“Just don’t hurt yourself out there in the Big world,” he told her, ruffling her hair. “Sometimes the world is all against you. Sometimes you have to live in a cardboard box and eat Saltine crackers for dinner. If you can do that, then maybe you can make it Big. Just remember that I’m here and I love you. And always keep your necklace so you never forget who you are inside, Girl.”

She nodded, and he kissed her head.

“I will be Big, Papa,” she said. “And when I am big, you will come live with me in my Mansion-By-The-Sea, and we will make sandcastles every day, and listen to the Beatles by moonlight.”

And she promised this, and he believed in her, and she believed in herself.