My name is Lucy Barnfield, but everyone calls me Loopy Lulu. I suppose there’s a reason, but I’ve forgotten it. I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but there is one fact that I know I will never forget: I’m not loopy. But it’s easier to remain silent and submissive than to argue with everybody. I used to argue, but it just made my doctor pushier. He kept me asleep, mostly, with icky tasting medicine, so that I wouldn’t hurt myself. At least that was his excuse. I think it was because he knew that I wasn’t loopy. He probably just plugged my nose up so that I couldn’t breath and poured the steaming, bubbling liquid down my throat so that I couldn’t tell anyone else. My parents knew, of course. My parents knew everything. But they didn’t do anything. Unless sitting on the couch and watching while the doctor tried to drown me over and over again counts as doing something.

  That’s all people ever did: sit and watch. Except for the doctor. He tried to kill me.

  I spent most of my days in silence, staring out the window. The doctor told my parents that all the hustle and bustle of the outside world was bad for me. So they bricked the window over.

  After that I sat for a few days, staring at the bricks, hoping that my father would take pity on me and break the bricks down. He didn’t.

  I sat for a few more days, hoping that my mother would take pity on me and come and break the bricks down. She didn’t.

  So I decided to do it myself.

  I stood and ran my fingers over the wall, in between the bricks, rubbing against the mortar. It seemed to be completely dry, but I didn’t give up. I pushed against the bricks one at a time. Finally, on the third row, the one farthest to the left shifted. I planted my feet and pushed again. It gave.

  I tossed the brick aside and felt around in the little crevice I’d made. The mortar was damp.

  I hooked my fingers around another brick and pulled. It came loose in a hurry: I smiled and set to work on the rest of the wall.

  He found me there. The doctor. He found me sitting in my chair, staring out my window, the bricks in piles of rubble along the wall. He didn’t like it.

  He grabbed me by the back of my neck and lifted me out of my chair. It hurt.

  I screamed and he stuffed a washcloth in my mouth. I clawed at him-I’d always had long nails-and spit the cloth out: He dropped me, then picked me up again, this time in a bear hug.

  He squeezed me too tightly; I couldn’t breath. My lungs could not inflate with the amount of pressure he was exerting against my ribs. Somehow I managed to keep screaming and kicking. I even threw my head back once, and felt a mini surge of triumph: there was a nasty crack. I had broken his nose.

  He dragged me from the house and I fought him all the way. I saw my parents, but they didn’t do anything. As usual.

  He threw me in the backseat of a long black car, climbed into the drivers seat, locked the doors, and drove off with me.  My screams didn’t do any good.

  He had kidnapped me.