The Truth According to Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📗

bricks. I see signs that say Credit Union and Books and Jewelry. There is a church and a store called Boss Furniture and a Chinese food restaurant.

I walk past all of these. Then I see a movie theater and I remember that I don’t have my DVD player with me because I brought a gallon of milk for my Baby Doll instead. So I say, “Well dang!” as loud as I can because no one is around to hear me.

The movie theater has a big sign on it with letters that start at the top of the building and go down to the door. The sign has a lot of colored lightbulbs on it but they are not lit up right now. The letters say Colony Cinema. I walk to the door and look up at the sign. It makes me dizzy when I look all the way to the top. I am cold. It would be good to go inside to get warm. I look at the door and see that no one is inside. Plus there’s a chain on the door which I’m guessing means I can’t get in. So I walk around the corner of the building to see if there is an open window because that is what Gloria told me to do one time when she needed to get into Donald’s house to get her money back.

Behind the movie theater a cat climbs over a fence. Papers are blowing around on the ground. I see an old bicycle with no wheels. There aren’t any open windows behind the movie theater but there’s a black staircase made of metal. It is up in the air but there is a ladder hanging down from it. It looks scary but I really want to get inside because the movie theater looks like a good place to get warm and maybe live and mostly I’m guessing I can watch movies there. There are windows up higher on the building and all of them are near the staircase.

I climb up the ladder and step onto the stairs and start going up. It is like walking on a black skeleton. I can see down to the ground and I feel like I could fall but I know there are windows up higher so I keep climbing. Finally I come to one. It is open so I climb inside.

It is dark in the room but I find the floor with one of my feet and pull my body all the way through the window. My backpack almost gets stuck. When I stand up I see a room with nothing in it except old blankets and black garbage bags and a door that is closed. There are pipes on the ceiling and a broken picture frame on the floor. Everything is dirty and it is hard to see because there are no lights.

Then I see a switch on the wall. I walk to it and flip it but nothing happens. So I say, “What, can’t I get some lights?”

But no one answers me.

And I think, Maybe this can be my room. I don’t like that there are no lights but there is a door and maybe a kitchen on the other side of it. I try to open the door but it is locked. So what I have is a room with no kitchen or bathroom or lights.

I stand in the middle of the room. I turn around and around and around. I see the window again and again as I spin. I hear the sound of cars outside. I do not hear people talking. I do not hear music. I do not hear the sound of someone washing dishes or Baby Wendy playing. And it is cold, cold, cold.

Which means this isn’t a good place to live.

Then I feel hungry which means I have to find something to eat. I am good at finding food. So I go to the window and climb out onto the metal stairs. When I get to the ladder I climb down to the ground but then I can’t remember which way the front of the movie theater is. I start walking until I come to a street.

And I see a police car.

The police car is not moving. It is parked next to a streetlight and a garbage can. There is no one in it which means the police officer is out of the car somewhere. He might be looking for me.

In my mittens I start to pick at my thumbs. I look up and down the street. I see an old lady bringing a dog somewhere on a leash. I see a man in a long coat go inside a building but I still don’t see the police officer which means he’s probably hiding somewhere or around the corner asking people, “Have you seen Ginny? She’s in a lot of trouble now.”

Now my hands are shaking and I am hyperventilating and my legs want to move, move, move. So I run.

I run past a fence and some more brick buildings. I run past piles of garbage and garbage cans. I run past cars that are parked and cars that are moving. I run past two old ladies and a man listening to headphones and a man wearing a winter hat with no pom-pom and a lady with a black coat and a black bag and silver earrings. There are loud noises everywhere. Engines and horns and sometimes people talking or the wind. And the air is cold and my feet are tired. I am breathing fast and I still don’t know where to go even though I need to find a place to live.

Then I feel wet on my back and my bottom and my legs. I stop running. I am on a sidewalk in front of a big glass window. There are people on the other side of it. I take off my backpack and look inside. The gallon of milk is empty. There are