TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Catherine the Great and the Small

and no one laid a hand on them or even said a word.

*

I’m alone in the building entryway. All the guerillas have been found except me. I’m tired of hiding, I move my skinny body away from the piss-stained wall. I decide to turn myself in, sad because I think no one wants to find me, that is, “capture” me, theway they “capture” theother girls, showing they like themby grabbing their breasts or bottoms. I don’t yet have those fleshy features. A man’s shadow fills the entryway. I hold my breath. Is this the maniac from our part of town, the pedophile who loves boys? Maybe he’s been stalking me, thinking I’m a boy. “Kaća?” Phew. Someone who knows me well enough to use a nickname, the voice of one of my cousins.

“I’m hiding, leave me alone,” I say.

“Kaća, come home with me. Your dad’s waiting.”

“What’s going on?”

“Why do you always ask so many questions? Don’t be a pest.”

He’s not yelling, which is unusual, considering he has the personality of a nervous teenager. His nickname is even Jumpy Two. Jumpy One died young, he was killed, driving too fast, trying to break the neighborhood speed record to the coast, to impress a girl known as Flamenca, who soon after that got married and disappeared. 61