Shaken and awed, Finna was easy prey to the officials who
came to find out what had happened. They asked her questions both simple and
profound, but when she answered as truthfully as she could, they did not really
listen.
“Childish,” they
called her, pointing to her homemade cape and teddy bear. “How can we believe
one so small about something so big.”
They took her words and pulled at them, twisted them to and
fro, until the reality of her account was distorted enough to fit into what
they had wanted to believe all along.
“Three eyed cats, she says. Hrumph! It was nothing but a
trick of cloud and sun.”
“Perhaps it was a meteor.”
“A streetlamp blew. Yes, that's what it was. Taxpayer money
down the drain.”
Too scared to have the courage to believe in something
beyond their comprehension, they served her with sneers and accusation, daring
her to defy their rationality and eager to distance themselves from the truth
in her eyes.
“Childish. Absurd. What do we do with her now?
“Who does she belong to?”
“A ward.”
“A ward on taxpayer money.”
“Her guardian does not want her anymore. Says the child
gives her the creeps. Even before this latest incident, her head was always in the clouds…”
“Always dreaming up fancies…”
“Nothing to better the public, a waste to the taxpayer…”
“What shall we do with her?”
“What shall we do with her lies and fancies?”
“What shall we do?”
