100 Unfortunate Days by Penelope Crowe Page B

go. Usually one at a time. If they do escape, I will try and find them and try to get them back, all the while wondering why they would ever want to leave in the first place. This is a problem. I want one person to be all mine…but then I scare them and they leave. So I hunt them down.
    I want everyone to see how close we are and how wonderful our relationship is. But it is not wonderful at all. It is me afraid they will leave—and yet knowing they will leave and almost wanting them to go. Because it is far too much responsibility to have them for myself. There are special ways you can keep them forever. You can lie to them and tell them they are so wonderful and that you saved yourself just for them. You have not been with anyone like them and they make you feel so good. It isn’t a total lie—because you have actually forgotten how to tell the whole truth, so it really doesn’t count. It is much easier to be all alone and not worry about other people—since they are going to leave you anyway and find out you are really a spider—and it really does not matter anyway because everyone you love dies.

Day 93
    I was born in Venice on the Fourth of July—which means nothing to anyone in Venice. I was born with jet-black hair and very light blue eyes. Then all my hair fell out and grew in very light blonde. My eyes have remained light blue. I was left on a ferry boat when I was three months old—I don’t know if it was on purpose or not—but I was raised covertly by the Queen of England until I was five, then she could not keep me under wraps anymore because I moved around too much and she felt I should be going to school.
    I was sent to stay with the Queen’s illegitimate sister who lived in France. She taught me how to play the guitar and wear makeup. I stayed there until I was eight and then I worked in a coffee shop and slept there at night next to the picture window that had a toile cushion beneath it. No one minded. I ate small sugary biscuits with tea or coffee every day for breakfast and wrote sad love songs until I kissed a boy. I got a tattoo of his initial on the underside of my middle finger and never told him. I left the lyrics to a song on a table outside the coffee shop one afternoon and could not find them later that afternoon. I heard a song on the radio a year later that used my lyrics. I never told anyone.
    I took a train to Germany and dyed my hair jet-black again. I had five children in five years and gave them all away to charity. I worked in a guitar shop and met Jimmy Page and we spent the night together. I got a tattoo of his initials on the underside of my middle finger of my other hand and swore my love to him eternally. He said he would love me forever too.
    I stayed awake once for three days because I was sad. I moved to Spain because I needed to be warm and painted my front door a different color every day. My skin loved the sun and the black faded from my hair. I wore jewelry with diamonds and flowers in my hair. When I looked at the sky at night I could see the face of my true love who I knew I would never meet. Sometimes I see children with light blue eyes and jet-black or light blonde hair and I know they are mine. I never say anything.

Day 94
    When you leave the living room to my grandmother’s house there is a door to the stairs that goes down to the front door or up to the attic. There is also a door on the same level as the living room that leads to a storage room that has a window that leads to nowhere. You can look out the window, but you will see only black. The upstairs attic has a home-made radio and drawers that hold thousands of files and saw blades. There is a window to the front of the house and a window to the back of the house. There is a space beneath the window that looks out to the back that contains the head of George Washington, and you can see his eyes staring at you when you go in the attic at night.
    When you play darts in the attic, you may accidentally hit