Miss Jane by Brad Watson

not truly understand their compulsions at all. She thought maybe they would actually forget they had done it pretty much just right after doing it. Birds are the most distracted creatures in the world , she thought. She could figure that much. Bird brains. The rooster, too, hopped onto the backs of the hens, who seemed to bow down for him and lift their tails, and he clawed and grappled and flapped his wings and pushed himself at them, and youcouldn’t really see much because of all their feathers, just the thrashing around. If they let that hen keep her eggs they would have chicks.
    She was never able to come upon cats going at it. They were as secretive and mysterious about this as they were about anything else, if not more so. Although a female in heat seemed truly tortured by the condition. She did not want what needed to happen to actually happen but if it didn’t happen soon she was going to lose her mind. But somewhere, sometime, it always happened, for the female would disappear and no longer be seen creeping through the yard yowling in a low growly way, shoulders hunched. You might hear them down in the woods, screaming like tiny panthers. And then later there would be kittens.
    She spied on Grace and her mother, when she could, after their baths, while they were dressing. If they saw her they stiffened and turned away or shut the door. Then she would take the shaving mirror from the wall over the pump sink out back and, down in the woods, set it on the ground, pull up her skirt, and examine herself. She hadn’t been able to tell enough about Grace or her mother to see much difference, but she could tell she was different, all the same. Well, she’d long known she was different, but she wanted to know more.
    When she asked the doctor to tell her more, at first he looked a little exasperated, then said he would try to show her.
    He came back the next day with a book in which there were drawings of the female genitalia. He let her study it. She asked questions about some of the details, and he answered her bluntly. She looked at it for several minutes, the drawing. Then she closed the book and said, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and ran off for the shaving mirror, book in hand. Down in the woods, squatting overthe mirror, she looked back and forth between the image there and the drawing in the book. At this point, she was mostly just fascinated by seeing what she was seeing. She didn’t feel a shock, or anything bad, just then. She closed the book, returned the mirror to its place, and went back out front where the doctor was waiting. She handed him the book and thanked him.
    â€œClear enough for now, then?” he said.
    â€œI guess,” Jane said. Then she said, “I want to go to school like everybody else.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œHelp me figure out how to do it.”
    â€œAll right. Let me think about it for a couple of days.”
    He started to go, then turned back.
    â€œYou know, Jane, there will likely be teasing.”
    She just looked at him, tears welling up that she blinked back. She nodded.
    â€œI already know that,” she said.
    Mrs. Ida Chisolm
    Rt. 1, Old Paulding Rd.
    Dear Mrs. Chisolm,
    As per our conversation regarding daughter Jane’s (and your) concerns about managing her incontinence as she begins her public life at the Damascus school, and if you feel the necessity of taking extra measures to insure her mental comfort and avoid accidents, I would recommend that the child refrain from eating and drinking after the evening meal. A little extra time in the privy first thing in the morning. A very light breakfast (absolutely no coffee, as this is not good for children of her age in any case but coffee is a diureticand would increase the frequency of urination and possibly bowel movements as well), a very light lunch. She should sip a little water during the day so as to avoid dehydration. She should have a healthy snack when she