The Saver by Edeet Ravel Page A

total waste of money and it only made me feel a million times worse. First I thought I was being chased by the cars on the street. I knew I wasn’t, but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that they were all after me.
    Then I thought these zombie-like ghouls were walking next to me. That totally freaked me out.
    Then when I got into bed I shut my eyes and these scenes began flashing through my mind. I never even knew I had scenes like that in me. Like horrible car accidents, or this giant guillotine that terrorists were using to kill a thousand people at a time. It was sick.
    I had these scenes three nights in a row, but they were shorter and more faded the second and third night. So that was my first and last time with drugs. I don’t know if it was a cheapo rip-off drug, or if that’s just the way drugs affect some people.
    Anyhow, that was my summer. Mom had a house back then on Old Orchard that I pretty much took over, so at least I made some money. I couldn’t stand the people who lived in that house, but I didn’t have to see them much. The father was in politics and the mother thought she was an artist but her stuff sucked. All she did was glue strips of metal on a canvas. Every single thing in their house was ugly, like metal masks and metal everything. And the two boys were thieves. Their parents had to pick them up from the station for stealing CDs from the Bay.
    Yours forever,
    Fern

Sunday
    December 23
    Hi Xanoth,
    David signed two new leases – one with a student from Germany, and the other with three girls. The German guy shook hands with me as if I was an important person. I guess people are more polite in Germany. The girls are really giggly and young, around nineteen, and David didn’t think they’d be reliable, but he agreed to take them.
    That leaves one more apartment. I hope it gets rented soon. It’s tiring answering the phone and making appointments and then people don’t show up, or they do show up and I have to take them around. They ask such stupid questions sometimes, like “Do you get noise from the street here?” With the cars going right below! No, that’s just an illusion you’re having. There is no noise here at all because actually we’re in a castle on the hills of Scotland. It only looks like an apartment building on Clanranald near Queen Mary.
    I got really depressed again today, Xanoth. Beauty doesn’t like this place. This morning I let her out in the hallway while I was washing the floor because I knowshe’d never run out if someone came in. She’s too scared of strangers.
    I was right. She stayed next to me the whole time. She kept sniffing the pail of water, but luckily she didn’t put her paw in. The smell of the detergent was too strong.
    I had to buy more food. There’s a Provigo on Monkland and it got really warm suddenly, so it wasn’t a problem walking there. It was actually raining.
    At the check-out I began talking with the cashier about how expensive the fruits and vegetables were, and she actually told me about this store on Somerled that sells them for a lot less! She’d probably get fired if they knew she’s sending customers somewhere else.
    I found the store and she was right. The prices were way lower for fruits and vegetables. Which is good, because I was having a craving for fresh food.
    Everything together cost me $204.14. It didn’t make sense to make a lot of trips if I’m paying for bus tickets, so I asked for delivery and walked home.
    I really need to get a job with free food, Xanoth. There’s a retired guy on the first floor who gets the
Gazette
every day, and he doesn’t come out for it until around noon, so I borrowed it yesterday to check the ads for hotel kitchens and restaurants. I called a few places, but so far nothing. Mostly they want cooks.
    The system here with the garbage is a disaster. Tenants are allowed to stick their garbage in pails at