Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter Page A

the investigator was finished. Even though Mrs. Moss had outsmarted me at her house, I was confident that a doctor would detect the truth. When I went in the examining room, Mrs. Moss trailed behind. She fussed like a concerned mother. “She fell down the stairs and bit the inside of her mouth. I think it got infected!”
    I thought: This doctor is smart. There is no way that he will fall for that old line. He peered in my ears, waved a light in front of my eyes, and then examined my mouth. “You’re not brushing very well, young lady, and that can lead to sores and infections.”
    I was stunned that he was not more suspicious. The doctor wrote on his pad: Fell down and bit the right side inside mouth. Next, he gave Mrs. Moss instructions about gargling with warm salt water. And that was it!
    That evening Mrs. Moss prepared her infamous sour broccoli soup, which she made from half-rotten vegetables that she got from a man who delivered crates of supermarket discards. I asked to skip dinner because my mouth hurt.
    “You still have to gargle,” Mrs. Moss reminded me. She fixed a glass of hot salt water. “Chelsea, take her into the bathroom and make sure she does it properly.”
    The minute I took a swig of the mixture, my mouth burned even worse than it had with the hot sauce. “Ow!” I spit it out, spraying the mirror.
    “Grandma, Ashley’s making a mess in here,” Chelsea called. I emptied half the glass in the sink. “And she’s pouring it down the sink.”
    Mrs. Moss rushed into the room, pushing Chelsea aside. She clutched the glass in one hand and held my head back with the other. “Doctor’s orders,” she said, and dumped some water down my throat. I coughed and sputtered, and then she made me swish what was left in the glass. Again, I choked, and this time I sprayed her leg. Her face puffed and her talonlike fingernails gripped my shoulders. The sharp edges of several rings grazed my flesh. Mrs. Moss steered me into the kitchen, grabbed the hot-sauce bottle, and dribbled some into my mouth. She held my cheeks together, pressing the tender spot with her thumb.
    “Bet salt water is looking better and better,” she said. When she released me, I ran into the bathroom and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, but the pain only became worse and worse and worse.

6.
nobody listens
    At that point I had been in that hateful house for only six weeks. I am sure I would have been safer with my mother—or almost anyone else. In the meantime, I was determined not to be the center of Marjorie Moss’s sadistic attention, although I could never tell what might spark her rage. A door slam or a sentence that did not end in “ma’am” could make her furious. There were times when so many children were in so many corners that I would have to hunt for a space for my own punishment. The worst offenders had to wear smelly trash cans over their heads.
    Several of the kids had bed-wetting problems, but I had been dry for years until I woke one morning to Heather making gagging sounds. “What stinks?” She sniffed our bunks for the new smell. “Ashley, you pissed your bed!”
    “There’s no way—,” I started to protest, but shut up as I rolled over on a cold, damp spot.
    Mrs. Moss caught me stripping my linens. “What’s going on here?”
    “Ashley peed her bed,” Mandy volunteered.
    “You know we don’t change the sheets but once a month. You’ll have to sleep in that bed as your punishment.”
    A few days later I realized that I had done it again. “I’ve never wet before,” I insisted when Mrs. Moss found out.
    Mrs. Moss made me put on one of Clare’s diapers. “Now go outside and tell everyone: ‘I am a disgusting pig and I pissed myself.’”
    “I’m not supposed to say that word.”
    “You say exactly what I told you. Then maybe you’ll stop acting like a pissing baby.” Frozen, I stood on the trailer’s stoop. Mrs. Moss yelled at me through the door. “Go to the boys first, then back to the