Miranda [an assignment from January, based on a book- guess which]

Miranda is something of a tortured soul. She is understood by no one and loved by few-- namely, her parents and, cautiously, her older brother Eric. Liam and Alexandra had dreamed of having seven children, but after Miranda they stopped. They couldn't risk another like her.

Miranda sucks up money like a vacuum cleaner. It's not really her fault; her parents want cures, no matter how expensive. As it stands now, she is a burden and little else. A girl who can't control a single muscle in her body is not exactly a big contributor to the good of society.

When they take her outside for some sun, the pattern is always the same: Miranda is happy, then confused, then angry. Pedestrians shrink from her as though she were a monster. Liam or Alexandra or Eric, pushing the wheelchair, offer up apologetic smiles and continue quickly, ashamedly, on. Without Miranda they are fine, of course. Liam is a trim, gray-templed professor with a false air of competence. Alexandra is a bronze beauty (so to speak); she looks almost like an Amazon warrior, and often acts like one. Eric inherited his mother's height and muscular build. He's a chronic basketball player and popular at his high school, where he is a senior. He doesn't have a girlfriend, consistently turning down the offers. His dewy-eyed parents suspect that it's because he needs to spend the time caring for his sister. No one knows that Eric is gay.

Miranda, who for lack of anything better to do spends her time observing, has guessed. But she doesn't betray her brother's secret, of course. She wonders sometimes if even he realizes it. She believes he can solve his problems on his own.

Miranda has cultivated an interest in the arts. Her parents often sit her down in front of the television set for hours. They don't know what channels Miranda enjoys, but when they're nearby and commercials come on they change them. Thus Miranda has learned how to (in theory) make a score of exotic dishes; she could name a trivia fact about every character on Friends, Seinfeld, Will & Grace, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex & the City, and Buffy; she understands which brushes create which effects on an easel; she can tell you how many people died in all the major battles of the Civil War, and she has seen and subsequently memorized hundreds of music videos. When Eric matter-of-factly tells their parents that Coke can remove stains, she thinks of Myth Busters and knows he is wrong. But she has to keep that knowledge to herself. She can't even control the convulsive movements of a finger or an eye.

It's hard, being totally unable to communicate. Inside, Miranda sometimes has flashes of insight that she wants to share. More trivially, she wishes she could at least tell her family that she hates lentils and likes pasta, or that the Disney channel makes her want to smash the TV. She feels as though she lives in a box that she can see out of but that no one can see into. To be subjected to countless daily humiliations, not being able to do even the simplest of things for herself, is terribly frustrating. Sometimes she wants to kill her caretakers; she has a foolish belief that when they are gone she will be freed. Then it passes and she is grateful she has no physical ability to destroy. She needs them, her prison wardens, after all.

Miranda is not only interested in the arts, but is, mentally, an artist. She tells herself stories over and over in her head, trying to ward off the inevitable moment when they will be forgotten, slipping away like impatient children dressed in gorgeous silks. She imagines objects in the house rearranged in such a way that every facet of beauty is drawn out and proudly displayed. None of her dreams are ever realized.

Over the long fifteen years of her life so far, Miranda has developed a world in her mind, one so real she can lose herself in it. In this world she is accepted. In this world reside creatures taht take her aside and tell her secrets: philosophical, cynical dragons. One in particular, although nameless, is a close friend of Miranda's. They sit and smoke and he tells her about his travels. He is old and wise and has been to a million places. Now he simply remains at home watching over his family.

The funny thing is that sometimes the dragon's stories are true. What he has told her of Paris corresponds exactly with the TV show on 1920s France. What he says of physics is reaffirmed by honored scientists. He tells the truth, and it's still the truth in the world outside Miranda. She loves to make these cross-connections.

At those times she is happy.