Within the first week after the Christmas holidays, my name found itself figuring prominently in Miss Bufkin’s green ledger of problem students. I missed Starr so much I couldn’t bring myself to play with Lisa Treeby or any of the other, more tractable children my grandmother tried to force upon me. I was such a consummate brat because they weren’t Starr: “accidentally” sitting on Lisa’s Kenmore playhouse, collapsing it beyond repair (she cried), taking Laddie’s Christmas money in a game of poker with the Old Maid cards where I made up the rules and so couldn’t lose (he cried), cutting the real human hair off of Julie’s Madame Alexander doll (she smacked me). Among many other infractions, I was so bad that everybody’s parents complained and that put a stop to that. My grandmother was livid, but for once she couldn’t make everybody do her bidding and have me back over to play. No, I was anathema, and the word got around. But the weeks passed and I eventually got used to the isolation, to having no best friend.
