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“No doctor lives here,” I whispered to my mother.

“Shhhhh,” she whispered, gripping my arm firmly. “Behave.”

I glanced down at my pressed polyester slacks and saw they had already collected lint. I plucked the strange animal hair off my knee and let it go, watching it float to the floor. And then looking at the floor, I saw more fur. There was fur everywhere, streaking across the carpet, gathered in thick balls in the corners against the wall.

I’d never seen such squalor. That people lived here was shocking enough; that a doctor lived here was just unthinkable.

“I’ll wait in the car,” I said.

“You will not wait in the car. It’ll be hours. And it’s rude. You’ll stay here and get along with the Finch children.”

A moment later, two ratty girls came running down the hallway, side by side. They both had long, greasy, stringy hair and dirty clothes. They were Vickie and Natalie; I’d met them before at the doctor’s office. Natalie was a year older than me, thirteen. Vickie was fourteen. Natalie was okay, but Vickie was weird. She didn’t even live at home. Natalie told me she lived with a bunch of hippies.

“Hi, Augusten,” Natalie said sweetly.

Immediately, I didn’t trust her. “Hi,” I said back.

“You’re all dressed up,” Vickie smirked. “Going to church?” She giggled.

I hated her already. She wore shredded jeans that seemed to be held together by embroidery thread in all the colors of the rainbow. There was a patch of a pot leaf stitched onto the knee.

“Deirdre?” The doctor called from somewhere within the house.

“Yes, Dr. Finch,” my mother shouted back. “I’m near the front door.”

“Come on,” Vickie said. “We’re supposed to keep you occupied.”

And with that, they led me away.

We were young. We were bored. And the old electroshock therapy machine was just under the stairs in a box next to the Hoover.

“C’mon you guys, it’ll be fun,” Vickie said, pulling at the stuffing that was leaking from a hole in the sofa’s arm.

Natalie reached into the tube, then wedged a quarter-inch of Pringles into her mouth. She chewed noisily, spilling crumbs down the front of her striped halter-top. She wiped her hands on her bare knees. “I hate Charles Nelson Reilly. Who the fuck is he, anyway?” she asked.

“You guys,” Vickie whined.

I brought my hand to my head. I liked how smooth my hair felt under my palm. It comforted me. I also liked Match Game. “Let’s just watch this,” I said.

Vickie pulled a long clump of stuffing out of the arm and flicked it onto the floor. “Barf. This show sucks.” Their cat, Freud, immediately leapt off the bookcase and pounced on the stuffing.

Natalie raised the tube up to her lips and tipped it, sliding the last of the crumbs into her mouth. She tapped the bottom and it sounded like a small drum. Then she threw the tube at the cat.

He bolted, the stuffing caught in his hind claw.

Vickie snickered.

I exhaled and accepted the fact that my pants might lose their crease. I said,“Did your father really use that thing anyway?”

Vickie jumped up out of her chair. “Yeah, he used to shock people and everything. C’mon, it’ll be a wicked blast.”

Natalie rolled her eyes and turned to me. “We might as well, there’s nothing better to do.”

It was hopeless to protest. Although I hadn’t known Vickie and Natalie for very long, I had already learned that I had no control over anything that happened when I was around them. Once, at the doctor’s office, they opened the window and threw sardines down at people on the street. They would have thrown the coffeemaker out the window too, if Hope hadn’t stopped them just in time.

Gene Rayburn placed his hand on the contestant’s shoulder in a consoling fashion and I got up off the sofa and followed Vickie and Natalie into the hallway.

Vickie turned on the light. It was a bare bulb, attached to a gilt bronze fixture bolted to the wall. The walls in the hallway were covered with brown burlap. I found the burlap a fascinating and original wall treatment, and I didn’t mind at all that it was