We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [152]
Yet unwillingly, I considered the possibility that, while lovely to my own eye, Celia was fetching in a way that outsiders might be apt to overlook. She was only six, but I already feared that she would never be beautiful—that she was unlikely to carry herself with that much authority. She had your mouth, too wide for her small head; her lips were thin and bloodless. Her tremulous countenance encouraged a carefulness around her that was wearing. That hair, so silken and wispy, was destined to grow lank, its gold to give way to a dingier blond by her teens. Besides, isn’t true beauty a tad enigmatic? And Celia was too artless to imply concealment. She had an available face, and there is something implicitly uninteresting about the look of a person who will tell you whatever you want to know. Why, already I could see it: She would grow into the kind of adolescent who conceives a doomed crush on the president of the student council, who doesn’t know she’s alive. Celia would always give herself away cheaply. Later, she would move in—too young—with an older man who would abuse her generous nature, who would leave her for a more buxom woman who knows how to dress. But at least she would always come home to us for Christmas, and had she opportunity, she would make a far finer mother than I ever was.
Kevin shunned Snuffles, its very name an indignity to a teenage boy. He was more than willing to catch spiders or crickets and dangle the live morsels into the cage—standard boy-stuff and the perfect job for him, since Celia was too squeamish. But the cool, deadpan teasing was merciless. You couldn’t have forgotten the night I served quail, and he convinced her that the scrawny carcass on her plate was you-know-who.
I know, Snuffles was just a pet, an expensive pet, and some kind of unhappy ending was inevitable. I should have thought of that before I gave her the little beast, though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life. I had hoped he’d last longer, but that wouldn’t have made it any easier for Celia when calamity hit.
That night in February 1998 is the only instance I can remember of Celia’s dissembling. She kept darting around the house, crawling on the floor, picking up the couch skirting and peering under the sofa, but when I asked her what she was looking for she chirped, “Nothing!” She continued scuffling around on all fours past her bedtime, refusing to explain the game she was playing, but begging to play it longer. Finally, enough was enough, and I hauled her off to bed as she struggled. It wasn’t like her to be such a brat.
“How’s Snuffles?” I asked, trying to distract her when I turned on the light.
Her body stiffened, and she didn’t look at the cage when I bounced her onto the mattress. After a pause, she whispered, “He’s fine.”
“I can’t see him from here,” I said. “Is he hiding?”
“He’s hiding,” she said, in an even smaller voice.
“Why don’t you go find him for me?”
“He’s hiding,” she said again, still not looking at the cage.
The elephant shrew did sometimes sleep in a corner or under a branch, but when I searched the cage myself, I couldn’t spot any tufts. “You didn’t let Kevin play with Snuffles, did you?” I asked sharply, in the same tone of voice I might have asked, You didn’t put Snuffles in a blender, did you?
“It’s all my fault!” she gasped, and began to sob. “I th-thought I closed the cage door, but I guess I d-d-d-didn’t! ’Cause when I came in after supper it was open and he was gone! I’ve looked everywhere!” Shsh, now there, we’ll find him, I cooed, but she