February 2020

Beverly, abandoned by both her parents as a baby, at 13 befriends a raccoon named Bandit and sets out to find her father I was born in 1950 and a few hours after I was born, my mom died—or so I was told. We were in Ketchum, Idaho. My name is Beverly Henderson. I am part Irish and the rest of me is all American. My father was disappointed when I was born because he wanted a boy. He put me in an orphanage. I never saw him again, but I have small pictures of him in my head. He was handsome, with brown hair, brown eyes, and tan skin. His skin was so smooth that it made butter feel rough. I lived with him for three years. At the orphanage, I went to a cheap school, and they fed us cold food, they had rats in the classroom, and I was one of the only girls. The only other girls were Lily and some other girl I never learned the name of. She was quiet as a mouse and graceful as a pigeon. Lily, however, was nice. She was 9 years old at the time. Lily lived with a poor family, and she had one brother, two sisters, and her mom was pregnant with one more. At the time I was about 10, and I was the smartest in school. Everyone was dumb, and they never really tried to do anything. Lily was the only person who would eat the cold lunch with me, and she was the second smartest person in the school. I can still remember the day when I set a trap for a rat. Everyone always had some weird junk in their pockets, so I always took it from them. Half the stuff was useless, but the other half helped me build the trap. I built a cage with sticks, a little plate, and a piece of glass. When the rat stepped on the plate, the door closed tightly, leaving the rat stuck in the cage. I used some of my cold lunch as bait and part of a box for the door. The teacher made a bet with me for $3.50. Back then, this was enough to buy a full meal. I set the trap and prayed that I would catch something. I went back to the orphanage and prayed more. I had dinner with the nice lady who worked there, and she gave me a bowl of warm chicken soup. I went to bed and had a dream that the teacher gave me $10. It was an amazing dream. I bought loads of candy and a violin. I tried playing violin, and it was bad. I’d thought it would be cool. I woke up after I ran into a wall in the dream. In real life, a book fell on my face. The bookshelf above my bed was wobbly. My roommates avoided me whenever they could. I went to school eager to see the trap, and when I walked into the classroom, which smelled like mold and sadness, a huge furry animal stared at me. I don’t remember exactly what my teacher said, but he was upset when he gave me the money. We put the rat in the woods, and I put my money in my pocket. I needed something to put my money in, so I used a can from the garbage. Lily came to school late, and she told me she wasn’t allowed to go to school anymore. She was moving to California. Her mother and father thought there was more for them there. I was devastated. I had only gone to school with her for a week, but she meant a lot to me. The next day, Thursday, March 16, 1961, I was late for class. Lily leaving had affected me. I woke up late and when I got there, our school had burned to the ground. I went back to the orphanage and tried to study math by myself. That same day, I went outside to look at the school that had taught me and given me $3.50 and my first friend. When I was finished reflecting, I went back and saw the orphanage burning to the ground. It collapsed before my eyes. My whole world was falling apart, literally, and I needed something, somewhere to go. My money had been in there along with all my belongings. They were all destroyed. I searched in the ruins and found an animal. It was a small raccoon. Its back left leg was stuck under a piece of a burned-up bed. The small raccoon looked into my eyes, and I let it go. I fed it some raw fish from the trash can of a restaurant, and he loved it. He stayed near me, even when I walked into town. Since then, adults have taken me to different orphanages, but I have escaped from every single one. I could never imagine living in another orphanage after what happened to the one I lived in. The raccoon usually helped me escape, by stealing the keys, pooping in the owner’s bed to distract them, pretending to have rabies, you name it. I named him Bandit because he was always stealing things and the little mask on his eyes made him look like one. Over the months, he found money for me to pay for food and clothing. We did everything together. When I first found Bandit, he was the size of my hand. He had since grown to be the size of two basketballs. His tail was big and fluffy, and when I touched it, I thought of a pillow with feathers on the inside and sandpaper on the outside. Bandit was sweet. He would curl up to me in my sleeping bag, he would protect me from other people, and I would protect him from getting stepped on. The months went by, and I had a problem. I found a