Katie, whose father is in the hospital due to an undetermined illness, is excited about some new pieces her school choir has been working on, until a girl named Mia starts making fun of her. After being assigned a solo, Katie excitedly comes home to find that her mother has forgotten her.

Read part one of this story here.

Read part two of this story here.

I went to the only person I knew who could possibly be of any help. I walked all that long ways back to the place I had just left that afternoon. The janitors were still there, the after-school activities were in full swing, and Miss Whitley was standing next to her piano, reading something aloud.

“Oh true love, who hides undisguised beneath a young heart! I must follow it, Henrietta,” said Miss Whitley. She suddenly backed up and turned around, as if she was talking to an imaginary person on the other side of the room. Switching characters, I thought.

“My dear Edgar, do not leave me! I cannot imagine life without you! How could you fall in love with that evil woman?”

Characters switched again. “It is she who I love, and not you, Henrietta. I must leave you to chase my inspiration!”

Miss Whitley became Henrietta again. She fell down on the floor. “Do not leave me, Edgar!”

“Miss Whitley?” I called.

She still lay on the floor. “Edgar, I cannot live without you!” was my response.

“Miss Whitley!”

“When many days have passed I will only remember you, Edgar, do not leave me! The stars will mourn for my—oh. Hello, Katie.”

I stood there, quiet.

“One can only practice the piano for a musical for so long before one starts acting. It really is a wonderful play, written by a former student—such a nice reflection of our school. Did you forget your backpack? Can I help you?” She got up from the floor.

“I hope so.” Again the memories of that situation at my house enveloped me. I stood there for a while, lost in my head. Miss Whitley watched me carefully.

“What happened?” the teacher asked at last.

“My mother forgot me.”

“Forgot—”

“I came home from school and I was looking for her and I found her in the living room,” I said. “And she forgot—she didn’t know who I was.”

“Oh my goodness!”

“What?”

Stillness. “This Thing has struck again.” She suddenly became active with a rapidity that surprised me. She leaped to her purse and took her phone out. “It’s been at Healing People’s hospital for two months. We need to replace, well, I’ll explain later.” She got her music together and shot down the doorway, grabbing onto my hand. “You’re coming with me.”

We ran out and got into her car. I didn’t know what was happening, only that she was pulling my arm very hard and that her car smelled like those scented things you hang from the mirror. I just knew that I somehow trusted her.

And when she started driving, the pictures flashed through my mind. Two months ago, at the Healing People’s hospital: “We’re very sorry, Mrs. Fischer, but we don’t have very much information on your husband’s condition, only that he doesn’t remember anything about himself. Maybe the tests…”

One hour ago: “You forgot me?”

“Leave this house. I don’t know you.”

And ten minutes ago: “My mother forgot me.”

We’re very sorry. You forgot me. We don’t have very much information. I don’t know you. He doesn’t remember anything…

“Katie! Are you okay? We’re at the hospital, I’m pulling into the parking garage.”

I looked out the window. Whizzing bits of darkness and dead car rear lights. “I know, I know.”

“You mentioned something about your dad getting sick?”

“Yeah, he’s here. You always have to drive around in circles down to the bottom, you won’t find parking spaces anywhere else.”

My teacher chuckled. “Okay. I’m trying to help you, here.”

“Yeah. About that–what’s This Thing?”

“Can’t tell you. All the teachers in this district have information on This Thing, in case stuff like this happens. That’s how I know where it is. The information isn’t readily available for the students.”

“Then how come you’re taking me to where it is?” My world out the widow spun in dizzying circles. It was dark inside the garage and smelled like sickly cars.

“How did you know this is where it is?” she asked, finally finding an empty parking space and pulling in fast.

I banged up against the side of the car as she turned. “You told me.”

“Oh, okay. You’re just unlucky that you know about it, I guess. That won’t last for a very long time.”

“Does This Thing have to do with my mom forgetting things and my dad being here and forgetting things?”

She got out of the car. “Yeah. Get out.”

I got out. “In what way are they connected to each other?”

“I told you already, I can’t tell you.” We speed walked towards the elevator. “What floor?”

“Of what?”

“Your dad.”

“Two. Look, Miss Whitley, I want to help you do, uh, whatever you are trying to do, but I can’t if I don’t fully understand.” We went into the elevator.

“What room?” We got out of the elevator.

“Two-seventeen. Can you tell me–”

“Wish I could. Look.” She turned to me, sympathy and authority playing tug-of-war on her face. “I really wish I could tell you all about it. But I can’t. All the teachers have the information on our cell phones, so we can keep track of This Thing and our students in case anything like this happens—it’s very rare. But come on. We have to hurry!” She reached the door of the room. “Stand back.” When she flung open the door, about twenty waving tentacles hurled themselves out of the door. Miss Whitley grabbed a handful of them—they looked to be covered with little scales—and brought them inside so she could close the door. She grabbed me at the last minute. I was too fascinated by this creature to think about being in the same room as it was.

It was rusty brown and resembled an octopus. Its head possessed one eye, swirling blue and yellow and swiveling on a kind of antenna. It had at least forty more tentacles than the ones my teacher had handled. And its body—this was the most interesting—was large and square. It had a brass handle in the middle, as if you could some part of it out. It looked, I realized, like a filing cabinet.

“You really must stop these games. How do you expect to keep track of people’s memories when you keep playing with them?” scolded Miss Whitley, talking to the creature which must be This Thing. “Look, you’re nearing your fifteenth millionth birthday. You’re too old for such pranks, and it’s not nice to people, really. Costs a bit of money and energy.”

I remembered the second-hand backpack. The single eye swirled a little slower and became shiny as it cowered in its antenna.

“Hand them over,” sighed my teacher, seeming at ease and holding out her hand. This Thing used a dozen tentacles to pull two little boxes out from behind its body. Each one was the same color as the creature was and seemed to glow softly somehow, and each had a small sliding lid on it. Miss Whitley slid the little door open a crack. “Can you look in there and tell me who it belongs to?” she asked gently.

This is weird, I thought. I was at school and I got a solo, then my mother forgot me, then I was going to the hospital, and now I was in my dad’s hospital room, with him on the little bed, and me and my teacher. I peered into the crack. Mixed with a swirling background of blue and yellow, small, clear pictures with fuzzy edges, not quite circular and not quite square, drifted and floated, orbiting each other inside the box. I looked at them as they passed. I saw pictures of my mom, much younger, and pictures of baby me, and pictures of me and Mom together, and pictures of me playing the piano at the old house, and the zoo. “My dad,” I said, knowing now who it belongs to.

“How about this one?” she held out the other box. I looked in. A picture of a little boy and an action figure at a grocery store was all I needed to see. “My mom.”

“Thanks!” said my teacher, smiling. She turned to This Thing. “Put these away where they go, and don’t take them out again.”

This Thing got hold of the handle on its stomach with a few tentacles and pulled. A large compartment rolled out from it. It was a filing cabinet. This Thing meekly replaced the boxes into the cabinet and rolled it closed. At that same moment, my dad stirred and yawned in his bed. And while I didn’t know until later, my mother suddenly got up and started wondering where I was. Miss Whitley smiled at me. “One more step has to be completed.” She turned to This Thing. “Can you take out Katie Fischer, please?” This Thing opened its stomach-cabinet again and took out a box. “I’ve got to take out this memory of This Thing. I have to. I’m sorry.” She opened the box a crack and inserted a finger.

“Wait!” I called.

“Katie,” she began.

“Wait!” I yelled again. “Wait! I don’t want to forget This Thing!”

This Thing’s eye suddenly turned shiny and swirled less. About fifty tentacles grabbed me and pulled me to it. Thirty more wound around me and patted me on the head. I smiled because the hug felt squishy and weird, but not one which I couldn’t return. I hugged it back.

“It has happened since the beginning of human life,” said my teacher softly from a corner. “The one who is always forgotten in everything always remembers everything a person chooses to remember. Come on. Forget This Thing so it can keep working.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

Suddenly This Thing untwined its tentacles from me and opened its cabinet again. It flipped through millions of files, each with its own box of memories, with an urgency that made both of us wait for it. Such a quantity of boxes seemed unable to fit in a filing cabinet, but they all did, shrunken, or maybe collapsed, by some unexplainable force. He turned to a section labeled MIA BURKLEDUPP and took out her box.

“This Thing!” My teacher’s voice came sharp and piercing. “You didn’t really, did you?”

Again its eye became swimmy and slow.

“Put in false memories! You really did! You—and all the trouble you caused Katie, here, now that’s a crime! I don’t know what to say!”

A drop of water oozed out from the eye and fell on the floor. I remembered how Mia was unkind to me, for seemingly no reason at all.

“Well, you won’t do it again, will you, so I’ll let it go. Throw the false one in the trash.”

This Thing opened the lid of the box and used a tentacle to fish out a picture. He crumpled it and tossed it into the wastebasket. I glanced at it as it fell into the trash. It was a picture of me and Mia. There were two plates of spaghetti in front of us, and I was taking a handful of her noodles and putting them on my plate. Ew. No wonder she didn’t like me.

“I’ve noticed that things between you and Mia have gotten rough,” mused my teacher. “I just never thought about the false memories. Anyhow, it’s fine now. These things happen, occasionally, when This Thing wants a visit. We should go, now that your mother knows who you are.”

This Thing again hugged and patted me. Miss Whitley smiled and went to This Thing, patting it gently. “Take the memories of this event out of Katie’s mind as soon as we leave,” she whispered as she left it. “Come on, Katie,” she took my hand.

“Yes, you can sit and listen!” said Miss Whitley happily, talking to somebody I didn’t know. “Can you bring some more chairs over to…Hello, welcome, welcome, please sit down, we have some wonderful pieces for you all.” The Neighborhood Outdoor Event buzzed happily. Cheap pizza and hot dogs were being sold at a concession stand. Our school choir stood in our places. We were told to stand still, but the younger members of the choir couldn’t help but smile and wave giddily when they spotted their parents, who, camera in hand, waved back just as eagerly. Some helpful parents pushed our piano, which had been moved here for the occasion, in front of us. My mom walked in and saw me. She waved. I grinned back. She knew who I was! The thought flashed through my mind. Well, that was silly. Of course my mom knew who I was. Maybe the impending performance made my mind incapable of logic.

“Hi, Katie!” called my dad as he walked over. “I hear you have a solo!”

I nodded.

“I’m so proud of you!” said my dad before he sat down next to my mother in the front row. I was so glad he got out of the hospital.

“Hey, Katie!” called a voice in front of me. I looked down. It was Mia. “Good luck on your solo.”

I smiled. I remembered a time when Mia wasn’t really so nice to me, but I had gotten mixed up there, somehow. Of course. Mia had always been kind. A little stuck-up, and a sort of a know-it-all, but always kind. “Thanks,” I said.

“You’re going to be awesome.”

She was right. I am going to be awesome, I thought. And I was.