Chapter Thirty One
Nine o’clock.
The only reason Laurie knew was from her memory of the position of the numerals on a clock face. Apart from that, each one just looked like a meaningless squiggle to her.
Why can’t I read them?
She let out a sob of frustration, sat down at the kitchen table, pencil in hand, and then jumped up again. Her butt was still sore from the detestable tattoo Clarence had marked her with! After Clarence had left that morning, she had inspected it in the bathroom mirror, but could make neither head nor tail of it!
She made several adjustments to her grip on the pencil before copying the number that the hour hand was pointing to. When she was done, she compared the symbol she had just drawn with the clock. It was a crude, looping copy, the kind of thing a child m
