In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

yesterday."
"What? Why did you do that?" He was completely taken off
guard.
"I didn't do it on purpose! I was standing in front of this really
bad roman bust of Pythagoras, and next thing I know she's standing
there behind me like a ghost! She says 'Thought I might find you here'
or something, and we start walking around the museum.
"We get to the big staircase, the one with the Winged Victory,
with all those people walking up and down, talking in very language
known to man, and I'm thinking, wow, I've gotta get this down, but
she's standing there. So then I think, yeah, she can stand there, be the
scarecrow so no one'll bother us. So I record this amazing track of
these people in this huge resonating space! Then she takes me to her
favorite little courtyard that's all decrepit, with weeds and old plastic
buckets and a stray cat prowling around, and she tells me these stories
of how it used to be when she was a girl walking around the museum
before they renovated it, how they had this secret passageway. And
then we go see the Michelangelos and she kinda shuts down and we go
back outside to that arch and she puts on this weird little hat, not the
Napoleon one, more of a Crusades type thing, and just turns on her
heel and splits!"
"Back to Dick's."
"Yeah, I guess, but she didn't seem too eager. I think she
wanted to get away from Ng though."
"You think? Eh, Mama spoke with Dick the other night. He
laughed and said Ng is just a hothead, that I provoke him."
"Man, the guy doesn't cut you any slack! Hey, did he take Ula
under his wing after her mother slit her wrists in his bathtub?"
"Wut?" He blinked, looking around. Penny bit her lip for that
one.
"Em, yes, Ula found her. She did not speak for many months.
Dick legally adopted her, but when, I do nut know. He never speaks of
those days, and neither does she." Alessandro kicked at some leaves in
their path.
"Did you know her then?"
"I was not yet born."
Penny couldn't think of an appropriate response so they walked
in silence except for the crunch of gravel under their feet.
"It is incredible that you and Ula were together in the Louvre.
You broke through to her. For me, she is still a mystery."
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