“You said you’d give me the candy because you killed my fish.” I couldn’t understand why he still held the candy as another bait.
“Come on with the kiss or you don’t get it,” he insisted.
I looked at his tobacco-stained mouth and the yellow stubs of teeth that showed when he spoke. He looked horrible to me, but it was a five pound box of candy and it would be all my own and I had never had a whole pound of candy in my life, and I thought it would be worth even kissing Svenson for. I pursed my lips up to kiss him as I had kissed my father, my kittens and sea birds.
“Here’s the kiss,” I said.
He put his face down close to mine and I remember now how hot his breath was in my face. His mouth was twisted and his eyes narrowed and for years after in every horrible dream I ever had I saw Svenson’s yellow teeth and narrowed eyes. . . .
I forgot the candy and turned to run. He made a noise in his throat like a snarling animal and grabbed me up in his arms. His face was against mine. He forced my mouth open and kissed me—horribly! One of his hairy arms nearly crushed my ribs and his big paws patted over my body as I kicked and struggled. With his face against mine I couldn’t make a sound. I managed to get my fingers in his eyes and tried to push them in. Suddenly he dropped me so that I fell to the deck of the cabin and he ran out of the chartroom and up to the deck. I scrambled to my feet and scurried like a rat to my own cabin, slammed the door and threw myself on my bunk. There I beat my hands against the wall and bit into my straw pillow to keep from screaming.
I don’t know how long it was before I felt Father’s hands shaking me.
“For the love of Christ, what’s the matter, Joan?” he kept saying above my muffled sobbing.
“Get out of here, I hate you! Get out of here! Get out!” I screeched at him. I didn’t want to be touched; I just wanted to hide in the dark somewhere to get away from the feeling of Svenson’s kiss.
Then I remembered the fish in my breast. I put my hand down and brought it out. When Father saw it he asked: