Belinda works at the dusty sill of the bedroom window, creating her very own toy. Such a toy is beyond anything she's ever dreamed of, but if she can do this, if she can harness the buzz of invention, she feels as if her whole world might change.

Bertram, her stepfather, with his "workshop" in the basement, has never made a toy just for her, though he has made hundreds of blocky little trains and ducks-on-wheels with pull-strings, painting his creations with bright happy colors and hawking them at various craft fairs, low rent church bazaars, and school fund raisers--places charging only ten dollars for the table space. She has always believed that Bertram is beastly in this respect, withholding the toys, saying they are for sale only, claiming we need the money and besides, these are stupid toys, toys for vacationers and ignorant grandmothers and rich people who act on whim. Belinda knows how many toys get returned home, lying useless in bins and trash bags until their next bazaar excursion, but she has learned not to point this out to their owner. But now, for the first time in her life, she senses that she herself is making something better than Bertram could have ever created. Playtime is dangerously close.

Bertram works primarily with wood. He likes to stay inside, in what he calls a "controlled environment". He's tried outside jobs, but he suffers from too many allergies--flowers, pollen, insects, mold--and his skin breaks out even when he gets too much sun. He turns red, and blotchy. Bertram has tried various factory positions, but ends up coming home puffed up, eating Benadryl and soaking in an Epsom salt bath laced with Kiri oil. He says he's sensitive to cleaning solvents-so he just can't take those jobs any more. Such workplaces contain too much threat for him. Belinda's mom had asked him, three months back, while at their usual Saturday night bean supper hosted by the local Moose lodge to which Bertram certainly wasn't a member-she'd asked him why the wood dust from his saw didn't get to him, or why the paints and paint thinners in his little home shop had no effect upon him. Belinda, reaching for the ketchup even though she'd been taught better, accidentally knocked over her juice before he had time to reply. The three of them exited the bean supper without eating a bite. Bertram had been immediate, merciless, both to her and to her mom; the car ride crashed against the cramped glass interior, and entry into the home bruised the air.

Bertram gave Belinda's mom a wooden heart the next day, with lace he'd glued all around the edge and the words I LOVE YOU! painted across it in white. She'd hung it up in the kitchen window and everything was all right.

Belinda has stolen a spool of red thread from Bertram's workshop. She knows that if he catches her with it he will try to make her regret it. But the thread is all she needs to make her toy--that, and patience. It is early September in New Hampshire, but even so some of the trees have their first yellow or scarlet leaf popping out amidst the green. Belinda likes the color, but tries not to let her focus stray out the window. Belinda takes her fifth grade geography book, and props it into the windowsill to cut down on the afternoon glint through the glass.

Bertram has told her time and again that she needs to focus. He says he might give her one of the clown marionettes he's made if he thought she could master it, but the couple of times he let her try one she failed to coordinate the clown's movements according to Bertram's instruction. Belinda recalls the first time, how she was confused by the twisted strings, how Bertram hardly gave her a chance before he ripped it away from her grasp, then smacked her hands. He called her "Fumble-linda" for a week. The second time she quit it in frustration, throwing it down, scarring a small mark into one of the wooden feet. Bertram swore at her for ruining his hard work. When he began to undo his belt she tried to run to her mother, but he chased her down, catching her in the hallway, and he strapped her ten times, each whip-blow full of arcing sting and blood-letting. He backed her mom away from coming to her, belt dangling from his hand, eyes full of feral power, snarling about how he was teaching the child not to quit, teaching her to have respect for property and hard work, for herself and for other people. Next morning his wife had a sweet little carved owl to add to the large collection of birds he'd made for her.

The window light catches Belinda's reflection--and she sees the seriousness in her blue eyes, a blinkless stare over her work. She relaxes her face, blinks, and decides to tie back the loose strands of honey-colored hair. Belinda puts down the thread that she's tied into a tiny slip knot, fixes the hair, takes stock of the trees and the sun just beginning to settle on their tops in its descent. When she picks up the thread once again and resumes her work, a voice whispers her name beyond the bedroom door.

Bertram has made Belinda work at the selling events, though he never lets her handle the money. He sorts and counts the toys by type, marking each bin or cardboard box the night before a fair. It is always Belinda's job to set them on the table. She is responsible for presentation, and for bird-dogging any would-be thieves. She is responsible for the unsold take-home count to match up with the take-home money. Last Christmas, at the Woolford Community Church Crafts Fair a little girl got her hand slapped when she touched the homemade doll dresses at the next table over, and she was still crying when she trundled behind her mother and stopped at their wooden toys table. Bertram was away at the time, buying himself some chili from the Youth Group's food pavilion. Belinda called to the girl's mother, said I want to give her this. The woman screwed up her mouth, but she let Belinda give the toddler a little doll's chair, its seat strung with inexpensive hemp rope, the entire affair painted a bright yellow. When Belinda and Bertram got home and the count was one off he held her responsible. Inside, she did not regret it.

The voice is an octave higher now, and there's a jiggling to the doorknob. Someone wants to play one of his games. Belinda's room is sparse. She is not allowed to decorate, to color and cover in designs of her own choosing. She has a bed, a card table desk with a folding chair, a closet she must keep neat. Bertram has stenciled rabbits racing about the top of the room, but in Belinda's eyes the window has always been the room's most attractive feature. She spends most of her time either in her studies of people and far-away places, or by simply staring at the world outside. Dusk is coming on now. Belinda likes it best when the sky turns dark, promising a storm, and the trees begin to press back, their leaves flipping up, exposing their undersides. Bertram ceases to call her name, and demands that she open the door.

She is patient, stays with her task. There is care in her design--she must be prepared for opportunity. She focuses, despite the distraction outside her room. The banging on the door begins with a curse--but there is a different anger, an entirely new roil of energy--bumping at the darkening windowpane. Bertram yells that he knows how to pick the cheap lock, but Belinda chooses not to hear him. She darts forward to the pane and cinches the knot--a knot she knows well--then slips her right hand to the end of the thread and pulls her toy back from the window. She is hopeful, nods to herself that this will work as the thread goes taut, extending from her hand.

The door stings open, but the big man pulls up short for once. Bertram immediately drops the belt and backs up against the wall. All the external threats in his life suddenly become small, inconsequential, meaningless. His hands turn palms-up, shake, they try to push away without reaching. Bertram is confronted by a smile. Belinda walks toward him, holding out and following the toy of her own making. She sees his face turn white; though she had not thought to share her creation with him, Belinda's grin broadens with the possibilities of this new playtime. Her hand holds the red thread, and she weaves it back and forth. Her prototype hums with possibility-and fury eats at the air as the lassoed wasp flies outward, promising its best delivery of diversion and pleasure, straining for a chance.

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