Our Girl Nettie’s “Bee in Her Bonnet” has continued to buzz.

On Wednesday they called me from center and said that she was having some difficulty — had I seen anything at home?  I said that she’d been sick, and seemed lethargic, but not anything psychotic. 

It turns out that she had been saying to them that the police were looking for her because she flew those airplanes into those two buildings in New York City.  (!)  I said that I hadn’t heard anything about it, but that she had been sick, maybe that was affecting how her medication was metabolizing.  They said that she had been exhibiting anxiety already last week before she was sick, and that even though it wasn’t the airplane business, it was still that the police were looking for her.  She couldn’t tell them before why it was that she was a person of interest, but finally settled on what she had done.  Poor Girlie.  She must have felt such torment!  I told them that I would talk to her.

When she came home, she seemed pretty normal. ( Over the course of the evening, we had several conversations which pretty much boiled down to the following exchanges.)

“How are you, Nettie?”

“Aw, I  ‘unno . . . I’m Depwess.”

“What are you depressed about, Nettie?”

“Aw, I jus sor’a’ sad ‘bou’ wha’ I done . . .”

“What did you do?”

“You know.  How I run ’em airplanes in ’em buildings and kill all ’em people in New York.”

“Nettie, that wasn’t you!  You didn’t do that!”

“I din’???”

“No, you didn’t.  Besides, the people who did that are dead.  Every single one of the people in the airplane died.”

“–ey did???” 

“Yes, they did.  It was a suicide bomber, and every single person died.  You are alive so you couldn’t have done it.”

“–a’s wha’ you fink.”

“That’s what I KNOW.

“–en why are ‘uh police lookin’ fer me?”

“They aren’t looking for you, Nettie.”

“Yes, –ey are.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“–a’s wha’ you say, bu’ I know –ey are!”

“Nettie, you don’t have your pilot’s license.  How could you be flying a plane?  They wouldn’t even let you on the plane, probably, much less fly it!”

That made her laugh and duck her head.  Then she looked up, almost defiantly, “–en why is my head tellin’ me ‘–at I done it???”  She grabbed her newly cut hair and pulled it miserably.

“They must have cut off all your sense when they gave you a haircut,” I said, laughing.  “Besides, Nettie, your heart is too soft.  You couldn’t have killed all those people!”

“Oh, yes, I could!” She said, beaming proudly.

“Oh, no, you couldn’t.  You couldn’t even kill a cat, much less a whole bunch of people!”

She snapped to attention.  “Wha-‘ you say?!?!?!?!?!”

“I said your heart is too soft. You couldn’t even kill a cat, much less people.”

“O-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h!” she said, turning away, “Doan’ you be talkin’ about ‘at again.”