When my mom returns twenty minutes later, she has the scoop. Our new neighbors are renters, only here for a couple of months until the house they’re having built is completed. They had lived in an apartment, but would have had to sign a new one-year lease if they’d wanted to stay. Their new house is in North Park Ridge not ten minutes away, their last name is Kushnir, and they are originally from the Ukraine. He’s an anesthesiologist, she’s a part-time realtor.

“And their daughter,” my mom reports, “is your age. Her name is Dorota.”

“Why haven’t I seen her in school?” I ask.

“She goes to St. Joe’s,” my mother says. “But that shouldn’t keep you two from becoming friends.”

There are three of us—Teresa Marie, Janel, and myself—and we are inseparable. We’re friends based on three facts: we’re all in the same seventh grade homeroom at Park Ridge Middle School, we all play in the school orchestra, and we live within walking distance of one another.

The day after The Beast moves in, we’re in my front yard jammed in a hammock meant for a solitary person. The game is to get the thing swinging wildly enough so that the three of us spill out onto the grass. It’s an activity we never tired of.

Teresa Marie, the first one thrown from the hammock, spots the car first. It pulls into the driveway next door and Mrs. Kushnir gets out from the driver’s side and opens the car’s rear door. Janel and I sit straight up in the hammock and watch along with Teresa Marie as the dog, which appears to be part German Shepard and part dachshund, hops out and lands on its stubby little legs. “Come on, Biscuit,” Mrs. Kushnir says. She looks over, sees us looking back, smiles, waves. We wave back. The passenger door opens and The Beast, gets out. She’s dressed exactly as she was the day before and when she stares over at us—a look that doesn’t last more than a few seconds—her eyes almost appear to glow. In one hand she carries a black cello case, in the other an orange tote bag with unkempt pages of sheet music poking out. Slumped, she follows her mom up the brick steps and inside their house. Janel and I join Teresa Marie seated on the grass.

“That her?” Janel asks.

“Yep.”

“Like a refrigerator with legs,” Janel says.

“Maybe she’s nice,” Teresa Marie, the eternal optimist, says.

“Tell me how nice she is when she has you pinned up against a wall taking your allowance,” Janel says.

“Did you see the way she looked at us?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Janel says. “Like we’re red meat and she’s a starving gorilla.”

“Gorillas don’t eat meat,” Teresa Marie reminds her.

“Then fill in your own animal,” Janel says.

“Was that a cello case?” I ask.

“Either that,” Janel says, “or her lunch box.”

In a fight, Janel can hold her own with any girl in school. She’s thick and athletic and comes at you fast and low. I’m wiry, but unafraid. My only fight had been on the school playground during recess in fifth grade. And it had been with Janel. She accused me of cutting in front of her in line, which I probably did, and then she pummeled me. By my own count, she knocked me to the ground eight times, and eight times I got right back up and stood inches from her reddening face. Eventually she became winded, hardly able to lift her arms, an easy target. The kids who surrounded us, including the boy who kept watch for teachers, called for me to move in for the kill. But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “You had enough?”

“Yeah,” Janel answered.

I turned, bloody nose and hair in a tangle, and returned to the cafeteria with my arms raised in victory. Immediately after that, Janel and I were seldom seen apart.

But it isn’t Janel who calls out The Beast, it’s Teresa Marie. She and her family live on Gallows Hill Road which, despite its name, is one of the most manicured blocks in the area. Every yard is uniformly neat, every bush trimmed to regulation, every house cookie-cutter perfect. As Teresa Marie once told us herself, you can beat your wife or molest your kids and still live on Gallows Hill Road, but neglect your lawn and expect a lynch mob.

It’s early December, around 4 p.m., a cold but clear Wednesday afternoon. The Beast has been my neighbor for almost six weeks, but so far we’ve had no contact despite my well-meaning mom’s dumb suggestions.

The three of us are sitting around Teresa Marie’s living room, no one else home except her creepy seventeen-year-old brother who lives in the basement. Our music stands and instruments are in front of us, and we’re arguing about what to play for the just announced “First Annual Holiday Talent Show” at the community center nine days from now. Janel suggests “Ode to Joy,” but Teresa Marie insists on “Trepak” from The Nutcracker.

“It’s the perfect selection for two violins and a viola,” she claims as she rosins her bow.

I’m about to make my case for Dvorak’s “Terzetti in C major,” when all of a sudden Teresa Marie goes ashen. “I don’t believe this,” she says, staring toward the large picture window.

Janel and I turn in our chairs and see The Beast herself, her gray pleated St. Joseph’s uniform skirt sticking out from below her huge black parka. She’s walking that ridiculous dog of hers and apparently Biscuit has decided that the edge of Teresa Marie’s lawn is the perfect place to squat and drop a deuce. Before the animal has even completed the deed, Teresa Marie is out the front door, coatless, viola bow still in her hand.

“Hey freak!” she yells. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Inside, Janel turns to me and says, “Uh oh.” We quickly grab our coats from the sofa and start outside hoping not so much to help Teresa Marie but to gather up what’s left of her.

When we get there, though, we’re totally unprepared for what we find. Teresa Marie, using her bow like a pointer, is indicating the steaming excrement while The Beast, using a plastic baggie, is picking it up.

“All of it!” Teresa Marie commands.

Up the block we notice that a game of driveway basketball among some boys from our school has stopped. Apparently we’re more interesting than a three-point shot from the curb. And we notice, too—I do, anyway—that The Beast is crying. She’s silent, but huge tears are flowing freely down her chubby cheeks, one or two actually falling to the frozen ground.

It’s over quickly, The Beast skulking away from the scene, her dog’s leash in one hand, a bag of fresh crap in the other.

“Whoa,” Janel says once The Beast is out of sight, “I’m impressed.”

“My dad goes ballistic if there’s a leaf on his lawn,” Teresa Marie says. After a second, she adds, “I guess I could have asked her nicely.”

Janel puts her arm around Teresa Marie, and I’m moved by what I interpret as one friend protecting another from the cold.

“Fuck that,” Janel says.

Within a week, word spreads. The kind, demure Teresa Marie putting down the imposing monster. David and Goliath Connecticut-style. Among the kids in the neighborhood, The Beast is now openly chided by anyone looking for a fight or an ego-boost. Sophie Mannino, known best for a complexion resembling a black olive pizza, gets into an actual physical fight and, with the help of a friend, slaps The Beast repeatedly before someone calls out their front door to “Stop the nonsense!”

Two days before the talent show, when it’s announced that the community center will be giving prizes to the three best acts, we get serious. We choose almost-matching blue dresses and agree on sensible black shoes. Our hair, we concur, should be pinned back. We also decide to go with “Out of the Winter,” a really easy arrangement but seasonal and perky.

By Friday evening, the night of the show, we’re ready. We’ve heard about a few of the other performers, most of them kids we know, and there’s little doubt we can blow them off the stage. Our biggest worry is Mr. and Mrs. Wippermann, one of the only adult acts, who plan to perform their “Holiday Favorites.” We’ve seen them for years at Christmas parties around the neighborhood. She plays the piano and he dances around in costume: a red bulb nose for Rudolph, a top hat for Frosty, a white beard for Santa. It’s humiliating, but they have their fans.

From the backstage area of the community center auditorium, Janel peeks out through the curtain and reports back that the crowd is huge—at least seventy-five seats filled. I flip through one of the printed programs to see the running order and notice that we go on third. I see that the Wippermanns close the show, that there’s a perforated stub on which an audience member can vote for his or her favorite act, and a name I’m at first unfamiliar with. It’s scheduled second, after intermission:

DOROTA KUSHNIR....................cello solo

“Hey, isn’t that The Beast?” Teresa Marie asks, jabbing a finger into my program.

“Oh my God, it is.” We both look around the backstage area, but The Beast is nowhere to be seen.

“She probably backed out,” Teresa Marie says.

“Probably,” I say.

All-in-all, the level of talent is lousy. We go on after a first grader who reads “The Night Before Christmas” to a doll whose head falls off before St. Nick even makes it down the chimney. Bad news for her, good news for us. An easy act to follow.

Janel’s violin is a bit out of tune and Teresa Marie falls a beat behind in places, but we’re good. Like every other parent in the place, ours give us a standing ovation, look around at everybody else still seated, clear their throats, and sit back down. A few acts later there’s an intermission, then the show resumes. Still without The Beast.

She shows up maybe two minutes before she’s announced, standing in the back of the auditorium with her cello case, wearing her Catholic school uniform. When she takes the stage, her hands tremble and I can guarantee there’s more than one person in that audience wondering if they brought an ammonia inhaler. I look out at the audience for either of her parents, but they’re apparently missing in action.

She sets up clumsily—her music falls off the music stand twice—and the crowd grows almost as nervous as she is. Feet shuffle, programs pop open, perfectly healthy people cough.

“Well this is gonna be good.” Janel smirks.

But then The Beast begins to play. I recognize the selection. It’s the Prelude to Bach’s Suite #1 in G major. It’s not an easy piece to play, but The Beast makes it sound as natural as water running over smooth stones. The entire performance lasts about three minute, but in that time not one shoe scraps the floor, not one paper rattles, not one baby cries to be nursed.

I glance over at Teresa Marie who stands open-mouthed. Janel shakes her head and says, “Jesus Christ on a stick.”

When she finishes, The Beast—her hands palsied—packs up and leaves the stage by the front steps and stands in her spot by the exit. A few people applaud—my mom, of course—but most sit there as if they’ve just heard the voice of God for the first time.

After the Wippermanns, ballots are filled out, collected and counted. Within fifteen minutes, the prize winners are announced by the turkey-necked woman who seems to be in charge. We finish first, the Wippermanns second, The Beast third. We join with the rest of the performers on stage to accept our prizes: a twenty-five dollar, a fifteen dollar, and a ten dollar gift card good at Books on the Green in the Nutmeg Mall.

Among the three of us, I’m the only reader. Teresa Marie is a mathematician who can tell you the value of pi including fifteen digits following the decimal. Janel says that if anything’s important enough to read, she can find it condensed on the internet. So for eight bucks each, they sell me their two-thirds of the gift card.

The next afternoon I’m at Books on the Green paging through John Marchese’s The Violin Maker. It’s been on my wish list for a while, but even on sale for $23.95 it’s been untouchable. Until now.

I’m just ready to make the purchase final when I see her. She’s standing in the section marked “Pets and Pet Care,” and it’s impossible to get to the register without passing by her.

“Hi,” I say, but The Beast doesn’t answer. “You’re pretty good on the cello,” I tell her.

“I guess,” she says, and I realize these are the first words I’ve ever heard her speak.

“What’s that?” I ask, indicating the book in her mammoth hands. She shows me the Dog Owner’s Home Veterinary Handbook and I notice the red sticker on the front cover with the reduced price of $29.95. “Your dog sick?” I ask.

“No,” she says.

A few painful seconds pass before I say, “Well I’ll see you around.”

In line I wait behind a guy asking for a book the title of which he’s forgotten, the author of which he never knew. “The cover is light blue with birds,” he tells the girl behind the register. I can’t stand this. Any of it. I turn, leave the line, walk back to where The Beast stands and hand her my gift card.

“Here,” I say. “It should have been yours anyway.”

I’m thinking she’s going to either refuse or thank me profusely, but she does neither. Instead she says, “I know,” and takes the card from my hand. She holds up her own prize, the ten dollar gift card. “Mind if I keep this one?” she asks.

“Knock yourself out,” I tell her.

Not two months later, our local newspaper—The Acorn—runs a story about Dr. Kushnir deciding that his medical talents are more needed back in the Ukraine. He’s just sold the family house, hardly even lived in, and will take his wife and daughter back to the country of his birth. By the time my mom reads the story and relates it to me, they’ve already left.

Even now, close to spring, her name will come up from time-to-time. Generally some kid, less informed than the average Acorn reader, will say something like, “Hey. Whatever happened to The Beast?”

And then it’s up to me, or Janel, or Teresa Marie, or whomever else she shamed, to say, “Her name was Dorota.”