Autobiography Of A Face

Although Lucy starts sixth grade having missed most of both fourth and fifth grade, she grew up with the majority of her classmates so they are, “for the most part, genuinely curious” about her condition and largely treat her “respectfully, if somewhat distantly” (118). The exception is a “clique of boys” who call her names and tell her to “take off that monster mask” (118). Sometimes, children “knock [her] hat off, and call [her] Baldy” (119).

In October, Lucy dresses up as an “Eskimo” for Halloween, wearing “a winter coat” with a scarf wrapped around her face and hanging a paper fish off “the end of a stick” (119). She feels “wonderful” (119) because “No one [can] see [her] clearly. No one [can] see [her] face” (120). She “waltze[s] up to people effortlessly and boldly” and realizes “how meek” and “how self-conscious” (120) she is on a normal day.

At her graduation from elementary school, Lucy feels “intense, searing embarrassment” (123) when the vice-principal praises her bravery in front of the whole school. She receives a copy of The Prophet as a prize but stops reading it “after only a page” (124) because she cannot relate to a verse about love, believing that “wanting love [is] a weakness to be overcome” and that “the world of love want[s] nothing to do with [her]” (124).