Piggy

WINNER OF THE GOLDEN PEN 2006
Piggy (Big in the original Dutch) by Mireille Geus is Like Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, it is told in the first person by an autistic child. Here that child is Lizzy Bekell, a girl of about twelve who lives alone with her mother and attends a special school. Like Christopher in the recent novel, The Curious Incident, Lizzy is faced with events that challenge her to overcome the closed, internal world of autism. And both Lizzy and Christopher somehow manage to crawl out and respond in ways that are appropriate, courageous and empowering. But whereas The Curious Incident has an element of humor, there is nothing to laugh at in Lizzy’s tale. The oddity of Christopher’s take on his surroundings and his responses make us laugh and in a way set us apart from him. We know he is different and we find his behavior amusing, as we are meant to. But there’s something about Lizzy’s behavior that strikes the reader as familiar, like an exaggerated version of our own fears, and even her strangeness seems like a reasonable response to a threatening world.
Lizzy’s nickname is Dizzy, which aptly describes the dreamy abstraction that overcomes her when she is asked questions that make her uncomfortable or is faced with things she finds unpleasant. She spends her free time waiting at the bus stop (without ever getting on a bus) or standing against a street lamp and watching other children play. The other children sometimes tease her and call her “slow.”
One day, while leaning against her street lamp, she meets a new girl – a fat blond girl who seems perfectly capable of standing up to the taunts of the neighborhood boys playing nearby. The girl’s name is Abigail, but her nickname is Pig. She immediately sees in Lizzy an easy mark, someone so trusting and thirsty for friendship that she can be made to do Pig’s bidding. At the same time Pig, herself a lonely, friendless girl, hopes that Lizzy will be her friend. And this creates the basic dynamic of the story: how far can Lizzy allow herself to be manipulated by Pig before she stands up to her – no easy thing – and says no?
The book is structured in such a way that it keeps the reader’s interest aroused with the turn of every page. Alternating with this narrative of Lizzy and Pig’s evolving friendship are chapters in which Lizzy is being interrogated at the police station by a kindly female detective. Why is she there, we wonder? What has she done? And how does Pig figure into all this? Lizzy must struggle with her propensity to shut out this unpleasantness and to answer the questions. This takes several chapters, and when she finally gathers the strength to tell the whole story we already know the awful truth as both story lines merge.
As Pig explains to Lizzy early on in their friendship, she lives alone with her father who has a “secret job with the government,” and they have to move often because of his work. Pig spends most of her time on her own, consuming vast quantities of Coca Cola. She’s a strong, powerful girl and cannot tolerate being criticized or opposed, as Lizzy soon learns. Eager to win Lizzy as a totally devoted friend, Pig talks her into becoming “blood sisters,” and Lizzy is drawn in deeper and deeper. Pig comes up with a plan to wreak vengeance on the three neighborhood boys who’ve been teasing them, and she finds it easy to make the unsuspecting Lizzy an accomplice. Getting Lizzy to lie and steal is fun, and Lizzy would rather go along with it than stand up to the powerful Pig.
The girls sneak out at night and lure the three boys into an abandoned tunnel, where they lock them in behind an iron gate. The frightened boys beg to be released, but Pig is deaf to their entreaties. Lizzy is horrified by Pig’s utter lack of compassion, and despite her fear of Pig’s wrath she insists that they unlock the gate. But Pig is enjoying it all too much to agree. They return to Lizzy’s house, leaving the boys alone. The next morning they go back to the tunnel where they find the three boys cold, exhausted and terrified. As Lizzy and Pig are about to open the gate and release them Pig lashes out in a final gesture of contempt, throws away the key and leaves. Lizzy, desperate to let the boys out, is able to borrow a metal saw from the local bicycle shop and saw open the gate.
The parents of the three boys take the matter to the police, and before she knows it Lizzy finds herself being interrogated by a detective. Here the two alternating story lines merge. She is finally able to tell the whole story, and as the truth comes out she also learns something about Pig. Pig’s father, it turns out, does not work for the government at a “secret job.” He spends his waking hours at the local bar, drinking away his frustration at not being able to handle his daughter. Pig and her father keep moving because Pig’s behavior makes it impossible for them to stay anywhere. And as Lizzy’s interrogation draws to a close, another policeman bursts into the room with the announcement that Pig has just been brought into the station after having stabbed one of her teachers with an antique dagger – a dagger she stole from Lizzy.
Pig is taken away and the traumatized Lizzy returns home. But as the weeks pass she discovers she has changed. It’s not so difficult for her to face unpleasant things anymore. She finds it’s easier to accept the things she doesn’t like and to express her own displeasure.
After a year she receives a letter from Pig, who apparently has been put in an institution for children with severe behavioral problems. She wants Lizzy to come visit her, reminding her that they’re “blood sisters” after all. But Lizzy has been growing these many months and has made some important discoveries about herself. She is able to see the danger of getting lured back into Pig’s web of manipulation, and she’s able to take a stand. No, she finally says to her much relieved mother, I’m not going.