Polite

Francis gets a coloring book once a year from her grandmother when Mother and two of her cousins ride the train across Wyoming to Iowa's middle.

Julie is older than Katy. Both are younger than Francis though old enough to be said that they are hardly polite girls. Being polite is very important as Grandma always reminds the three on their outings. On the trip, Francis tries to play games her cousins might like to play and tries to share her coins and ponies, but Julie tells Katy that Francis is autistic and that that is the polite way to say a retarded person.

Francis is 37.

She wears a buzz cut in the summer months because that's how Howard, her dog, wears his. Grandma covers it with bonnets or handkercheifs, this will cover that, Franny, she cooes in an exemplary polite voice. Grandma is stuck a bit in her ways: that proper girls have pretty and long hair. But Grandma also has a buzz that she happens to cover with a pretty and long wig. Francis has seen the buzz and announces it with enthusiasm at the store and market and pretty much anywhere the two are together just how pretty grandma's hair is and how it's just like hers underneath. Grandma always blushes and laughs, oooh, Franny you silly doll. Oh, Franny. Then, they buy a coloring book.