Canard is French for

I’ve always liked to lie. Maybe that’s why writing fiction appeals to me so much.

The first time I remember lying, I was seven years old. My best school friend, a fellow Catholic schoolgirl, was over and we were playing in my room. I guess I could blame what happened on her, but it was my idea. We played post office. I did the writing. She sealed the envelopes. I addressed them. Even back then I didn’t like to relinquish my pen.

Afterward we delivered the letters to all the neighbors: Miss Lil, who had hanging plants above a poster of Matisse’s goldfish; Miss Shirley, the young divorcee with two kids and a case of herpes; our top-floor drug addicts; ever kind Miss Malcolm who once bandaged my bleeding toe when my mom wasn’t around. And there were more.

My friend and I finished our deliveries and came back to my house for a snack. Hours passed and she went home. When the knocks on the door began, I wasn’t worried. First Miss Lil came to the back door, frantic, nearly in tears. I grinned on the way to my room. I didn’t get to see the rest of the neighbors come, but each one did. I missed their worried looks and concerned hugs. I never got to witness the fruits of my labor, except in my imagination.

I’m sure there was an appropriate punishment. What I did was evil. Good girls never lie and tell the neighbors that their mom died. Good girls don’t trick nice people into thinking they’re starving and miserable. But I did, and I was never sorry, not even for one single second.

Still, it’s funny how the universe always brings out the best in me. By chance, nice old Miss Malcolm got my friendship poem and came downstairs the next day to thank me.