Helen on 86 th Street

1. Helen on 86th Street Vita

2. Vita… • Is playing the Trojan Horse in their play • Lives on West Eighty-sixth Street with her mom, their cat Marlowe, and their birds, the Keatses, John & John • Has lived in this apartment her whole life • Images: Clip art, clip art, http://www.brackenbird.com/bird-info, clip art

3. Vita… • Hasn’t seen her father for almost three years • Writes a letter to her father every night, but doesn’t send them because she doesn’t know where to send them; she puts them in shoe boxes at the back of her closet • Burned all the letters to her father in Argus’ old dish and spilled the ashes in Argus’ urn • Knows all of Helen’s lines for the play • Images: Clip art

4. What Vita SAYS makes me think… • She wants to be beautiful. • “Would Daddy think I was beautiful?” • She’s really jealous that she didn’t have the role of Helen. • “I hate Helen. That’s all I can say. I hate her. Helen McGuire is playing Helen, so Mr. Dodd says, because, out of the entire sixth grade, she most embodiesHelen of Troy.”