Luckily, Sister Elizabeth likes to give me some time by myself outside. I go in the distance where she can see me, but not too much. After I put the pig in the shed, I tried to walk up the stairs and it was hard. Each step felt very wobbly, but within the next step I lost my balance and fell. While I got up, my body throbbed. I tried to get upstairs as quickly as I could.
The girl is here today. They put her right next to my bed. Her eyes are so red, they look as if somebody threw salt into her eyes. But then again, I was crying when I first got here too. She has short curly hair. She has a pink dress with a bow on the waist of it. She is wearing white nylons and black shoes. Later, I waited until she had stopped crying to ask her what her name was.
Her name is Emily Rose. Her story was very interesting. She had lived in Austin. Her father died when she was young and her mother had recently died of polio. I am planning to show her the pig. Even though she is two years younger, she is bigger than me. At lunch today, the other girls pulled a nasty joke on her. They put some earthworms down her dress. I find the other girls beyond hoard. Today I had enough of them. I had walked up to Gertrude and I threw my soup on her face! One of the sisters saw me and got very mad. She had taken me by my braids and marched me into the bathroom.
She said I was to clean the bathroom until it shined. I started regretting my decision immediately. I had been cleaning for hours, the bathroom is so filthy. I had forgotten all about the pig from all that had happened. After I was done cleaning the bathroom, I snuck into the kitchen and got some scraps leftover from lunch. I asked Sister Elizabeth if I could have some time outside. She helped me down the stairs. She ran back upstairs and told me that she would be back in a few minutes. I had the leftovers in my pocket and I ran into the shed and put them down for the pig. The pig must have been hungry because he ate every last ounce of the leftovers. The pig sat on my lap and pushed me with her nose. I decided to name her Margaret.
I scratched behind the pigs ears and she fell over, and then I rubbed her belly. Then I decided to go see if Sister Elizabeth had come outside for me. And then I heard a familiar voice say “I haven't seen you in a long time”. It was Frank, the handyman. I remember when I was first brought to the orphanage, he brought his dog up to see me.
Her name is Dezzy. Even though it was known that we were not allowed to have animals in the orphanage, it really made me happy. He told me that Dezzy had a litter of puppies. He thought that I would want one of the puppies. He said I could keep it in the old shed, since I had been keeping a pig in there. How do you know that? I murmured. He said “ I noticed the open cage in the yard.
If you keep one of the puppies in the shed I won't tell on Mother Superior that you are keeping a pig in there too. I agreed to keep the puppy in the shed. I wonder how the pig feels about a roomate. I had put the puppy in the shed and the pig seemed very excited for the new guest in the shed. I ran into the front yard because I had heard Sister Elizabeth calling me.
She said “what are you doing over there?” Just talking to Frank I replied. She said “Oh”. And then she said I want you to talk to Emily Rose. She walked me up to my room. All the other girls were playing outside, and it was just Emily Rose up there. I sat on her bed and wiped her tears away with my finger. I said “I lost my parents too”. I asked her what were her parents like. She responded by saying “I never knew my father, but I knew my mother. But I remember one thing about my mother and father. I remember them dancing. That is all I can ever remember of my father. My mother used to read to me, but when she got sick she stopped reading. Then I started reading to her. But when my mother went into a coma, it was hard to read to her. She woke up for a little while and she said that she would miss me but that she would be fine where she was going. She passed away right there. My aunt only wanted her stuff, but she did not want to take care of me. So, I went to the orphanage.” She started crying again,
I felt bad that I had made her cry. So I walked out of the room and Sister Elizabeth took me back to talk to her. I guess that was the first time that she had talked all day. I had asked what her book Little Women was about.