I AM FOUR ? (Stories From The Stone House)
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I am four or maybe I'm five. It's very early in the morning and our house is stinging cold. My sheets are cold,
the walls are cold, and from head to toe, inside and outside, so am I. I can't read a clock yet and I think that's because I don't understand numbers, but I know it's very early because it's so dark.
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I am four or maybe I'm five. It's very early in the morning and our house is stinging cold. My sheets are cold,
the walls are cold, and from head to toe, inside and outside, so am I. I can't read a clock yet and I think that's because I don't understand numbers, but I know it's very early because it's so dark.
It's time to get up, time for school. School frightens me. The other little children have pearly clean finger nails and small soft pink and white hands. When I sit next to them I can smell their sweetness. I'm dirty, I smell sticky.
I huddle under the blanket and try hard to cough. It's not a good cough, it's more like a dog's bark. I'm hoping my mother will say "You're too ill to go to school ". But she's not in the mood to be a nurse today.
"Stop that noise at once young lady!",shouts my mother from her bedroom. "I said stop it!" So I stop. I always do what my mother tells me.
I wonder about the loneliness I feel in our house. I've decided it's because there are no pictures on the walls. That is, apart from the small one in our hallway with three men staring at a cow with a wooden leg. I don't know who the men are. And beside it there's a bigger one of my mother at sixteen, sitting on an enormous brown or black horse. She doesn't look frightened. In fact she looks rather happy. She's got on a smart riding outfit and she holds the horses reigns.
Fancy my mother sitting high up in the air like that , and looking happy about it. That must have been before her back got bad and before she was cursed by the devil. She says she doesn't know what she's done to deserve the heavy cross she has been forced to carry due to her poor health, and mine, and a fool of a husband to boot. And on top of it all, there are five of us kids, who she often tells me, have almost been the death of her. I guess that's why she doesn't smile any more.
I decide, before I get up, I'll visit my precious secret for one second. It's like a little fire that warms me when I feel cold or alone. I slip my hand under my pillow and take out the holy picture that I look at each night when I click on the little torch I found tangled up in a ball of orange wool, in our kitchen drawer.
Sister Bernadette gave me the holy picture on one of the days I was at school. She said the holy picture was because I'd said the number eight so nicely. Sister's voice is soft and sweet, like the honey she brought to school one day to show us children. She held a small jar high in the air for all to see. She told us lots of things about the busy bees and said there were many different flavoured honies and I asked her lots of questions. Sister Bernadette had said, "You know Tushie, you have a very enquiring mind, it's a pity so much illness keeps you away from school so often. Ask the Lord for guidance whenever you are in doubt, and you'll never come to any harm."
As my mother isn't interested in me or her being sick today, I put my feet on the cold lino, then slip the torch and holy picture under the mattress. I'm pretty sure my mother won't find it, she doesn't often make our beds.
I am in my classroom now, and wondering, why I always want to go to sleep when I'm at school, which is not often, due to my mother's serious health problems and my own poor health. One day, I heard our neighbor say to her neighbor, as she pointed her thumb in the direction of our house "That woman thinks she knows more than the doctors, it's a damn disgrace!" I knew that my mother did know more than the doctors. If it wasn't for my mother, I wouldn't even know we were sick, and what would happen then?
I huddle under the blanket and try hard to cough. It's not a good cough, it's more like a dog's bark. I'm hoping my mother will say "You're too ill to go to school ". But she's not in the mood to be a nurse today.
"Stop that noise at once young lady!",shouts my mother from her bedroom. "I said stop it!" So I stop. I always do what my mother tells me.
I wonder about the loneliness I feel in our house. I've decided it's because there are no pictures on the walls. That is, apart from the small one in our hallway with three men staring at a cow with a wooden leg. I don't know who the men are. And beside it there's a bigger one of my mother at sixteen, sitting on an enormous brown or black horse. She doesn't look frightened. In fact she looks rather happy. She's got on a smart riding outfit and she holds the horses reigns.
Fancy my mother sitting high up in the air like that , and looking happy about it. That must have been before her back got bad and before she was cursed by the devil. She says she doesn't know what she's done to deserve the heavy cross she has been forced to carry due to her poor health, and mine, and a fool of a husband to boot. And on top of it all, there are five of us kids, who she often tells me, have almost been the death of her. I guess that's why she doesn't smile any more.
I decide, before I get up, I'll visit my precious secret for one second. It's like a little fire that warms me when I feel cold or alone. I slip my hand under my pillow and take out the holy picture that I look at each night when I click on the little torch I found tangled up in a ball of orange wool, in our kitchen drawer.
Sister Bernadette gave me the holy picture on one of the days I was at school. She said the holy picture was because I'd said the number eight so nicely. Sister's voice is soft and sweet, like the honey she brought to school one day to show us children. She held a small jar high in the air for all to see. She told us lots of things about the busy bees and said there were many different flavoured honies and I asked her lots of questions. Sister Bernadette had said, "You know Tushie, you have a very enquiring mind, it's a pity so much illness keeps you away from school so often. Ask the Lord for guidance whenever you are in doubt, and you'll never come to any harm."
As my mother isn't interested in me or her being sick today, I put my feet on the cold lino, then slip the torch and holy picture under the mattress. I'm pretty sure my mother won't find it, she doesn't often make our beds.
I am in my classroom now, and wondering, why I always want to go to sleep when I'm at school, which is not often, due to my mother's serious health problems and my own poor health. One day, I heard our neighbor say to her neighbor, as she pointed her thumb in the direction of our house "That woman thinks she knows more than the doctors, it's a damn disgrace!" I knew that my mother did know more than the doctors. If it wasn't for my mother, I wouldn't even know we were sick, and what would happen then?
Tushie
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