Such A Small Thing

Page 23

She looks back down and crosses her arms. "Fine."

I put my hand on her head. "Good." I direct her to more child-friendly books. "You can read these. Don't take anymore books from that shelf, okay?"

"Okay," she says and takes out a red book, then puts it on top of the shelf. "Oh, and here's your petal back, again," she says, taking it out of her pocket and holding it out to me. I take it and put it in my pocket.

"Thanks."

She nods and takes her book back off the shelf and sits down on the floor and starts reading. I go back over to the book she had been reading: Preforming Surgery on The Human Body. I sigh. Why would this place even have a book like this? I put it back on the shelf and another book gets pushed out. I push it back in and when I do a click sounds through the room. H stands up, closes her book, and comes over to me.

"What was that?" she asks.

"I don't know," I answer.

She looks towards the painting in the wall, seemingly noticing it for the first time. Her face says nothing, but her eyes say that she knows these people.

"H, so you know those people?" I ask.

"Yeah... Yeah, I do."

"Who are they?"

"My parents..." Her eyes fill with tears and she hides her face in my sleeve. She must miss them dearly.

"Hey," I say and put my hand on her shoulder and lower myself down to her height. I put my other hand on her other shoulder when she lets go and look her in the eyes. "Hey, we'll get out eventually. We've made it this far."

She wipes the tears from her eyes. "Okay... okay... I'm okay..." she mutters.

"You're sure?" I say.

"Yeah... I mean no... But can keep going. Let's get out of this room," she says.

"Okay," I say then stand up and start walking towards the door. H takes a hold of my hand. I see her as a little sister now. A little sister that I must protect with my life.