The Lonely Girl

Chapter 1

For years I have felt something has not been right between my mother and me. We are not like the normal mother daughter kind of thing that you might see in movies. No, we are much more complex than that. If my instincts are correct there might be a secret that my mother has been keeping from me. Let me tell you a little bit about me.

I am a typical Irish 10 year old named Colleen Baker. My so-called mother, in a small town in Ireland, raised me. My Pa had died when I was about 3 in a horrible car crash. This tragic event was really hard on my mother. She had to get an extra job and I was left home alone since I was four. As a four year old you might think how am I supposed to take care of myself, but for me it was quite easy. As you don't know I am smart for my age with a high IQ ranging around 130-140. I am not in fifth grade like other 10 years old, I am in eighth grade. I tried to make my mother so proud. The sad thing of this all is that she is not proud. She is never home. She doesn't even know how smart I am.

As I said before I believe there is a secret that my mother has been hiding. I am getting closer and closer to finding it out.

One day I was looking at some pictures during my free time at home. The pictures were of my mother and me and my mother looked much different. The reason I say that is because now she has blue eyes and brown hair. Back then she had brown eyes and blond hair. I have brown hair and brown eyes same as my Pa. I would like to ask my mother the reason for this but she gets up at five a.m. and comes home sometime around eleven and if I am still up she yells at me. She has a very high stress job and all the stress that builds up inside of her she takes out on me. I'm sure she doesn't do it purposely. She's just tired, right?

I have wondered for many long years about that and I finally came up with one theory. That the person who has raised me is not my real mother and I am starting to think that it is true. The question is where is my real mother and who is she?

One night around nine o'clock I was going through some boxes in the storage room. I was forbidden to go in the storage room but I needed some answers. I found a box marked "CHILD" in big blue letters. I looked inside and there were all these letters addressed to me. I opened one letter that was from a man named Kevin. I figure maybe he's my uncle. I never even knew I had an uncle.. It read:

Colleen,

If you are reading this you are probably eight as Sharon (my fake mother) and I agreed we would give you this letter.

When I read that I was thinking that the answer I was looking for was in this letter because Sharon was keeping this from me so I wouldn't know the truth. Suddenly I heard the front door open and the lights in the living room turned on. I heard footsteps coming toward the room I was in. I had the lights on and the wide door open. She walked in at the worst time. I was sitting on the floor with letters everywhere and I was holding an open letter. She opened her mouth to speak and said, " What are you doing?" like she was about to explode with anger.

She started walking toward me more and I didn't know what to say. I was silent for a while and she stopped suddenly right in front of me. "Maybe you didn't hear me," she repeated, "What are you doing with that letter?" I was frozen as she walked out of the room I heard a big noise. She came back in with a short black belt and said, "I'm going to ask you one more time, what are you doing with that letter?"