Butterfly Girl

5-Friend.

The nurses at the home are mean. They give us bruises and blood and make us cry. Mr Doctor doesn't like them either, no-one does. They lock you up, and sometimes they take your brain away.

That's what happened to Alice.

The Children at the home are odd. They cut their soft skin or they cut other peoples skin. One draws with crayons, but if I ask to play she says she'll steal my eyes, like what happened to her mummy. Another plays with his toys so much he forgets to eat.

Alice was different. She was normal, like me. We played together, ate together, sometimes we went to Mr Doctor together. One day, one of the nurses took her to the white room, with the windows. I see lots of doctors circled around there, so it's hard to look inside. But no specimen ever comes back out the front way, only in trolleys round the back.

I didn't like it when they took Alice because I had no-one to play with. I decided to play outside, with one of the nurses watching. I was underneath an emerald willow tree, talking to the ladybugs and grasshoppers when I saw her trolley. A white nurse, splattered in dark pink blood, rolled the cart along the bumpy cobble path when she hit a rut. The small round bag on top of the metal cart shifted slightly so I could see tufts of straw blonde hair, dotted with red flecks. As the white nurse adjusted the bag, I saw the glassy eyes of Alice, her upturned nose, then pink mouth, stumped neck. However, it was more a mask, the skin lay flat as if her skull was missing. The nurse with me pulled me and forced me into my room. I cried because Alice wouldn't play with me anymore.

 Later that evening I snuck across to the white room and saw a brain suspended in green liquid, its squiggles and twists turning like a maze. I stared at it for a long time, wondering where they got it from. 'One day I want to have a brain like that!' I told Mr Doctor. He said nothing, but I saw an emotion in his eyes. I think it was sadness, or maybe guilt. They look very similar, you know.

That night, I had a dream. A bad one, but it wasn't a nightmare because it was different. Instead of big hands, I saw small petite ones. And as they clawed at my face, I turned to see Alice in my dream, her head flat, her skull resting on the ground next to her foot. 'Where is your brain?' I asked, but she pointed beside me where the white room appeared next to me. I asked Mr Doctor what it meant when I woke up. He did not tell me.