Memories of a Disenchanted Past – Part 2

They were all having a grand time.
Running around in circles, chanting something cute and rhyming, they took no notice of her cautious entry.
“Babies,” she muttered under her breath, halfheartedly wishing someone had heard.
She pressed her back more firmly against the wall. A loose staple pierced her skin. She ignored the annoyance stubbornly, and held her defiant pose.
She was angry. It was bad enough to suffer through the mornings in this terrible place but now her mother had added injury to insult by making her stay for another two hours in the afternoon. She hated it here.
Biting her lip, she surveyed the scene and the little pit in her stomach formed spikes around it.
They were having so much fun.
Why couldn’t she join them?
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the other outsider. She was a fat little girl with long, beautiful hair. She hated her instantly, while intensely coveting her locks.
The fatso was creeping closer to her.
She averted her eyes quickly, but it was too late.
“Want to play with me…”
It was more of a suspended sentence than a question.
She turned her face up and over so that the scorn would casually slip off her shoulder like a silken shawl.
“With you?”
“Um, no, well with my new doll. I just got it…it’s the coolest doll ever…it’s new…I just got it…”
The girl was rambling now and she found it irritating to listen to.
“Let me see.”
The abruptness of her tone startled the unpretentious one into handing over her prized possession swiftly.
It really was a cool doll.
She was jealous.
“I’ll play with you if you let me decorate your doll.”
She delighted in the rapidly changing expressions crossing her new companion’s face.
The girl settled with a look of resignation and she knew that she had won.
The marker she chose was dark and brooding to match her mood, and she set about her task with an air of righteous indignation. She would show them. She would show them all. No one would run around in circles having fun without her. As the ink dried on the pretty little face, she turned, in time to catch the grief in the girl’s eyes traveling down her chubby cheeks.
She wondered if the girl could see her own grief stricken face, hiding beneath her cold, cruel eyes.