sweet and wonderful you are. And you have all of us
who love and admire you so don't let others worry
you. Don't care what they think!" She sniffed, for she
did care, she did!
Carrie slept on her twin bed pushed close beside
mine, and every night I saw her kneel beside her bed,
temple her small hands under her chin, and with
lowered head she prayed, "And please, God, let me
find my mother again. My real mother. And most of
all, Lord God, let me grow just a little bit taller. You
don't have to make me as tall as Momma, but almost
as tall as Cathy, please God, please, please." Lying on my bed and hearing this, I stared
bleakly up at the ceiling and I hated Momma, really
despised and loathed her! How could Carrie still want
a mother who'd been so cruel? Had Chris and I done
right in sparing her the grim truth of how our own
mother had tried to kill us? How she'd caused Carrie to
be as small as she was?
Upon her smallness Carrie placed all her
unhappiness and loneliness. She knew she had a pretty
face and sensational hair, but what did they matter
when the face and the hair were on a head much too large for the thin little body? Carrie's beauty did nothing at all to win her friends and admiration, just the opposite. "Doll face, Angel Hair. Hey you, midget, or are you a dwarf? Are you gonna join a circus and be their littlest freak?" And home she'd run, all three blocks from the bus stop, scared and crying, tormented
again by children without sensitivity.
"I'm no good, Cathy!" she wailed with her face
buried in my lap. "Nobody likes me. They don't like
my body 'cause it's too little, and they don't like my
head 'cause it's too big, and they don't even like what
is pretty 'cause they think it's wasted on somebody too
little like me!"
I said what I could to comfort her but I felt so