Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

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