"Andrews, V C - butterfly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andrews V.C)

their daughter or son?"
She was right. Who would ever want me? I
thought. I was born prematurely. Some of the
boys and girls here said I was stunted. Just yester
day, Donald Lawson called me the Dwarf.
"Even when you're in high school, you'll wear
little-girl clothes," he taunted.
He strutted away with his head high, and I
could tell it made him feel better to make me feel
bad. My tears were like trophies for him, and the
sight of them didn't make him feel sorry. Instead,
they encouraged him.
: f'Even your tears are tiny," he sang as hewalked
down the halt. "Maybe we should call you Tiny
Tears instead of the Dwarf."
The kids at the orphanage weren't the bnly|
ones who thought there was something wrongi
with me, though. Margaret Lester, who was the|
tallest girl in the orphanage, fourteen with legs;|
that seemed to reach up to her shoulders, oveiM
heard the last couple I'd met talking about m^J
and couldn't wait to tell me all the horrible
things they had to say. |
"The man said he thought you were adorable!
but when they found out how old you were, the||
2
BUTTERFLY
wonderedwhy you were so small. She thought you
might be sickly and then they decided to look at
someone else," Margaret told me with a twisted
smirk on her face.
No potential parents ever looked at her, so she
was happy when one of us was rejected.
"I'm not sickly," I whispered in my own de
fense. "I haven't even had a cold all year."
I always spoke in a soft, low voice and then,
when I was made to repeat something, I struggled
to make my voice louder. Mrs. McGuire said I
had to appear more self-assured.
"It's fine to bea little shy, Janet," she told me.
"Goodness knows, most children today are too
loud and obnoxious, but if you're too modest,
people will pass you over. They'll think you're
withdrawn, like a turtle more comfortable in his
shell. You don't want that, do you?"
I shook my head but she continued her lecture.
"Then stand straight when you speak to people
and look at them and not at the floor. And dost
twist your fingers around each other like that. Get
your shoulders back. You need all the height you