1 year

It was my very first birthday.

I knew that much because Fern, the older woman, said so as she pulled Azalea and me out of a bush.

We were trying to see if there were fairies in the bush, because one of the women had read a story the day before. In that story it said in the beginning that every tree, stone and bush in the great forest was the home of a fairy. If so many fairies lived in the bushes there then, since we had so many of them here too, there ought to be at least one fairy around, right?

So we were crawling into the densest ones we could find searching for fairies.

Oh, yes, Fern.

Fern had scolded us harshly, scrubbed us in the bath and then forced us to wear dresses with our flower on them. Mine was light green with white Lilies on them that she called ‘Calla’. Whatever that meant.

Azalea got a light purple dress with pink Azaleas.

Hers was much prettier than mine, we decided, which was mean. We tried to switch mine secretly with Magnolia’s, since hers had similar colors to Azalea’s, but I was skinnier and smaller than Magnolia and hers was too big.

When Fern came back she scolded me for stealing Magnolia’s dress and I had to wear mine again. In hers Azalea looked rosy and pretty, but mine made me look pale and frail. I wanted to look like Azalea. Fern was really mean. I wanted a pink day lily, but she said that wasn’t appropriate at all.

I really didn’t understand the complicated explanation with womanhood and such difficult words in it.

Either way, she sat us down in a room with two other little girls, Buckhorn and Yaupon. Those two were dressed in drab clothing, from ordinary linen.

Not the cool silk and pretty colors we had.

I didn’t understand it. Fern set us down on low chairs with soft pillows, but those two didn’t get pillows. A few minutes later another little girl in a silk dress was brought, though hers was cream with pale green leaves.

She got a pillow, too.

Azalea and I had played with her before so I knew her name was White Ash.

Apparently there was some kind of separation going on. I didn’t think Azalea or any of the others really got it, but Yaupon started wandering over to argue with Magnolia over a pillow to sit on and was roughly dragged back to her own chair.

Nobody had ever been this rough with me, even if I had done some pranks and hidden in corners and pulled another girl’s hair once.

I looked at White Ash’s dress and then at mine.

My colors were still cheerful, even if they were pale, while hers were just boring. But the quality was about the same.

When I crawled towards her to see if her pillow was the same as mine all the adults smiled and let us play and look at each other’s dresses.

We had to get up to see properly so I pulled myself to my feet against her little chair. White Ash giggled and did the same. Then we competed to see who could walk for longer without falling. It was lots of fun! And we didn’t cry when we stumbled.

So I could play with White Ash.

To test my newly formed theory I looked at Buckhorn, because she wasn’t crying. With my practiced skill I crawled towards her to see what would happen.

Fern lifted me up into her arms and carried me back to White Ash. I really didn’t understand what the difference was.

Until that morning I had played with Buckhorn occasionally and nobody intervened. But now apparently something had changed.

While I sat there, thinking, White Ash looked around, as puzzled as I was about the reactions of the adults all of a sudden.

Azalea crawled to me, probably because she was bored, but she apparently hadn’t noticed much.

White Ash, I thought, was smarter than the others. Something told me that smart people were good to have as friends, something that gave me a headache when I tried to find out why.

So I just decided to go along and play with White Ash more.

A little while later the six of us were brought to another room, where strange women waited.

The first group pulled us around, looked at our hands and knees and eyes and hair, inspecting us and turning us around until we were in a bad mood and Magnolia and Yaupon were crying.

Then they finally stopped and we were given strange toys. Each of us had to play with five women, a different game with each of them.

Me and White Ash were really good at those games. Buckhorn was pretty good too, about the same as Azalea and then people were standing around us, talking.

Magnolia and Yaupon weren’t really good at all.

Then the women talked and talked and talked while we were allowed to play together again. Sometimes one of the women started shouting, but we mostly ignored them.

Finally they seemed to agree on something.

After a bit someone brought a plain silk dress and made Buckhorn change into it.

We were then told that Buckhorn was Willow now.

That was puzzling, but Willow sounded prettier so Buck…no, Willow smiled and seemed happy as she agreed. We wanted new names, too, then, but they said that that wasn’t necessary.

Then the women argued again.

Finally Azalea, Willow, White Ash and me were lifted by one of the women who had done the tests each and carried to a room with four mattresses and lots more games similar to those we had played with the women.

One of the women told us she would be our new nurse now, because Fern was going somewhere else with Magnolia, but we would see them again soon.

When I asked about Yaupon she shrugged and said she would have two more years to ‘prove herself’ and that she had gone somewhere else.

To her mother.

We didn’t know what a mother was, but the nurse just smiled and said we would meet ours when we turned five.

1 year 1 month

It was very different in the toddler group compared to the baby group.

Everybody was talking! And they walked around from room to room so easily! All four of us had worked hard since we arrived and could walk properly without falling too often, too, after the first month, but the other girls were so fast!

And so smart!

We played in a different group from Magnolia and had different games, too.

All the older girls in our group could do amazing things, like making complicated drawings with a brush and forming clay, solving difficult puzzles with a hundred pieces and playing counting games and grammar games. We had to try hard and speak in longer sentences or we looked stupid.

Magnolia, we found out, was singing a lot in her play group and painting with really pretty colors. They dressed up all the time and had to wear things in their hair. Magnolia liked that, but Azalea and me were glad we were in the other group.

Everybody had to learn something called dancing together and we were scolded when we fell down or moved our arms and heads wrong. It was really difficult, but it helped with walking without falling. Magnolia was really bad at it and cried all the time, so Fern had to come and calm her down.

And then there was something where we had to sit and meditate, when we had to be all quiet and not fall asleep.

That was boring, but the headache thing in my head made me try really hard.

Surprisingly when I really tried to do what they told me to the time passed lots faster and I felt really good afterwards, so I did my best and was praised a lot.

The only horrible thing was that the women kept trying to give us things with a weird color. Some of those were really disgusting when we put them in our mouth, but others were sweet and tasted nice.

It was just hard to try things that might be really yucky. White Ash really liked something the adults called fruit juice, so I tried that too and it was tasty. So I started trying too.

Willow liked potato mush and that was all right, too. Our Nurse kept giving us things she said were healthy and was really happy when we liked them.

Magnolia was getting really chubby recently though. I wonder why? She also hit some of the girls and when they hit back she started crying and then Fern came and scolded the girls Magnolia hit.

2 years

“I want a new dress, too!” Azalea complained in dancing class as she watched Magnolia in hers. She was worse than most girls even though we were in the middle of the age group by then.

“Magnolia won in her singing class.” I argued. “Magnolia was a good girl Fern said. So Magnolia gets new dresses.”

Azalea struggled to gracefully bend her spine and arms to give the impression of a crane and pouted. “I’d win too.”

“Magnolia is better.” Willow argued. Her little face was tense with concentration. She was pretty good at dancing.

I was best of all the girl in meditation, but that didn’t count because it was just sitting still, Azalea said.

I nodded and agreed with Willow. Magnolia really was good at singing. But she was bad at dancing and she still got sweets from Fern for not crying every time.

White Ash did the twirl and looked at Magnolia thoughtfully. White Ash didn’t talk much, but she always thought first before saying something smart. “Nurse says Magnolia is spoiled.”

“What’s spoiled?” Willow piped in. She wasn’t as good at most of our classes as White Ash and me, but she was really curious.

So even if it took her a bit longer to understand she still learned everything she wanted easily.

“Pine's Nurse always says that.” I grinned victoriously. “Spoiled is when you always want lots of things and then cry if you don’t get something you want.” I was really proud because that was a really complicated thing to say!

Willow looked at me with wide eyes and nodded. White Ash nodded, too. She looked thoughtful again, her forehead all wrinkled.

Azalea looked confused though.

“Is Magnolia fat because she always wants sweets?” She asked.

I smiled proudly at the sister that looked almost exactly like me. “Yes!” I said.

Azalea was smart, too. Nurse always said we were in the smart group, so it was important to be smart and ask lots and lots of questions.

White Ash seemed puzzled by something for a moment, but then she shrugged and then we were scolded because we were chatting instead of dancing.

Half an hour later our arms and legs hurt, but we still had to go to reading and writing class.

That was mean because Magnolia didn’t have to go to that class, only the girls from our group who had turned two.

But it wasn’t that bad, we got to look at pretty pictures and then try to remember the black signs next to those pictures. We could play paper chase with those and if somebody knew one you didn’t and you lost because you didn’t know that on the paper you found there were the signs for table and food, you’d be far behind the others who were trying to find the treasure!

It was fun teasing the other group playing a game they couldn’t, too.

White Ash, Willow and me were never allowed to play in the same group though or we’d always win.

Playing against each other was fun, too, though.