Tombstone.
This morning I walked out of the clinic and waved to Doc Jess as I headed over to the orphanage. I knocked on the boy’s room door and Jimmy called out, “Who is it?”
“It’s Natalie!”
“Come on in Natalie!”
“Really? I can come in the boy’s room?”
“No, I guess better not..lol..the Matron would probably kill me.”
Jimmy came outside and I giggled as I hugged him. “Jimmy I gots somethin’ to tell you!”
“What’s that?”
“I not really nine!!”
“Huh? What you mean?”
“We got the papers from Missippi, where I was from before, right? And they said my birthday and everythin’. The people at the orphanage lied to me!”
“So how old are you then? I hope you not too old.”
“Turns out I’m actually twelve. Only a couple years different I guess.”
“Oh, well that not bad..you is only two years older than me…” he giggled.
“Yeah! What you doin’ today? You wasn’t sleepin’, were ya?”
“No, I been learnin to read..Mr. Thomas been helpin me..I spose meet him in a bit to see what books he might have I can learn from.”
“Oh okay. I might go see if there’s anyone by the hotel or something.”
“Ok,” he smiled. “I goin meet Mr Thomas in Bisbee..he say he teach me readin and writtin since I miss school so much.”
“Yeah. It was good this weekend though it was jes me and Nora and Miss Paisley.. I can show you my notes later.”
“Okie dokie, I might get ya to help me write a letter to my pa later. Miss Paisley said I should write him and tell him I love him and miss him.”
“I can help ya with that! That’s a good idea.”
Jimmy hugged me tight before he ran off to Bisbee and I headed home to read.
***
A while later I went back to the orphanage looking for Payton or Jimmy and sat down at the pond to wait. Mr. Jy and a woman came over and she said her name was Barbie. I told them I was thinkin’ about fishing and Mr. Jy said he’d caught stuff there before. We talked about how I hated frogs and then talked about the wells and how deep they were, since Miss Barbie was gonna try to become a fire person. I asked Mr. Jy if there was a lot of Apaches in the village but Miss Barbie said I should stay away from there. We talked about learning languages and then they went off to get some work done while I continued to sit at the pond.
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