Little Girl in Red

There once was a little girl named Max (short for Maxine) who liked to wear red. She liked to wear red cotton shirts, red corduroy pants, red socks, and red Keds tennis shoes. Max tore off the blue plastic labels on the back of her sneakers because they were not red. The little girl's favorite days were when she could wear all her red clothes at once.

The little girl who liked to wear red did not use many words. She did not understand why the other people used so many words, when the sounds from the other people mouths hurt the little girl in red's ears. Max preferred to quietly meow like the tiny furry girl the daddy called, "that damn cat!" The little girl in red also liked to climb trees. The mama said that her daughter was part monkey. Max knew that the mama would not lie about such things. So she was part monkey and part cat.

When the little girl in red was three, her family moved to a brand new, brick, house in Raleigh, North Carolina. The house felt very large to Max. She didn't think she could remember how to get from her new bedroom to the kitchen, so the little girl in red took a red crayon and drew a line on the wall from her bedroom upstairs to the kitchen downstairs. She was pleased with herself for thinking of a solution to her problem. The mama did not find Max to be so clever. In fact, she did not seem to like the red crayon on the wall at all. The mama got very loud as she pointed to the wall and called to the daddy to come and look. This was not the first time the little girl in red was misunderstood by the grown-ups that were assigned to her. It certainly would not be the last.

Bedtime Monsters

The little girl in red resigned herself to the monsters. The monsters were big bullies that poked and prodded and teased the whole night long.

"Hey, little girl," they said in their gruff prickly voices, "we're going to kidnap you and make you live under the bed with us."

The child awoke at midnight with one leg already sliding off the big-girl bed. The railing the daddy had installed failed to do its job. The monsters were winning again.

"Ha!" they snarled. "We've almost got you."

Like gravity, the monsters pulled her down to their hellish abode under her bed.

The little girl barely jumped clear of their clutches and raced down the hall in her Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas that covered her feet, not just her legs.

She did not consider crawling into the bed with the grown-ups, for touch from humans felt like burning and pinching on her skin. The thin skin of little girl in red left her no way to get physically close to other humans. And so she just stood there at the end of her parents' bed, in the dark, feeling alone as usual.

Eventually the mama sensed her daughter's presence and said, "Max, you are a big girl now. Go back to your big-girl bed."

Once again she returned to the monsters. It was like this a lot of nights.

When she got back to her room, the monsters taunted little Max, "See there, they don't care about you. You can't count on those grown-ups. But we are always here. We will never leave you. We are your monsters, and you are our little girl forever and ever."

Hernia

Because the monsters woke the little girl in red a lot of nights, she ran down the hall to her parents' bedroom a lot. Unfortunately, they were on the second story of the house, and there was a staircase between Max's bedroom and her parents' bedroom. One evening, the little girl made a wrong turn and fell all the way down the steps.

"What the ..." The daddy and the mama awoke to a bump, bump, bump sound.

"It's Max. She's fallen down the stairs," said the daddy.

"Go get the car. We need to go to the hospital," the mama said.

At the hospital the doctor said the little girl in red was born with an umbilical hernia and that when Max's body relaxed after she fell asleep each evening, the hernia was pinching her; thus, nightmares and night terrors woke her each night. The little girl in red needed an operation to repair the hernia, and that should be the end of the pinching and the end to the monsters. The mama and the daddy were relieved to hear this.

The night before the operation, Max and her parents checked in to the hospital. A nurse asked if the little girl in red wanted to go see the new babies. The nurse picked up Max and took her to the window where the babies were. The nurse said, "You aren't a baby any more. You are a big girl who is going to have a big girl operation tomorrow morning."

In the morning, the doctor scooped up the little girl in red into his arms and took her to surgery. The mama liked how kind the staff was to her daughter. Soon the operation was over, and Max had a big bandage that went around her tummy. The mama was worried that her daughter would tear out the operation because she was such an active child. The doctor said not to worry, that the pain would keep the little girl in red still. Sure enough Max walked stiff as a soldier with her bandages around her. She didn't feel like running or climbing trees.

The hernia repair healed the pinching, but the little girl in red still had nightmares and night terrors a lot of nights. The monsters still teased her.

Pirate Shopping

The mama said, "We are going to buy you a dress."

I do not want one, thought Max. I need protection on my legs for sword fights. I got to climb trees when the other pirates try to take over the territory. I do not need a dress.

The mama looked for dresses anyway.

Oh! Oh! Look! Over here! Thought the little girl in red to the mama. She opened her mouth and said the rare words, "Over here Mama." (The little girl pointed to the boys' section.) She thought, a coat for a Pirate Captain! (It is a blue sailor coat with RED chief stripes on the sleeve.) This is mine. Got to put it on. Who stole my pirate coat and put it in this store? Uh oh. The mama's coming.

"You want that?' asked the mama.

It's mine. I am the captain of the pirates! Max nodded to the mama.

"Tell you what. I'll buy you the sailor coat, if you wear the sailor dress with it."

The sailor dress is not so bad. Sailors not as good as pirates. Pirates have swords. I am a pirate. A PIRATE CAPTAIN! Let's get out of here. I have digging to do. The gold is just waiting for me.

Little Clay Baby Jesus

Little clay baby Jesus lived at the little girl in red's house at Christmas time. The mama pulled him out of a cardboard box with a straw house and his little clay mama and little clay daddy. There was a little clay shepherd and two little clay sheep and three little clay wise men. The little daddy and the little mama wore blankets on their heads. Little baby Jesus had a blanket diaper, but he didn't have a shirt. Baby Jesus told Max that he was cold, and so she took him out of his straw bed and put him in her pocket. He was getting warm in the little girl in red's pocket. She knew this because she could feel him in her hand. Max wondered why the little mama and little daddy didn't take off their blankets from their heads and put them on their baby. She knew how baby Jesus felt. The mama and daddy at her house didn't know how to make her feel warm either. They thought that when the little girl in red screamed, she wanted them to go away. When Max grows up, she is going to put her blanket on her babies and they'll be warm.

The mama said, "Max, Where is baby Jesus? He needs to be in his bed."

The little girl in red pulled out little clay baby Jesus from her pocket. He was warm. She could tell because she could feel him in her hand. Max put Jesus in his little straw bed. I love you baby Jesus, thought the little girl in red. Sweet dreams and good night.

My Boy and the Tree

(Max's older brother is named Peter, but she thought of him as "My Boy.")

My Boy, the mama, and Max walked to a neighbor's house. The neighbor had a big tree in the front yard. The little girl in red was very good at climbing trees. She was part monkey. The mama said so. Max knew that the mama would not lie to her. She climbed up the tree, and My Boy came with her. He was not as good as her at climbing trees. He was not part monkey. They climbed and climbed. The little girl in red was higher than she had ever been. She could see far. My Boy wanted to go higher. He climbed over Max and soon she couldn't see him.

She heard his voice come from the other side of the leaves. "Come on, Maxie! Climb up here to me. Don't be afraid." But monkeys are smart. She stayed right where she was. My Boy said, "Okay chicken, but I'm going to the very top."

She heard My Boy. He was moving again. He was moving even farther away from her. SNAP!!!!!!!! The little girl in red saw My Boy go by her eyes very fast. He was flying like Superman. Only he was flying down instead of up. Max scuttled down the tree to find My Boy. Onto the ground she jumped because she was part monkey. My Boy was asleep. He could not see the little girl in red.

The mama and the neighbor came running out of the house. They had seen and heard My Boy fall out of the tree.

An ambulance came with lights that hurt the little girl in red's eyes and the noise that hurt her ears. The mama gave Max to the neighbor she did not know very well. The neighbor took Max to the baby sitter. The baby sitter that the little girl in red knew was waiting for her. Max did not want the babysitter. She wanted My Boy. But he had gone away. Max went to bed missing My Boy.

The next morning My Boy was back. The little girl in red heard the mama on the phone say he was lucky. My Boy was being quiet like Max. He was usually full of words. Is he mad at me? Thought the little girl in red. He does not look at me. My Boy watched the pictures in the big electric box. My Boy called the pictures cartoons. Max sat next to My Boy, and he sat next to her. The little girl in red thought, Do not take away My Boy again. I want him to stay with me forever.

The Sheriff

The daddy got a job in a small town in Kentucky as a computer programmer near the caves that the town boasted. The mama became the librarian in the courthouse. The library was upstairs but the little girl in red's sheriff was downstairs at the end of the hall. She would run the length of the hall into his arms and he would lift her up and chuckle with delight. The four year old, little girl wouldn't let her parents pick her up like she let the sheriff. Hugs felt like burns and pinches most of the time. But the sheriff was so much fun she didn't care what he felt like.

One day the sheriff decided to tease Max by saying the small security vault was the prison cell for little girls. This frightened the little girl in red so much that she started to cry. The sheriff's secretary said in an angry voice that he shouldn't have scared Max, and he apologized over and over again.

When a big trial came to town, the little girl in red's mother told her not to bother the sheriff because he had important business. Max didn't see how there could be more important business than herself. When the mama saw that her daughter was missing, she went downstairs to look for her. She finally looked in the large courtroom, and there on the front row was the little girl in red, asleep on the sheriff's lap.

One day the mama took Max across the street to the dime store. She told the little girl in red to wait on the toy aisle, and she would be right back. The mama did not come right back, and Max got very worried. She looked and looked and could not find the mama in the store. So she left the store and crossed the street by herself and found the sheriff. The sheriff asked where the mama was. Soon they were all reunited, but the mama had a very worried look on her face.

The daddy's work contract came to an end after a year. That meant it was time to move to New York City. That was a long way from the sheriff. The sheriff gave the little girl a stuffed bunny, to pay her for all her good work. But the little girl in red didn't want the bunny. She wanted her sheriff.

Fifth Birthday Party

In 1966, the little girl in red's Aunt Lydia met Max for the first time at the little girl's fifth birthday party. Max's family lived in an apartment just outside of New York City where her father worked in a skyscraper as a computer programmer. Her mother, an elementary school teacher, had invited some of the neighborhood children to the little girl in red's party. When Aunt Lydia arrived, there were children dashing about the home, but none of those children was the niece that she sought. After looking through most of the apartment, Aunt Lydia asked the mama the whereabouts of the birthday girl. The mama pointed to the dining room table, decorated with a birthday cloth, "She's hiding under the table." Max's aunt walked over to the table and lifted the cloth. Under the table she found a little girl with big brown eyes.

Aunt Lydia said matter-of-factly, "Hello, Max. I am your Aunt Lydia. You don't have to come out from under the table for me. You can enjoy the party in your own way. I just wanted to introduce myself." The aunt of the little girl in red let go of the tablecloth, and the child under the table was alone again.

And that is where she stayed most of the party. She avoided crowds then, and she avoids crowds now.

Kindergarten

The little girl in red was the youngest and smallest in her kindergarten class. It was decided the children would mostly be allowed to free play and not have much structure. Max drowned in this supposed freedom. The older girls wanted the little girl in red to be their baby when they played house. Max didn't want to be a baby. She was not a baby. Why should she act like one? She found the game boring. The boys wouldn't let her near their cardboard brick structures. And so, the little girl in red wandered the room for hours and felt lonelier than ever. One girl asked Max to jump down the steps that connected two rooms. The little girl in red thought it sounded stupid but followed the other girl to the steps and watched as the girl jumped and then fell. The other girl tore a hole in her chin and had to go to the doctor. She didn't come back to kindergarten for a long time.

Every day Max begged the mama not to go to kindergarten. The mama said, "It's only half a day. You can survive that." Somehow it felt much longer. The mama was pregnant. Lila was born January 3 and the mama stayed home with the baby after her birth. The little girl in red got to stay home too and take care of "My Baby." No more kindergarten.

Tonsils and Adenoids

My Boy kept getting sick, and so the doctor suggested that his tonsils and adenoids be removed. As long as one child was getting the procedure the doctor suggested to go ahead and do the same on the little girl in red, for precautionary reasons. My Boy was seven and Max was five.

A friend suggested to the mama that the mama throw a party before the operations and collect gifts that the children could open every hour after surgery.

When it came time for surgery, My Boy was afraid, and so he went first to get it over with. He came back coughing up blood. It frightened the girl in red very much. The people who took Max to surgery were very nice, and by the time she got to the operating room, she was no longer scared. But after surgery, her ears hurt very much. The nurse would only let the little girl ice one ear at a time. This meant the left ear hurt when the right ear was being iced and vice versa. The little girl in red felt like she had been tricked. She did not want to open the presents the mama offered her every hour. My Boy liked opening the presents, but Max was beginning to not trust grown-ups.

My Boy Gets Beat Up

My Boy was very smart. He used big words just like the grown-ups. He liked to read the big books called in-sike-low-peed-ee-uhs. The little girl in red didn't read these books because she already knew everything she needed to know. My Boy got so excited about what he read in the big books that he wanted to tell everybody he knew. But everybody else did not love My Boy like Max, the daddy, and the mama. The little girl in red wanted to tell My Boy not to talk. She wanted him to be like her. But My Boy could not hear her thoughts.

My Boy told some big boys what he read in the big books. The big boys thought he was lying. Max thought, BE QUIET! My Boy did not give up. He never did when he was challenged. The big boys started punching My Boy. No. No. No. No., thought the little girl in red. Don't hurt My Boy. They kept punching My Boy, and Max started to cry.

I have to save My Boy, thought the little girl in red. She ran home as fast as her legs would go. She ran and grabbed the daddy by the hand. The daddy saw that Max was crying, and so he followed her. When he saw My Boy, the daddy started to run. The little girl in red had never seen the daddy run before. He scooped up My Boy and took him in his arms back to the house. Blood came from My Boy's nose. The daddy and the mama worked on My Boy.

Max was standing in the corner. The little girl in red felt bad. She was not big enough to take care of My Boy.