Bathroom corner

They call it a “restroom,” but I’ve never seen anyone REST in there! Except once. When I walked in to relieve myself, and I found all the boys from St. Bartholomew’s Parish resting in the men’s room, each slumbering away in their rickey cots—frail boys resting on frailer mattresses. I started to sneak past Isaac, the newest addition to the orphanage (and thus, the child most prone to nights where sleep could not find its way in through the shivers and tears), but at that moment, I felt the sting of a ruler against my already-chaffed knuckles. “Tut! tut!” scolded mean, old Sister Agnew through her thick, Scottish brogue. “Don’t go waking the little ones!” Sister Agnew was the cruelest nun to ever serve at the Parish. They say there are two sides to every human; however; I do suspect that, were Sister Agnew a coin, one could flip her one hundred times—or more!—and only observe a single result: heartless. Many a-nights, I dreamed of dropping a spider down her habit, or letting her ample backside find itself pecked with a well-placed thumbtack. However, wishing to spare my knuckles additional rapping, I held my tongue, then slid quietly to the floor, waiting for the morning when all the boys would rise to begin their daily chores.