Christmas Parties

Effie the nosy maid was sent up to my room tonight by Aunt Cora with some beauty preparations.

“We’ve got to start improving your terrible hands and face,” she said. “Mistress says they’re all rough from playing in the open air and we have to get you nice by Christmas, for all the parties.” She was smirking a bit.

I was furious but I didn’t want to give Effie the satisfaction of laughing at me as she applied a thick mixture of egg yolk, beaten egg white and glycerine all over my face and neck.

Then she covered my hands in a claggy mixture of porridge and castor oil and put mittens on them to sleep in. She tied my hair into dozens of curling rags so that it’d be curly in the morning.

I was seething. When I looked in the mirror I looked like a clownish, ghostly rag doll.

I don’t want to go to loathsome Christmas parties. I want to escape from this house and find my father.