An-Ya and Her Diary by Diane René Christian Read Free Book Online Page B

terrible for yelling at me. They asked me to please forgive them. I don’t know. What is the point of telling the truth? If I lie, then I am in trouble. If I don’t say anything, then I am in trouble. If I tell the truth, then I am in trouble too. At least they said that they were sorry. That’s something, I guess. I’ve never said I am sorry to them.
    85
    Dear Penny,
    Today I was feeling well enough to go to the parade in town. I am still tired, but the pain is gone.
    I have never been to a parade before. The entire town was there. There were people as far as I could see up and down the street. We carried foldable chairs into town and sat in front of the ice cream parlor. It seemed like it took forever for the parade to start, and I was nervous because I didn’t know what would happen exactly.
    Wanna gave me a bag and told me that it was for the candy. Where the candy was going to come from, I didn’t know. As soon as the parade started, I figured it out. There were big cars with decorations and people in costumes who threw candy into the street, and all the children would rush out to grab as much as possible.
    I didn’t run into the street because there was plenty of candy that landed next to my chair. Ellie danced around like a crazy person and grabbed much more candy than me. I didn’t have the energy to run around for candy. There was also loud music and marching bands.
    The Mean Boy in the orphanage would have been jealous that I saw a real marching band. He was the marching band leader in the orphanage. It was not very good, not at all, and the orphanage marching band costumes were all old and didn’t fit anyone the right way. The costumes were supposed to be red, and maybe when they were brand new they were, but they had faded and turned an ugly pink.
    The Mean Boy had a stick for a baton. He would smack the other band members if he felt that they weren’t following directions or trying hard enough. All of their instruments didn’t work and sounded terrible. The instruments that they had were not even real marching band instruments. I didn’t see any guitars in the marching bands today. I definitely didn’t see guitars that were missing half their strings. The orphanage band had hats with a dirty feather that stuck up at the top. It was hard to not laugh at them because they took their marching band so seriously. But when they performed, the nannies would clap and the Mean Boy thought that he was really something special. Abby would clap too. I guess she wasn’t old enough to realize how stupid the whole thing was.
    Jazz was in one of the marching bands today. I didn’t know that she played an instrument. She plays the cymbals. The cymbals are these big round metal plates that you bang together, and they are really cool. Watching Jazz play in the marching band was the best part of the parade. Her costume was my favorite color—blue. The sides of her pants sparkled in the sun.
    86
    Dear Penny,
    I started bleeding down there. I knew it was coming because I overheard the nannies in the orphanage talking about their monthly bleeding. I just didn’t know there was going to be so much blood. Plus, my chest hurts and my stomach hurts and feels like it is filled with dirty water.
    To make things even worse, I had a huge fight with Wanna. I got blood all over my underwear, pajamas, and bed sheets. I took everything into the bathroom and started washing it. I put new underwear on and stuffed some toilet paper in them to soak up the blood. Well, Wanna opened the bathroom door. She surprised me. I guess she saw that I didn’t have sheets on my bed or something. I don’t know how she knew exactly, but I knew I didn’t want her in the bathroom with me. I screamed at her—
    Get Out!
    She wanted to help me. I kept screaming at her to get out and finally she did. She slammed the door and walked away. I need to go find some clean sheets.
    87
    Dear Penny,
    Daddy came to my room tonight and sat on my bed. He said that