Lilly's Stories

This story is about a young girl with Crouzon syndrome – a genetic, craniofacial disorder where some bones in a baby’s skull fuse prematurely, causing a disfigurement in the face, along with a few other symptoms. My hope with this story is to inspire others to an unconditional kindness, that we might be able to see the beauty in every soul. 

“And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect unity.”

-Colossians 3:14

***

London, 1934

Jimmy’s red bow smiles at me as I hold my skirt and curtsy to my audience. My stuffed bear might look uninterested to anyone else, but that is only because his applause is just for me.

I begin my dance with a twirl that billows my skirt like a tutu, making me look like the ballerinas on the posters. I leap across the cobblestones and rise up on tiptoes in a relevé, the way Mammy taught me when she was here.

She used to play with me all the time when she was here, then one day Miss Susan told me she wouldn’t be able to play with me anymore. She never told me why, but I didn’t need her to tell me. I knew where she was; she was off in Paris, dancing for all the rich people sitting in gold-lined, velvet chairs. I wished Mammy would have told me before she left, but I knew she was probably too busy, like my Daddy when I was born. Only, that time, I was too little for anyone to tell me where he might be. But Mammy said he was somewhere nicer than here, so maybe he was in Paris waiting for her, and now they’re there together, waiting for the right time for me to come, too. But I need to be a perfect ballerina before they can send for me. 

So for now, I practice my dancing outside Miss Susan’s house, by the newspaper stand. I practice my turns and relevés so that someday I can rise to be like Mammy. 

Jimmy applauds again as I finish. His cheering helps me see my name on a poster of my own. “Maisie O’Donner, London’s Finest Ballerina”, I imagine it will say. Mammy taught me that, too. My name in letters. I don’t know the rest of the words, but I can imagine how pretty they will look with my name. All fancy with swooping and swirling letters across a dark purple page. 

Jimmy yells something up at me. 

“Pardon?” I say in my ballerina voice. 

He tells me there are more people coming to watch my dancing.

“Hello!” I welcome the onlookers as I turn around to see who they are. My face lights up when I see a group of big kids, probably ten or eleven years old, walking towards me.

“Audience members must sit in the seats over there,” I tell them, pointing to where Jimmy is.

The biggest boy in front laughs at me. “You think we want to watch you?” he scoffs. 

“That’s the last thing we want to do,” another boy behind him says. 

“Then what do you want to do?” I ask, confused. Why don’t they want to watch my dancing?

The group laughs together, but not a happy laugh. Mammy said that when you’re happy, you laugh, so you can make other people happy, too. But they are not laughing happily. They almost seem…mean.

“We want to show you where you belong,” the first boy says, taking a rope that a girl behind him gives to him. 

I scrunch my nose. “I belong here.”

Then I remember something else Mammy told me.

You are so beautiful, Maisie, she said, inside and out. But some people don’t know how to see beauty, and they might be mean to you because they can’t see it.

The boy begins to unravel the rope.

“If you want to watch my dancing, you’ll have to sit down,” I tell him politely. Maybe manners will make him happy. 

No matter how mean anyone is to you, you always have to be kind to them. Because you have a gift. You can see it.

I look at the group of children slowly advancing toward me. Maybe Mammy was wrong, because it is very hard to see the beauty in them as they walk at me with a rope and snarls like those of Miss Susan’s dog. But I have to rise. Somehow, I will rise. 

I grab Jimmy and squeeze him tight. Why can’t they play with me? Mammy always did.

“If you don’t want to play with me, then what are you doing?” I ask. 

They ignore me.

“You don’t belong here,” the girl who gave the boy the rope says.

“Yes, I do,” I tell them. Of course I do. “I belong here just the same as you.”

The boy with the rope lunges at me. I scream, dropping Jimmy onto the road. I try to thrash against them and run away, but suddenly they’re all surrounding me while the boy ties my wrists together.

“No!” I shout, wet tears running down my cheeks. I struggle under him and scream louder. 

“Help me!” the boy yells at the group.

“I don’t want to touch it,” I hear someone shout back.

“What are you doing?” I scream through my tears. What did I do to them?

A hand slaps me across the face, and I jump back in pain and shock.

“Mammy!” I call out, but no one comes.

“No one will come for you,” the boy sneers. “No one wants you.”

I try to see through the dizziness and tears, but all I see is sky as I’m thrown into the alley and the world goes dark. 

***

I open my eyes to see a brick wall before me. My head feels like it is being beaten over and over and every bit of skin stings like I’ve had a thousand bees attack me. Red stuff drips through my hair.

I cry.

I cry harder than I ever have, because I realize now what Miss Susan meant when she told me Mammy was gone.

I am alone.

My knees curl up to my chest and I keep my eyes shut. I am scared of what else I might see if I open them.

What did I do? Was it my fault? All I wanted was to dance. All I wanted was a smile from my audience. 

But no one gave me one.

And no one came

Mammy didn’t come.

Even Miss Susan didn’t come.

I am alone.

I can hardly breathe through my cries now. My fingers feel wet and calloused at the same time. I can feel hairs in my mouth but I don’t think I can move to take them out.

I won’t move. 

Maybe I will never dance again. No one wants to watch me.

Maybe I will never get to see Mammy. 

Maybe I will be alone forever.

How could someone do this? They didn’t hurt each other, so why me? What is so different about me that I could deserve this?

How am I supposed to rise now?

I cry more. 

I wonder how much longer I will cry.

“Is this yours?”

I open my eyes. 

I do not turn around.

“Is this yours?” I hear again.

I turn around, rolling over my left shoulder. I push myself up with my bound wrists to see a girl my age holding Jimmy. She turns him over, inspecting my bear, then looks at me.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes,” I whisper. What will she do to him? I inch against the wall. 

The girl picks up another stuffed bear with a green ribbon bow and walks toward me.

“They can play together,” she says.

What? She doesn’t want to hurt me? I can’t be sure. What if it’s a trick?

So I cautiously move my hands out to take Jimmy.

The girl sees the rope around my wrists. “I can help you!” she says eagerly, and begins to untie my bonds.

I tense, but she does nothing else except untie the rope. 

She doesn’t even run away when she sees all my cuts and red-stained hair.

She doesn’t run away when she sees me. 

She holds Jimmy out to me and I take him from her.

“Now they’re best friends,” she says.

I fall into a hug on the girl. She squeezes back, and tells me her bear’s name is Oliver. 

“This is Jimmy,” I say.

“This can be their school.” The girl points to a pile of sandbags.

“We can make it into a building!” I exclaim, and together we lean the sandbags against each other in a triangle. 

“Now they have a school,” the girl says happily. She looks up at me. “What’s your name?”

“Maisie,” I tell her. 

“I’m Hannah,” she says with a smile. She laughs when one of the sandbags falls backward and ruins our school.

A happy laugh. 

I laugh too, and we rebuild the fort. “Time for school!” I declare.

Jimmy and Oliver head to their seats and we teach them their maths and spellings. Hannah knows some maths, and I know my name, so together we are the perfect teachers. 

Soon, it is lunch time, and we feed our bears a feast of ham and pickle sandwiches with blueberry cakes.

“Can’t they have lemon cakes? Oliver likes those better,” Hannah informs me.

So they eat sandwiches and lemon cakes, and learn my name in the dirt. 

And, when the school day is over, I have an idea. 

“Hannah?” I ask. 

She looks up, and I see the face of my new best friend, who showed me care when no one else did. 

My heart begins to rise. 

“Do you want to see a dance?”