Look for the girl with the broken smile
On the third day of my rare vacation leave from my nearly-24/7 reporter job, I decided to spend a great Sunday afternoon holed up in one of my favorite haunts, Booksale Megamall (what can I say, I'm a penny-pinching bookworm). Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a little girl, probably around aged 7 or 8, wearing a dark blue dress, sandals, reaching for a stack of children's books (you know how tight Booksale shelf configurations can be).
I grinned. I was actually thrilled to see a kid her age in this age and time actually interested in books. I paused my iPod that was playing Bittersweet Symphony, ambled over toward her direction and smiled.
"Hello. Need help with one of these titles?" I inquired pleasantly.
She nodded.
"This one?" I asked. She shook her head. "No, I have that already," she replied.
"This?" I tried, pointing to another one. "That," she exclaimed, nodding excitedly.
"Here you go," I said," handing over the slim paperback, which turned out to be a Boxcar Children book. "Thanks," she immediately replied, added the book her pile of around five titles which she clutched between her two small arms, and sort of skipped to the next aisle.
I used to collect Boxcar Children books when I was a grade schooler myself. But she ran away too fast for me to point out that fact, or ask her what Boxcar Children stories she has read so far, or ask if she is enjoying her adventure with Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny the same way I did when I was younger.
I noticed her lips, though (no pedo--ano ba). They were chapped like a nervous teenager girl's during Algebra class, good Lord. Whey were they that way? Do her friends notice? Does she bite her lips often out of habit, while reading, or because she is nervous, unsure all the time and the world, is, after all, cruel to smart little girls who like to read about the exploits of adventurous orphans? I digress.
I hope she grows up to be an independent, witty woman who would never lose her love for reading. Sans the broken lips, of course.