Molly Maggie McGuire

Today I went out to recess and I was looking for my friend Mark. He lives down the street from me. He gave me a few shiny rocks from his collection. He is two years older than me and has bright red hair. When I was looking for him I heard a big kid yell, “Midget, midget.” I thought that it was a special kind of bird so I looked up. My mom loves birds but I had never heard of a midget before. I didn’t see anything weird in the sky so I looked around and I saw two guys on the swing set. They were big kids and they were even older than Mark. They were laughing and looking at me, and I realized that they were calling me a midget. Maybe that was my super power kicking in. I am not sure. I had the idea that they were not being nice.

I told my mom about it after school and she said they were just mean guys and I shouldn’t worry about them. I am not really worried about them. But I want to know what a midget is and why I am called that by people who are making fun of me. I think before I can fix things I need to understand what the whole problem is. So I need to understand what these guys were saying. And I need to understand why it was funny. I don’t like the idea of big kids laughing at me on the playground. It makes me feel kind of bad. But then I remember I am a super hero, and I know that I will figure it out. I do think sometimes that I am better at fixing problems for other people. I seem to go slow when I am bad.

I thought maybe you don’t understand what I mean that I can fix anything, and maybe I should tell you more about that. A lot of times when I tell grown-ups that I have a super power they think that I am playing around. That’s why I want to get all of this stuff into writing, so that later in life when people laugh I can show them I have always been like this and didn’t just make it up. But since I’m a kid people always think I’m making things up.

The first time I ever fixed anything was because of my friend Anna. Anna was friends with another friend of mine and her name was Becky. I liked Anna and Becky equal. My best friend at that time was Liz, and she is still my best friend. One day at recess I saw Anna sitting on a bench and her face was red, really red. It looked weird so I thought I should check on her, and when I got close I saw that she was crying but was trying not to let people see she was crying. I sat down next to her and asked her what was wrong and why was she crying, and then she started to cry really hard. I felt bad and it was gross too because a big glob of snot bubbled out of her nose and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. I didn’t have any kleenex to give her like my mom always has. I think maybe moms just know to always have kleenex.

Anna said, “I don’t think Becky likes me anymore!” and then she started to cry again. More snot came out of her nose and I really wanted to give her a kleenex or maybe just a leaf because it was hard to look at her face like that without laughing because normally she was always really pretty. Laughing when someone is crying is not a good way to fix things.

I said, “What? You and Becky have always been friends. She likes you. Why do you think she doesn’t?”

“When we lined up for recess with our recess buddies she didn’t choose me, she chose Stacey. We are always recess buddies. Why didn’t she choose me this time?” She wiped her face with the back of her hand again.

“Well,” I said, “Sometimes we think someone is mad at us but maybe they are just feeling weird that day. Have you asked Becky if she is mad at you?”

“No,” Anna said. “She is ignoring me so I will ignore her.”

“OK,” I said. “But maybe she isn’t ignoring you, and now maybe she thinks you’re mad at her because you aren’t talking to her. Why don’t we go talk to Becky and I’ll come with you.”

So, Anna and I walked over to where Becky was sitting with Stacey. They were talking to each other and were paying close attention to each other. They didn’t notice that we were standing there for a little bit and Anna started to walk away, but I grabbed her arm to make her stay. That’s my super power. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to fix things if she did that, but I don’t know how I knew that. I decided to be rude even though my mom and dad have told me that when two people are talking you shouldn’t bug them.

“Hi guys,” I said. “Anna and I were going to work on the dance moves we practiced last week (we were all in the same dance class) but we wanted to know if you wanted to do it with us.”

Becky and Stacey looked at each other. Becky looked at me and she looked happy, but then she looked at Stacey and Stacey looked like she was sad, but she didn’t want us to know she was sad. Becky said she wanted to talk to me for just a minute. Anna started to walk away again and I said, “Anna, why don’t you keep Stacey company for a minute?”

Becky walked aways away from where we had been and then stopped. She said, “Stacey is feeling really sad because her mommy just found out she has cancer and she knows my mom had cancer so she is talking to me to see what it’s like. She doesn’t want a lot of people to know but she is talking to me a lot. I feel like I need to be around for her to talk to.”

“Oh, I said.” Well, can you talk to Anna and tell her that? She was crying because she thought you didn’t like her anymore.”

“What?” Becky seemed mad almost and I almost started to say it wasn’t my fault. Then she said, “Why would she even say that?”

I told her how she and Anna were always recess buddies but today Becky had chosen Stacey. That seemed to make sense to Becky. She went over and talked to Anna, and it looked to me like Anna had been listening to Stacey too. We all decided to practice our dance moves together, and we even made sure Stacey did it because we thought it would help her take her mind off being sad. The next day Anna was Stacey’s recess buddy and Becky chose me, and we had a lot of fun. And that’s how I fixed things for Becky and Anna.

A few days ago also I helped a grown-up fix something. My mom was making biscuits because her friends were coming over for dinner. She was in the kitchen for a long time and then I heard a lot of slamming and swear words. I didn’t know why because I smelled something amazing. I went down into the kitchen and asked Mom what was wrong. She said, “I have been working on these biscuits and they just aren’t rising. I don’t understand what the problem is.” Well, she didn’t say it quite like that. There were words I’m not allowed to say.

My super power fed me the idea that yeast makes bread rise. I don’t even know what yeast is or how it works but I asked my mom if she had put the yeast in. She checked her ingredients and then opened the cabinet door and took down two little packets. “I think I forgot the yeast!” She said. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or happy so I decided to leave. She didn’t seem to notice that I had said anything and that happens to me sometimes. Sometimes I say something to fix things and people act like they thought of it themselves. But that’s ok. I know that super heroes aren’t supposed to blow their own horns. I know that I gave my mom that idea and her biscuits ended up really good.

These are just two things that have happened lately that show you how my super power works. Do you believe me?

Hello. I am Molly, and this is my story that you are reading. I am a super hero, and my super power is that I can fix anything. I am five years old. My favorite movie is Elizabeth, which is about Queen Elizabeth the First, not the one who is queen now. Adults ask me a lot of times what my favorite movie is and I always say the same thing, but a lot of times they laugh after I say it. I don’t really know why. I like the movie Elizabeth because she proves to everybody that she can do things they don’t think she can do, and I like that. I am doing that too. Like a lot of times I’ll hear adults talking about a problem and I will ask if I can help, and they will say no, or they’ll laugh again. But I know I can do it, and sometimes when grown-ups aren’t looking I’ll go in and fix things. Then they get all surprised and wonder how it happened. Sometimes I don’t say it was me.

Also I like Queen Elizabeth because I like history a lot. When I grow up I want to be an archaeologist. They fix things in a way, after digging things up. They put things back together and that helps explain how people used to live. I don’t want to be the kind of archaeologist that digs up dinosaur bones. That’s cool, but I like learning about people and how they lived.

I’m writing things down now because the other day I noticed something weird, and it made me realize that maybe even when I’m all grown up people won’t believe I have my super power. I was walking in line down the hall to an assembly. We had to learn about fire drills and what to do if your house catches on fire. I already knew what I would do but sometimes I have to make myself stay quiet so the other kids don’t roll their eyes at me. Anyway, we were walking down the hall past all of the big windows that look over the playground, and I noticed that our line dipped down where I was walking. Everyone seemed like their heads were all pretty much in the same place, but I was lower down. I didn’t know that my head was so much further down than everybody else’s, and I feel kind of weird now. So I decided to start writing things down so that people wouldn’t have to believe me just based on what I was saying right then. I can give them this book and they’ll be like, “Wow. You’ve done a lot. This must be true, too.”

What else should I tell you about me? My dad makes the best spaghetti, and my mom makes me poached eggsontoast when I feel sick. I have a little brother and he likes to roll around and make fighting noises a lot. Um, I like jewelry and sometimes I try to make things with beads, but my mom gets mad at me because I always drop beads and I don’t get to pick them all up all the time and she steps on them and that hurts her foot. Fixing that would be easy if I could always see where the beads go, but sometimes they roll away into places I don’t think they would go to.

I guess you’ll let me know if there is anything else I should tell you. Probably other things will come up when stuff happens that I tell you about.