Page 5 of Good Bad Girl

“What for? I have you.”

“I can’t be here every day, and you can’t survive on whatever food is hidden beneath your bed. I think leaving your room once in a while would be good for you, andthe othersaren’t all bad.”

“The othersare all old, or ill, or incontinent, or insane. I am none of those things and I do not belong in this place. I haven’t met a single person here who is still fully hinged, including the staff—no offense. Besides, I found ways to amuse myself while you were gone. How does my hair look?” she asks.

I smile. “Great, but I think you’re supposed to take all of the rollers out.”

“Why? They make me lookinterestingand at least ten years younger.”

“All I know is that’s what other people do.”

“You should never worry about what other people do or don’t do. I never have.”

Edith Elliot is eighty years old. She has an almost full set of marbles but one year ago, without her knowledge or consent, her daughter moved her into the Windsor Care Home. Edith was tricked into signing some paperwork which resulted in her losing her home and independence. Her daughter then left Edith here one day without even saying goodbye. Joy—the world’s most miserable manager—gave Edith the tour and explained that this was now her home. Edith hasn’t left the building since and now refuses to leave her room.

“How was your day off?” she asks. “Did you do anything nice?”

“No,” I reply, trying to make the bed with Edith still in it.

“Did you make any new papercuts?” she asks, turning to look at a small framed piece of art on the wall. It was a Christmas present from me. I have been cutting paper since I was a child, but these days I do it with a knife. A very sharp one. I cut and I slash and I slice until I have made something out of nothing. I make paper people, animals, birds, trees, the sky, the sea, entire towns made from my imagination, and it makes me feel less lonely. The red-and-black papercut on the wall is of ladybugs. Edith has insisted on calling me Ladybug since the first time we met—she seems to think it is my name—and I have given up correcting her.

“I didn’t have time to make any new papercuts yesterday,” I say.

“You mustmaketime for the things you love most. You’d be a dunderhead not to; you’re a talented artist.”

She doesn’t understand how tired I am after working here. Sometimes I don’t have anything left in me for anything else. “I’ll try.”

“Do or do not. There is no try,” says Edith. “Do you know who said that?”

“Shakespeare?” I guess, plumping up her pillows.

“Yoda,” Edith replies with a grin. I didn’t have her pegged as aStar Warsfan. The woman is full of surprises.

“Here, I want you to have this.” She reaches over to the bedside table and picks up a little wooden box I don’t remember seeing there before. She opens it, revealing a silver ring shaped like a ladybug.

“Thank you, but I can’t—” I start to say.

“Please,” Edith insists. She holds the ring out in front of me, her hands bent out of shape like gnarled twisted twigs. “I can’t wear rings anymore—my fingers are too thin, anything I try to wear falls off—but this ring used to mean a lot to me, and I want you to have it.”

“Accepting gifts from residents is against the rules—”

“Poppycock and fiddlesticks tothe rules. Would you really deny an old woman her dying wish?”

“You’re not dying.”

“We’re all dying from the day we are born, it is only a matter of time. Ladybugs are a symbol of new beginnings, love, and luck. I hope this little ladybug might bring you all three.”

Luck has never liked me but I take the ring and slip it onto my finger. It fits perfectly. “Thank you. I’ll give it back when you’re feeling better,” I say. The ring looks old and I wonder how Edith came to own it, and why she is so obsessed with ladybugs. She recites the same nursery rhyme whenever I leave her room:

Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home.

Your house is on fire and your children are gone.

All except one, and her name is Anne.

And she hid under the—

A sound in the corner of the room interrupts my memories. My mind is always too full of unfinished thoughts.

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