A Drop of Rain by Heather Kirk Page B

years. Hanna is sort of like a nun. She doesn’t care about worldly things like clothes. Yet Hanna often disagrees with the Catholic Church. I guess Hanna is so intellectual that I can’t understand her. I am not stupid, but I think reality is more important than ideas.
    Anyway, for the past few years, Mom has been very worried about Hanna. Mom has been so obsessed about Hanna’s strange behaviour, that she has been phoning her all the time, and going to Montreal to visit her, even when she had other things to do. Like work. And school. And take care of me. Mom kept saying: “Hanna is going to drown herself in the St. Lawrence River some day!”
    Mom never neglected me or anything, but she stopped seeing our life objectively.
    Since I got back at the beginning of September to Mapleville, life at our house has revolved around Hanna. I guess that’s natural when someone is so sick, but it is depressing. Hanna doesn’t make any demands. She says we don’t have to visit her. She says she is content to lie in her room alone. But we can’t forget about her. How can we? If you knew there was a wild animal under your porch suffering and dying, could you forget about it? And what if it was not a wild animal, but a pet you had loved for a long time?
    Is life worth living? Good question. I wish I knew.

    I like Mary because she is funny and fun. Sarah has these same qualities. But Sarah is different from Mary, because she is tall and beautiful, young and inexperienced. Also, Sarah is not interested in helping other people, while Mary is. Sarah is spoiled. Sarah thinks she will always get exactly what she wants. She’s not snobbish, however, and I know she likes me. We always hang around together in school, even though I can’t really talk to her, and even though she disappears after school. She says she “admires” me for getting a job to make my own money.

    We had our Thanksgiving dinner tonight after I finished work. Joe ate at our house, because his boys are with their mother. Then he and Mom went over to his house to watch videos.

    Mrs. Henderson, I’m very flattered that you like “The Blind Man’s Song” so much. I will try setting it to music, like you suggested. You’re the first teacher who has said I have writing talent. I guess I get that from my father’s side of the family, although Mom says that her father also used to write poetry when he was young, and she did too.
    I’m doing a big history project about Poland. I’m planning to send a copy of it to my father to impress him,so he’ll invite me to come and see him. Mr. Dunlop said it doesn’t matter that I don’t have access to the Internet at home. He says the Internet is an unreliable source for research anyway, and he wants us to be able to use “primary and print” resources efficiently too.
    Mom knows all about high tech stuff, but her own computer is fifteen years old. Mom says that she can’t afford upgrades or Internet charges. She uses the college computers a lot.
    I can do my history project easily by interviewing Mary. Mary talks frequently about Poland during the war and communism.

    Here is what a Polish history book says about the beginning of World War II. The English version of this book is titled
History of Poland
. It was written by A. Gieysztor, and others, and published in Warsaw in 1979. It says: “The German attack on Poland began at dawn on September 1, 1939. Within a few weeks the Polish army, in spite of its heroic struggle, was defeated.” The Polish nation experienced frightful “oppression and destruction” for almost six years under Nazi occupation.
    Here is what the
History of Poland
says about how Polish people behaved during World War II: “There were no traitors in Poland during the Second World War. The Poles unanimously rejected Hitler’s ultimatum of total destruction for their people and their country and