Page 29 - Publishing Inspiration Christmas Card 2013

A Little Girl Who Needed An Angel

l
When I lived in New York, my main mode of

transportation was a bike. I worked six days each week,
and my bicycle thought that the one day I had free should
be spent fixing it. That was what I was doing the day
Emily first showed up. I was in the driveway repairing
my bike when I heard her voice behind me.
“What the *#&@ are you doing?”

Although I had heard some rough women speak with
that kind of language, I had mostly only heard it from
men. But when I turned around, to my surprise, I found
myself looking into the face of a skinny, little six-year-

old girl. Her dark brown hair hung loosely, uncombed,
and ragged around her face. Her big brown eyes stared at
me questioningly. It took me an instant to regain my
composure after realizing it was such a young girl
speaking that way.
“I’m fixing my bike,” I replied.

“Don’t you have any *#&@ thing better to do?” she
asked. “I see you working on that *#&@ thing every
week.”
I laughed, partly at her brazen attitude, partly at her

misplaced use of certain profane words, and partly
because she was right about how much I worked on it.
“It does seem to need a lot of work, doesn’t it?” I
agreed.
“Why don’t you get a new one?” she asked.

“I can’t afford it,” I replied.
“I know a guy that will steal whatever *#&@ bike

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