GIRL WHO DREAMED I wake up early to a cloud-swept sky, and trees half-hidden in a damp mist of fine, spring rain. The fir tree outside my window is diamond studded with a million tinkling dewdrops. I sigh contentedly. This is exactly as it should be. I love it to rain on my birthday, for I was born in April, and it wouldn’t be like my birthday if it didn’t rain on some part of the day. One year, I think it was when I was eleven, the sunshine shone hot and dry, and it wasn’t like my birthday at all. Another year, it snowed, and lay thick beneath my window, and that year I didn’t feel I had had a birthday either. Now I watch the light warm rain falling and you can almost see it instilling life into the soft, black earth. I get up quickly, and rush downstairs, where my parents surround me with greetings and best wishes. I run through my breakfast, and read my cards. “I must go now,” I cry. “I must go out into the world to seek my fortune,” and leave them there behind me to shake their heads as I know they will, because they are old and I am young, and they have forgotten what it is like. I rush out of the house and run up the road because I am late, and everyone looks at me and envies me, for I am pretty, and it is spring, and the world is a wonderful place. THE OTHER GIRLS At the station, all heads turn to look after me as I walk farther down the platform. The young man look at me with admiration, the old men look at me wistfully. The other girls look at me enviously, at my naturally blonde hair, and my tall, slim figure, because they think I am prettier than they are. In the train, the man gives me a seat. I smile at him and accept. He is grateful for the smile, I can see. The boy in the corner seat keeps looking over his paper at me. I know I am different from all the other girls. I am superior to them, unattainable. “Will you share your life with me?” the boy asks with his eyes. “I have no money, I am poor but together we will conquer the world.” I sigh. I could do that too, if I wanted. I am capable of great nobility and unselfishness. And yet. Perhaps I am too exceptional to be wasted on this poor boy. For him it is like reaching for the moon. The young man in the other corner who has looked over at me several times quite daringly, as well he might, is beseeching me with his eyes also. I lower my long lashes on to my cheek. “Dorinda” he is saying. Well, that is not my name, but I feel it suits me. “Dorinda, my parents will have to understand that even if I am millionaire’s son, I still have feelings. You will be mistress of Mandalay Manor, and of our estates in Bermuda.” Aah! I feel this is possibly my destiny. To reign somewhere – like a Queen. Of course, the most interesting boy of them all is the boy directly opposite who has not even looked at me – yet. But he will. He has not yet caught the magic of my presence. The train stops and all the men defer to me like loyal subjects. They create a passage for me to pass through, eyeing me all the while. I smile at them, just a small smile. Oh, it is all as it should be. The sun is streaming through the dirty glass window of the station, it is as if the whole world has become alive. There, I knew the sun would shine. Is it not my birthday? In the office, I begin to sort and file the papers. Even my hands look delicate, poised like flowers as they put the papers away. Look how slim my fingers are, my nails too, are pretty. Dropping each letter into its folder as a thing of a great beauty, like a Japanese painting. Ah, there goes Mr Robinson, the great boss himself. Soon his secretary is leaving to be married, and presently he will open the door and announce to all the staff that I am to take her place, Miss Dorinda Wainwright is to be Mr Robinson’s secretary. The most coveted position of all. “Are you sure?” I murmuer politely, although I am not surprised. “Am I to go over all the heads of the girls in the typing pool, all the girls in the invoice department, all the junior executives’ secretaries?” BEAUTY AND BRAINS “Hush,” he will say in a fatherly tone.” “It is as it should be. Your superiority, your brain power, your appearance, you have that rare combination of beauty and brains, my dear - ” There I have to agree with him. But after all, all the other girls don’t mind my stepping on their toes, because they like me too. I am that rare creature, an attractive girl liked by both, men and women. The sun sends down a shaft of yellow light, where it is imprisoned in the corner by the filing cabinet, and the dark brown shiny lino looks like gold. Here comes a client – it is Mr Kimkoff himself, the great dress designer. He has an appointment with Mr Robinson, and as he crosses the room, he will stop when he gets to the trapped sunlight on the floor, and ask me to become his top model, and go to Paris and New York and travel the world with his collection. Ahh, it is all a little too early for I have not made my mind what I want to do. He looks at me kindly and honestly, for he can see I am a nice girl, that I am not a girl to be made advances to. That my outlook is fearless, that I am afraid of no man, that I am a good girl – Oh, it is difficult – whether to become a top model, or Mr Robinson’s secretary. Last night I had thought to go to Africa as a nursing missionary. Then there was that nice boy on the train. I wonder why he didn’t look at me? Oh, the choice is not going to be easy, for I have the whole world at my feet, and I am pretty, and today is my sixteenth birthday. THE END