Flying yesterday was weird, but this place is weirder. Everything here is so different. The roads are way smoother and cleaner than back home, the people dress so nicely and the houses are so nice. Talking about houses my new house is gigantic it’s probably as big as the orphanage but with more floors. This house as three floors and a lot of rooms. They are not all decorated but the ones that are look amazing. Is Mira rich? I don’t know if it’s the case, but honestly I don’t care she already wants to be mommy so I couldn’t care less about anything else.

Going back to the house, my room is really something else… Pink everywhere, filled with dolls and a closet filled with dresses and skirts. Sure there are pants and less feminine things in the room, but this is weird. I remember Mira saying that she was originally expecting to take another girl home but that Mrs. Alicia asked her to take me instead. That made me a little bit for the girl that was supposed to go here in my place but it’s done and nothing can be done about it.

I slept quite well yesterday, my new bed is the most comfortable bed I ever slept in and I couldn’t help but to dream about how wonderful my new life would be. Morning came too fast way too fast actually, I would have wanted to stay more in bed. I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn’t really work.

I took my crutches and even if it hurt so much to move I decided to go downstairs to eat something. I made it to the stairs before realizing that trying going downstairs with my crutches was like a zebra walking in front of lions and not expecting to be eaten, it was a bad idea, a really bad bad idea. I thought that but seconds afterwards I was rolling down the stairs because I took a wrong step trying to move from the stairs.

“Ouch!” I screamed.

Mira screamed back. “Are you O.K sweetie?”

I didn’t have time to answer because Mrs. Louise came to see me seconds after my new mother’s question.

She cleaned me up and made me stand with my crutches and then started scolding me.

“Young lady! You took a very great risk trying to go downstairs in your condition, you should be more careful in the future, me and your mother would be very sad if anything were to happen to you. ”

I was going to say it was an accident, but I thought that she might think I was lying so I decided to not say it. I didn’t want Mrs. Louise or Mira to think I was liar and then give me away, not after seeing how Mira lived anyways.

“Sorry, Mrs. Louise…”

“Just call me Louise and just be careful next time. Sit on the stairs, I’m going to search your wheel chair”

She disappeared for two minutes and then came back a few minutes later with my wheelchair.

“Let’s go eat breakfast.”

We moved to the kitchen, that was a very a large room filled with things that were either white, metallic or that looked like they were made of wood. At the back of the room there was a glass wall that in which you could see a very big table were maybe about 20 people could see. Advancing in the room, I saw that on the left there was a room that had a television that took all the wall. Mira was seated on a chair watching the television.

“I heard your fall, be careful next time please.”

She took her crutches with difficulty, came near me and hugged me before indicating me to sit in a stool near her.

“So what do you want to eat for breakfast, there is not a lot of things because I haven’t been here in a while, but Louise bought a few things in the convenience store a few minutes ago.”

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what kind of fancy things North Americans ate for Breakfast.

Mira saw my confusion and just decided to make Louise give me cereals and milk.

It was good stuff and Louise and Mira didn’t stop talking with me. They said that we would have someone coming later today to help with cleaning the house, the cooking and other stuff that didn’t have to do with nursing and Louise’s other job. They also said that this morning me and Louise and would be taking a walk while Mira would see about getting me a place in school in September, Louise would drive us around and then Mommy Mira would be dropped at my new school on her wheelchair were she would sign a few stuff. Apparently, the only thing that she had to there was changing their records, because she had made arrangements for Elizabeth to go there.

After eating Louise took me to take a bath and coming out of there I had to have a second taste of womanhood: I had to dress myself. There were only girly stuff in my closet and having only been a girl for a few days and having spent most of those days in a hospital gown I didn’t yet fell comfortable with dressing like a girl. I finally decided to with some shorts and purple shirt that had an animal on it, some kind of horse with a horn and a horn, cartoon style.

After dressing up, Mommy came and took care of my hair, she made two pigtails out of my long curly hair and then put a hairband on my head.

“O.K, all set up! Louise after taking us downstairs could you please take one of the cars and wait us in the front of the please?” Asked mommy.

“Sure, Mirabelle.” Louise answered back.

Louise didn’t take long a few minutes afterwards she was helping us enter the car. She was smiling a lot and she looked like she was about to tease my mother which is what she did a few seconds afterwards.

“You sure have a lot of cars for someone with a little house,” She giggled and mom pouted for a few seconds before joining in her giggle, I don’t why, but I joined the laughter a few moments later and it kind of got out of control, we would have probably looked like a bunch of crazy girls if the house front of the house wasn’t separated from the street by a crazy long road.

After our laughing fit, Louise took the road and we were on our way.

It’s weird, but this morning I am seeing a lot of new things that I didn’t see yesterday when we arrived home by taxi. Before going to the city that Mommy calls Montreal you have to take a blue metal bridge that is really big. The numbers of cars on that bridge was incredibly and it made me ask myself how could it take such a large amount of cars and not be destroyed. Anyway along the way, I saw an island filled with weird metallic trains and filled with people. I decided to ask mom what that was.

“What are those train-like things Mira?” Calling her mommy was really, really embarrassing even if I felt that she deserved that title. I don’t why but since calling her mommy before taking the plane I couldn’t call her that.

Mommy pointed at the stuff I was talking about. “Those are roller-coasters, things that move quite fast and that go quite high, not much a fan of them, but I might take you to one of them if you feel like it later this summer.”

She winked in direction of Louise. Who saw it on the rear-view mirror.

“Not happening, Mira. I hate those things.”

“Oh, well at least I tried.” Mommy said smiling

Montreal is a strange place, it’s filled with churches, yet Mommy tells me that very few people actually go to them, something about the Church giving the jimmies to a lot of people. It looks rich to me, yet there’s people sleeping on the streets who don’t look as clean as I was when I used to wander the lands with my brother Thomas. All of this is strange, very strange. Shouldn’t those people have houses if they lived in a rich country? Why weren’t people helping them? Weird stuff really.

Louise Brought Mommy to a building that looked very old compared to the glass towers that I had seen on this city, there was a large park in front of it and a sign that read: Académie Nouvelle- France, école de filles. Like my brother would have said, crap! I would be going to a girl’s school!

I panicked, I started having trouble breathing and had cold sweats. Mommy and Louise both saw that I wasn’t feeling that great so they parked the car.

Mommy held me embraced me, like she had done so many times already since becoming my mother and I started to calm down.

“I am sorry, Céleste. I didn’t think about asking you if you wanted to go to this school, Elizabeth was supposed to go here, so I just thought that since you were now a girl, I could take you to the school where she was supposed to go. If you don’t want to go here, I am sure I can find another place.”

She held me for close to five minutes before I stopped panicking, I thought about all the trouble I would be causing to mommy if I decided to go to another school and I simply decided that I didn’t want cause that much already to the woman who had already saved my life.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself to tell a lie which I hoped sounded true. “I want to try to go there Mommy *Exhale* I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
My mommy frowned. “Don’t lie, please Céleste, just be honest with me.”

Honestly? I didn’t know… I didn’t know why I didn’t want to go to that school? What were my reasons to not wanting to go to that school? Was is the fear of being different? The school looked rich and I although I was now rich through Mira, that didn’t mean anything when you realized that I was street kid, an educated street kid but still kid. How could I communicate with those girls that had been rich all their lives? Not only was I different because I came from a poor place, I had only become a girl about a week ago people would notice that right? And my arm? People would notice that too right? I told how I felt to the adults.

Louise talked first. “Céleste, don’t worry about the girl thing or the cultural stuff. Girls can act in all kind of ways,so even if you had a few masculine mannerisms, pun intended, I am sure no one would question your feminity. Also Quebecers, even the rich ones, are very acceptant of difference, you will fit right in.”

Mom said something under breath, something about Anglophones, and Louise looked a little bit embarrassed. I didn’t want to ask what that was about, because it was not about my problem.

“Céleste, Louise is mostly right, I don’t think that you will have problems going to this school I went here when I was younger and no one was bullied when I went there.”

I thought about what Louise and mommy had said and I decided to give a chance to the girl’s school.

“I will go to the school Mira.”

“Sure?

“Yes, sure.”

“Good, because I am about ten minutes late.”

I felt bad about that.

“Sorry, mommy.”

“Don’t, it’s my fault for not talking about it with you, now go have fun with Louise while I deal with the boring stuff.”

Louise and I went to a place that she called the Vieux-Port. You could see the water there and there were multiple tens and a road that had a rail-road nearby. Louise and I started was walking, while I was rolling on the waterfront when a ball landed on me. A girl with yellow hair that was arranged in a high ponytail and that seemed to be my age came to search the ball. She was dressed in what looked like a football kit (proper football, not that American stuff).

“I’m so sorry, I hope I didn’t hurt you.” Said the girl with guilt in her eyes

Louise looked like she was ready to explode on the girl, so I decided to talk before she did.

“It’s Ok it didn’t hurt.” I said trying to make the girl feel less guilty. I gave the girl her ball back but she didn’t run off immediately. The girl looked curious, she was looking at my arm.

“Did you have an accident or something?” Asked the blonde girl.

Once again Louise looked angry. But I didn’t mind talking to someone new. I tried to communicate that message to Louise with my eyes like mommy did and she seemed to understand. I told the girl that my story was a long one and I could tell here if she was curious and she told me that why not she just had to tell her friends.
She went away for a minute or two and then she came back with two other girls, one with orange hair and the other with brown hair.
“This is the girl with the cool arm, her name is ...Uh... What is your name?” Asked the blonde.

“Céleste, my name is Céleste.” I answered back.

The girl looked happy at my response.

“Céleste, eh, what a coincidence my name is Océane! You are the sky and I am the sea. We should so totally become friends! Which is school do you go to? ”

“I will go to Académie Nouvelle-France next year.” I said with hopeful eyes.

Océane expression seemed to drop and I was sad until her orange haired friend gave her a nudge.

“Océ, don’t troll the poor girl! Céleste, my name is Magalie and the quiet one with brown hair and glasses is Dominique. The three of us go to your new school, so don’t worry about befriending us.”

Dominique, the official quiet girl whispered something that Océane proceeded to say at loud.

“Can you tell us what put you in that state?”

I wanted to tell them the true, or at least a cleaner version of the truth I didn’t want them to know about my past that much.

“My mom and I got in an accident the day she adopted me. Louise the woman who was just here before is my nurse.”

The girls looked shocked and then their shocked expression went to a sad one, Océane talked this time. “Is your mother Ok?”

I knew why they were worried now.

“Mommy is alright, she actually in the school right now making sure I will still be able to go in September.”

The girls relaxed. “Cool then. Hey, we have a flying disc we can throw around a little and that probably shouldn’t be that hard to launch even if you are missing an arm, want to try it?”

“I have to call my nurse first, but if she O.Ks it, then sure,” I said smiling at my newest friends.

Louise ended up Okaying it and she even decided to join us in our little game. It was quite fun, really fun, the most fun I ever had. When Thomas was alive we used to play like this, but It was always only the both of us and no one else. Here I was with multiple friends playing and not having to worry of how we would find food or were we would sleep. I wished that our moment together lasted forever but sadly it came to an end.

The girls ended up giving me their phone numbers and their email addresses and told me we could probably chat either on the phone or the computer. I didn’t know how to do either of those but I’m sure Louise or mommy could show me how to do that.

I can’t wait to tell mommy about what had just happened.

Céleste looked really happy as we were making our way to the house. I asked her about it and she had just made some new friends that just happened to go to the school were she would be going in September that was nice. Very nice indeed, friends are the easiest way to integrate in a new place and in her case a new role. Louise might be an awesome friend but she a little bit too old to be best friends with Céleste. My daughter already doesn’t act her age and Louise and I being Céleste’s only friends wouldn’t help Céleste adapt at all.

Anyways, the changes to the school records were made so Céleste could indeed start in November so everything was going well nice.
Along our journey home I made Louise stop for us in front of my favourite Spanish restaurant for lunch. There me, Louise and Céleste talked more about her new friends specially Océane who seemed to be the leader of the group. I made a joke about how Céleste and Océane were meant to be friends seeing as they were the sky and the sea, but apparently that joke was already done.

“Great, I can’t even tell an original joke!” After saying that, I pouted and simulated a fit.

Louise and Céleste both started laughing.

“I look like I am twenty five even if I am seven years older than that, you on the other hand look like your age but act way younger.” Said Louise, laughing.
“How much younger?” I asked to Louise.

“About twenty years!”

Another laughing burst.

We arrived home a little bit later than we were supposed to. Luckily our interviewee hadn’t arrived yet, so Louise and I, in a minor way, cleared my office and prepared ourselves for the interview. Yes, I said ourselves because seeing the way Louise and I had acted all the day we were more like friends than boss and employee, not a bad relationship change seeing how Céleste liked being Louise. It would have been hard to keep boundaries anyways, I like to befriend people. Anyway the door rang so Louise helped me go to the door to meet our potential new maid.

Louise opened the door and who I saw shocked me, not because of who she was, I had never met her before, but because of the state she was in.

She was a Hispanic girl, who didn’t look a day older than 14 and that looked like she was in the early stages of her pregnancy.

I was flabbergasted by that sight. Was she in the wrong place? I hoped so…

The girl started speaking in broken English interceded with a few Spanish words. “Is this the casa of señorita Mirabelle Flannagan?”

Did my mom even bother to look at the interviewees profiles?