Diri

“I like to be ugly,” Diri told herself. She worked hard to look ugly. And she was fine with that.

“Your name sounds like diarrhea,” Elizabeth-Christine said to Diri.

“Thank you,” Diri said. “Thank you, Elizabeth-Christine.”

Elizabeth-Christine looked startled. “What?” Elizabeth-Christine whispered silently. Then she ran and got behind Diri, and put her hands over Diri’s eyes. She said to Diri, “Diri. You don’t speak English. You don’t understand English. You are dumb, you are quiet, and now look, you are blind. Dumb, quiet, and blind! Hahaha.”

Diri felt tears gathering under her closed eyelids, but she also felt a fart gathering at the end her spine. The tears, they did not go away, but the fart did not, either. Diri, in a desperate fit, let go of Elizabeth-Christine’s hands, and finding a chair directly in front of her, climbed on it, and farted, just in time, right into Elizabeth-Christine’s face.

Elizabeth-Christine smirked. She sighed. Then she gasped, and let out a yelp. She began to cry. Tears flowed freely on Elizabeth-Christine's cheeks. Diri wanted to feel sorry for Elizabeth-Christine, but could not.

“Dumb and quiet,” Diri said.

“Not speaking,” Mrs. Sundrum, the E.S.L. teacher, explained.

Diri drew a flower.