Ordinary Sins Read Online Free Page B

like a sparrow flying into a plate-glass window. During his first hour he did not see the gentle hands offering the colorful jingling toys, he did not see the excited face every time he stacked his blocks more than three bricks high. Instead, he felt the small claw-like fingers jerking the squeezy bug from his grasp to the accompanying snarl of MINE!
    Is this the same universe into which the angels of plenty have thus far sustained me on wings of mercy through the land of milk and honey? the little boy wondered. Or is this but an illusory twinge of misery that I have heretofore known to be nothing but the bell that beckons the abundance back into the abode of my pleasure? Is the cloud of glory I have known, that babbling brook of good fortune, but a passing fantasy before the veil is lifted to reveal the cruel language of take? Oh, woe, ye energies of adversity, is this all? all? the little boy asked of the crumbling universe around him.

THE GIRL AND THE CHERRY TREE
    If you don’t stop eating so many cherries, cherries will start growing out of your ears, said the mother.
    Eating cherries made the girl happy, and the more cherries she ate, the happier she felt.
    Why don’t you listen to me? said the mother, but the mother did not scold very loudly.
    That afternoon the girl ate every cherry from a whole branch. She went to bed singing and with cherry stains on her lips and hands.
    The mother scowled but did not scold her again.
    The next morning the girl woke with an itch in her ears. She should have known this was a warning sign, but she just scratched her ears and went outside to start on a new branch of the cherry tree.

    The mother saw the girl stuffing her cheeks with cherries. My goodness! she said. What is all this cherry eating going to lead to?
    When the sun on her eyes woke her the next morning, the girl had itchy ears again. This time when she scratched her ears she caught a leaf under her fingernails. When she looked in the mirror, she saw small cherry branches growing from her ears!
    She quickly got a pitcher of water and poured a little bit of water in each ear. She went outside to find a warm and sunny day. She didn’t climb the cherry tree. Instead, she lay in the sun and turned her head from side to side, giving each branch as much sun as the other.
    When she went into the house that night, the mother saw the small branches but thought the girl was just playing a joke.
    Goodness, goodness, said the mother. Will this never end?
    The next morning the girl woke up—not to the sun in her eyes, not to the sound of birds singing, not to the voice of her mother calling, but to the smell of cherry blossoms.
    Now when she looked in the mirror she beheld a bright mound of cherry blossoms covering her head. In her closet the girl found a dress that was shaped like a vase. She sat on the windowsill and sniffed the cherry blossoms all day.
    When the mother saw her, she said, I knew something like this was going to happen. I just knew it, but you do look quite pretty and you do have a lovely aroma.
    In a few days cherries came on where the blossoms had been, and a few days later all the cherries were big and round and ripe. The girl started eating the cherries that were growing right there at her fingertips.
    When the mother saw this, she said, Now this has really gone too far. You can’t eat all those cherries by yourself. You need to share them with your friends!
    The girl agreed, and soon all her friends gathered around to eat cherries with her.
    Be careful, said the mother. Don’t spill cherry juice all over the rug and furniture. That would really be a problem.

CHILDREN’S PLAY
    Out on the playground, the ten-year-olds invented a pretend game in which the boys would be girls and the girls would be boys.
    It was the biggest boy’s idea.
    None of the girls objected but one boy did. Lame, he said. Stupid, he said. I don’t want to be a girl.
    Majority rules, said the biggest boy, and