To Sell a Bleeding Heart

Chapter 4:The Anatomy of Thoughts

"Bianca! Look, Look! I've done chapter three!" Maria ran over to the lady who was busy copying down mathematics questions by the window. The lady, Bianca, took the exercise book that Maria presented with much pride and marked the carefully and neatly solved work written upon each and every page. To be honest, this exceeded her expectations of a 10 year old's work. Every question was solved correctly with not one step missing; apart from a few misunderstandings Maria had which were easily and quickly rectified once Bianca explained them to Maria. Knowing that Maria had, without a doubt, put in a great amount of effort into her work, Bianca turned to Maria and gave a warm smile.

"Good work, Maria! Three chapters done in just four days," She praised. " You'll only have two more chapters to go for the next three days. Maria is such a good child."

She patted the little girl on the head whose cheeks were starting to flush red upon hearing Bianca's praises. She moved her head away from Bianca's hand, folded her arms and faced herself away from the lady in a snobbish manner.

"I'm not doing this for anyone, you know! I'm just doing this so that I can go outside and play!" Maria spoke with her head held up high. Bianca, who was facing Maria's back gave a mischievous grin and embraced the surprised girl from behind.

"Okay, I get it, it's because you just want to play...." Bianca pretended to agree with a quiet dejected tone before returning to her mischievous bubbly self. She lifted the little girl high up into the air and spun around a few times.

"But you still did a great job with your mathematics problems! Good work, girl!"

"Stop it Bianca! Doing three chapters is nothing to be this happy about! Put me down!" the little girl exclaimed while trying to give an impression that she was not affected by Bianca's behaviour. Well, she did try to conceal her embarrassment but to no avail as her entire face was red like the ripest of tomatoes.

Once Bianca had put her back onto the floor, she wriggled with all her might to escape from the embarrassing situation and escaped with her stationery. She had never had any adult praise her or carry her like that before; it was quite embarrassing to be so close to an adult like Bianca. Yet somewhere in her heart, she did not feel the urge to start up anymore trouble. It was a strange feeling... maybe having Bianca around was not a bad idea after all....

'No, No! Have you forgotten why you are causing these problems in the first place?' Maria shook her head trying to turn it into a void, to erase the nascent consideration of Bianca as a friend. The reason for all this is so that she could be rid of the very woman who had totally disrupted her pace of activity and enforced a strict regime upon her life! Things like rising at god awful hours, cold baths, and long tiresome chores were activities that in the past she would have never dreamt of doing for the next thousand years! Now, for two consecutive weeks, she had been doing nothing but slaving away under Bianca's orders who had gained the upper hand of controlling her with the threat of extending the punishment by two more months! There is no way that she would even think of even welcoming that dominating ogress into her life for no more than these terrible three months.

"Once I get an opening after I achieve freedom, she'll be the first to go!" Maria plotted.

She opened her exercise book and continued to solve the problems that Bianca asked of her. To be honest, the numbers and problems bored her to no end at first; mostly because she never liked them in the first place; but as the days went on, the numbers intrigued her little mind and soon she had to admit that solving them was indeed enjoyable. She thought to herself as she continued the chapter on Divisions. This was not something she would do to get things her way. She wondered how all this have changed just by having Bianca stay for these past two weeks. The girl that had gotten things done her own way by getting past adults through use of either brute strength or wit is now obediently following another person's orders just to ask for a few moments of freedom. Well, it was not surprising seeing as it's Bianca that is in charge of taking care of her.