"Who is the little match girl?" Elsie asks as I calmed down since I came in the room. I go to the mirror and brush out my hair and put it in a messy ponytail.
"What do you mean?" I ask. Faint recognition of the fight mixed in with my date swirled in my mind. It all happened in one day, I think. "Oh, I'll tell you before we go to bed, so go change real quick." Elsie obeys as I search through our tiny closet. I pull out the forgotten book and see the face of the little match girl. She is so creepy I think she was coming for me because I didn't come for her. When I got it, I always thought it looked like Elsie when she was five. She comes in and sits next to me on my bed.
"It may scare you; it's a Hans Christian Anderson story." I warn.
"Who is that?" she asks, "hands, wrist what?"
"He is the author and in most of his stories someone ends up dead," I say
"What is the little match girl's name?" she asks.
"Her name?" I ask. "Anderson didn't clarify her name, he only described her as the little match girl." Elsie looks a bit disappointed,
"Do you still want to read it?" I ask.
She nods her head slowly as I begin.
"Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening- the last evening of the year…." I look over at her, she smiles as I continue reading, and I am done in no time, reading the last line as we hear the clock strikes ten.
"No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year. And they lived happily never after." I finish. Elsie looks up at me on the last part.
"It's basically a fairy tale," I say. Elsie is still wide awake. She looks up at me.
"What kind of fairy tale doesn't have a happily ever after?" she asks curiously.
"Reality," I mutter. She looks at me confused as I explain.
"Most old tales don't have a happy ever after," I explain. "When people write, they want you to think that what you read is real. Sometimes they are, sometimes not." She understands as she wiggles out of my arms and lazily walks over to her bed.
"Would you like to buy some matches?" she giggles.
"Would you like to buy some papes," I smile. In a way, Elsie thinks the match girl would make a good newsie. We actually are similar, we wear almost the same thing and we all have something to sell.
"Frère Jacques," she says in an eerie voice. She repeats her saying while giggling. I can't help but smile also. Not caring how much happiness and tears came for me today.