I hate being punished. Hate it. It's not fair. I never do anything that bad and I'm always getting in trouble. Do you know what they do to me? They're so mean. They make me sit in a corner and I can't talk to anybody.

See? Mean.

I'm not supposed to turn around, but it's not fun looking at the wall. I'm bored. Bored, bored, bored. I turn around, looking if Mom or Dad is anywhere around. Nope. Good. I turn around in the chair, looking for something to play with. I don't see anything. There's never anything good around here. Fine. I don't need to do anything. I just don't want to look at the wall anymore.

When no one comes in for a while, I get brave. I stand up and take two steps away from the chair. Nothing. I'm not caught. I take a couple more steps, looking and listening real hard. A couple more steps. I'm not going anywhere. I just don't want to sit down and I really don't want to look at that stupid wall.

I hear footsteps from the hall and I run for the chair, but I knock it into the wall. It makes a loud noise and I fall on my knees. Before I can get up, my mom is standing at the door with that look on her face. Uh oh.

"Did you hurt yourself?" she asks, and helps me up.

I shake my head.

"Okay. Now if you stay in your chair, you will continue to not hurt yourself."

"But I-"

She raises an eyebrow and I shut up. Two words. I got to say two words. It's better than nothing.

I sit down, and after a microt Mom leaves again. Great. Alone again.

This isn't fair. Anytime I do anything they don't like, they make me do this. It drives me crazy. I don't do anything bad. I'm a good girl. Maybe this wasn't the nicest thing to do, but still. I don't deserve this.

Maybe I should try crying. I'm getting desperate. I tried crying once, when I was still a little kid, and it didn't work. My mom told me I was being silly and she knew I was faking, and then my dad told me to clean up my toys when I was done. See? They're mean. And it doesn't work if I get mad, either. When I tried that, Dad said angry didn't work on me. I didn't try that again, I don't know why. I'm running out of ways to get out of stuff.

I'm bored. There's nothing on the wall. It's just plain boring white. There's nothing on it. We never put anything up or bought anything in case we have to leave quick. All my toys are downstairs so they can watch me, so I don't even have anything to do here. I used to have stuff to play with in here, but one time I got punished and I started drawing on the wall. I made it pretty, but Mom and Dad weren't too happy. My drawing's still up on the wall, but it's not in the corner I'm supposed to look at.

I bet it's been arns since I was put here. This is torture. I want to do something. I wonder what Mom and Dad are doing. I'm going to forget how to talk soon. "This isn't fair," I say, and am happy when my voice works. I forgot what it sounded like. "I didn't even do anything wrong. I never do anything right. I'm always in the corner. And it's for no reason."

"I hear talking," calls my dad from outside somewhere. Are they waiting by the door? Waiting for me to do something so they can leave me here for even longer? I've been here a whole day already.

I glare at the door, but I don't see Dad there. Good. I'd probably get even more time in the corner. I'm going to spend my whole life in this corner. I hate this corner. And I bet this corner hates me. If corners could talk, I bet it would be saying I was wrong. The corner's mean, too. "I hate you, corner," I say, but I say it quiet so no one will yell at me. The corner doesn't answer me. Stupid corner.

I'm bored. They're trying to make me go crazy by being bored. Maybe if I stare at the wall long enough it'll make me boring. I open my eyes real wide and stare at the plain white boring wall, and see how long I can go without blinking. It's a long time, but when my eyes start hurting I start blinking again. I almost made myself cry. If crying did me any good, that would be a good start.

I sigh loudly, and kick my feet at the wall. I am so bored. Well, if they're going to keep me here- how long has it been, days? If they're going to keep me here, I'm going to do have fun.

I think for a minute, and then start singing. "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine! We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine!"

I don't remember all the words. Good. Maybe they'll be annoyed. I sing louder. "We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine! WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE! A YELLOW SUBMARINE! A YELLOW SUBMARINE!"

No one says anything. That's new. Okay, then I'm going to keep doing it. I sing as loud as I can until my voice doesn't want to last anymore. When my throat starts to hurt, I stop. And I get to be bored again.

It's a couple more arns till anyone comes in. I ignore my dad till he's right in front of me. "Okay, Rose," he says, "are you done now?"

I nod.

"Good. We gave you an extra fifteen minutes in here. That's what happens when you don't follow the rules. Get it?" Dad asks.

I nod again.

"Did you think about what you did?"

Another nod. Yeah. I didn't do anything wrong.

"You can talk now, sweetie," Dad says.

"I'm never going to punish anyone," I tell him. "It's mean."

He stares at me a little. "So hitting a kid because he called you a name isn't punishing him?"

"But he called me a freak," I tell him, crossing my arms.

"But it's mean. Do you get that? You might not be happy with me and your mom right now, but we didn't hurt you. And while I admire your right hook, that wasn't the right thing to do," he says.

Oh. "So what if he says it again?" I ask quietly.

"Hm. Well, then, you could just not say anything at all, and he'll probably leave you alone. Or just tell him that at least you're not boring. And walk away before he can say anything. That should bug him." Dad smiles a little, but stops. "One thing you're gonna have to learn is that a lot of people will say or do things that make you mad. You just have to be better than them."

"I can do that," I say.

"Good girl. Are you ready to look at something besides the wall?"

I jump out of the chair. Dad laughs a little, and takes my hand as we start walking out of my room. "Are you going to do anything that ends you up in that chair again?" he asks me.

"No," I say, shaking my head. "Not unless they try to hit first."

I can hear my dad sigh.