Oh my goodness...thank you so much all of you who are reading this story. And double thanks to;

pigeonofdoom(x), MC New York(x) , Dybdahl(x), icklebitodd(x),Nnyliram(x), forensicsgirl97(x), Silent as the Grave(x), Who-will-change-the-world (x), Cherrydrops12(x), SaraStar(x), dark-girl-faith-sidle(x), jóhanna(x), Ally-617-luv-tv(x) and ayesha84(x)
who reviewed the last chapter... I means so much. Thank you! I so appreciate it, you people are fab! The comments I've gotten for this story has been extremely wonderful and have kept me motivated to write.

Ally-617-luv-tv - yep that sort of stuff and much worsethings happenedin the Catholic Church during the 20th century.

forensicsgirl97-Okay I made Sara be called Kate because I read that nuns change thier name... I then found out that it is actually only Eastern Orthodox so oops...so mini flaw there.

Nnyliram- will check my spelling better. thanks for letting me know: ) x

Also a thought came to be because of what dark-girl-faith-sidle wrote so I thought I should just say I mean to offend anyone who is a Roman Catholic or has family or friends who is a nun or a priest or works in psychiatric institutions or care or anything like that because there are a lot more nice ones than nasty ones. Anyway I have started writing the next chapter so that will be up on wednesday/thursday. Actually I don't have that much homework to do so it might be up sooner than that

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The following day I was not allowed to go to the classroom. A nun handed me a cloth and an old chrome bucket. She took me to the bathrooms and told me to clean the baths and shine the taps. I had to scrub them and I was punishing my little body as for days afterwards my legs and arms would ache. I had to get used to it though as most days I was cleaning some part of the building. Bathrooms, toilets, corridors and kitchens replaced the classroom for me and a large number of other girls. We would be stuck in the school the odd morning but most of the time we were slaves to the nuns. They were supposed to be educating the girls in their care and they were being paid to do so. Even at the age of eight I knew that the nuns were doing something wrong.

I cleaned the banisters and the stairs and the windowsills and the desks and the day room. My knees became raw from moving along the stone and marble floors of the school. Whenever we were cleaning and scrubbing there was always a nun in the area making sure we didn't slack of and chat to each other. Every little bit of dirt was to be washed away. I went to be exhausted and I woke up exhausted the next morning. None of us ever got any thanks.

According to the nuns, this was our punishment for being wicked sinners. We had to do penance and it was the only way to save our souls and keep us from hell. Idleness was a sin and the devil work for idle hands, so we had to work to keep him away. This was the excuse the nuns gave for working girls morning, noon and night in a manner that even a strong adult would find next to impossible to endure.

I didn't make many friends, it was difficult to make friends since idle chatter led to evil chatter and because I was the youngest there, no one attempted to talk to me. I did overhear conversations though I did hear some other older girls talk about how they had never thought impure thoughts or done impure things. I wondered if this was related to a horrible incident that had happened to me after about a month of slaving away. A nun dragged me to a room placed on a table. The wicked nun said she was going to check whether or not I was intact. I didn't know what she meant but she ordered me to lie back as she removed my underclothes. I became hysterical, thinking of what the boys had done to me and two other nuns held me down as she stuck her finger in to me and I screamed with pain. I learned that every girl was put through this routine, this violation. One teenage girl declared intact gave birth to a baby a few months later.

I would often think about what the priest would tell us at mass about impure thoughts and I was afraid I would die in my sleep and awake in hell. Most of the girls became so traumatised that they would frequently wet the bed. I never did. This made the nuns furious and if they discovered the soiled sheets on our beds in the morning then they would make us strip them off and screaming at us, telling us what disgusting, filthy creatures we were.

Once they got used to me, the other girls accepted me and, because I was so much younger than them, they used to look after me. I was almost like a little pet or mascot for them. The nuns however, continued to pick on me and made no allowances for my age. I worked as hard as any other girl there. The nuns kept putting me down, crushing my sprit, chipping away any self-worth that was left. The fat, ugly Reverend Mother told me I was stupid, bold and troublesome and that was why I was here.

"Yes, I know all about your disgusting mother and if you don't repent, you will end up just like her, you dirty little bitch."

I was convinced that she could get the dirt out of me. I had sinned and had to be punished. I asked the nuns if I could go back to school, I wanted to learn what little there was to be learned in that dank classroom. But they told me there was no point; I would never amount to anything anyway. However several times, I did get the pleasure to clean the school library and is was amazing to see the amount of books. I became fascinated with the thousands of pages available to me. Of course, there was no science or children's books but I enjoyed stroking the pages as a turned the page of a James or Steinbeck. I would never touch anything religious, I wasn't holy enough.

Although at times I was very lonely, I began to get used to the routine and the work would dull my sadness. I would throw myself in to the work and pretend I was in my bubble which prevented me from any harm. One day followed and the next and by bedtime I would be numb with tiredness. The worst thing was being away from my mother and not knowing if I would ever see her again. I prayed each night for her to visit me and three or four weeks later, they were answered.

She was accompanied by two police officers, a big, hulking man dressed in white; he was my mother's carer and my uncle but he disappeared when he saw me. I knew that she hated my uncle because he was a foul, violent pig just like my father and he was identical in looks. I was so delighted to see her, at first I couldn't speak. I remember she was wearing a black and white checked coat and she handed me a box of sweeties and the most beautiful doll. Now that I think about it, my mom's visit may have timed to coincide with my seventh birthday, but I wouldn't have known, as the nuns never marked birthdays.

Once I got my tongue back, I begged my mother to take me out of this place. She was surprised that I wasn't going to school and assured me she would do her very best to help. She told me that should talk to my uncle, as since he had put me here, he was the only one to take me out. Upon hearing this, my heart sank. I knew that my uncle had always disliked me and he hated me even more now that my father was dead and he was glad I was out of his house. He would never help me and I would be stuck in the school forever. I started crying and screaming and my mother tried to comfort me but I was inconsolable.

The Reverend Mother heard the commotion and came in to the room. She told the authority figures to take my mother away but I leapt to my mother's side, knocking over the bag of sweets and they scattered all over the floor. I thought it was wonderful to see the different colours. I grabbed hold of my mother's coat and she was so upset I could see the tears well up in her eyes. The Reverend Mother grabbed hold of me by the waist but I held on so hard that the buttons popped off my mother's coat and fell to the floor. I was beside myself. I felt as though my heart was going to burst through my chest. My mother was escorted away and the Reverend Mother battered me and threatened me with all sorts of punishments if I did not behave myself. As an adult, I can truly say, I hated that bitch of a nun, about as much as my father. She had literally torn me away from my mother, someone I wouldn't see again for many years. She told me to go to the dormitory and to calm myself down. I ran up the corridor, desperate to catch a glimpse of my mother. As I watched her walk away, actually she was being dragged, her knees being scraped along the floor while her arms were held on tightly by the men.

For the next few weeks, on every visiting Sunday, I would sit, waiting in my navy jacket and swinging my legs, hoping that it would be day that my mother would come and whisk me away. Whenever the nuns saw me they would laugh and say, "Do you not realise you mother doesn't want you anymore? That's why she made sure you were sent away."


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