When she was six, they'd bought her a hamster. She'd named him Fuzzy, after the first line in one of her favorite poems.
She loved to pour piles of hamster pellets into his cage and watch as he took the food in his delicate pink paws and packed it ferociously into his cheeks. Sometimes, she wondered if his face would burst. She loved his little twitchy nose and his bright black eyes. She thought he was the most wonderful hamster in the entire world. But a hamster, even a really really fuzzy one, is not a little sister.
She already had a little brother. But he was only a year younger and useless. Too young to play the kinds of pretend she wanted to play, too old to take care of and, anyway... A brother, at any age, as she tried to explain to her parents again and again, is not a baby sister.
You could cuddle a baby sister. You could read to her, all your favorite books, play all your favorite games. You could dress her and feed her and rock her to sleep. Other girls in her class had baby sisters of their own and they were always coming to school with the best stories. Girls with baby sisters were the luckiest girls in the world.
Though, she'd told her mother, she would settle for a kitten. Girls with kittens were almost as lucky as girls with baby sisters.
"Jim," she'd heard her mother say, "either you get her a kitten, or I will..."
When she was seven, her father bought a puppy. The puppy was tiny and warm and squirmy and covered with soft puppy fur. He was the best puppy ever. He loved to snuggle, and he let her dress him up in doll clothes. He was very good at stay. Much better than her hamster or her brother. But though the puppy loved them all, he loved her mother best. He was her mother's dog. And sometimes, when she dressed him up in a baby bonnet and tried to feed him pretend tea, he sighed. Softly. And a puppy, even the best puppy in the entire world, is not a kitten. And even a kitten, she said to just herself, is not a baby sister.
You could sing songs to a baby sister. You could brush her hair and always always always have someone to play with. Someone you could tell all your stories to. Someone you could love best of all. She wished on pennies she threw in fountains. She wished on shooting stars. She saved her birthday wishes. She wished and wished and wished.
When she was eight, her mother told her a secret. It was the best greatest secret in the whole world.
"It might not be a baby sister," her mother told her, "it might be a baby brother. You'll have to love them, no matter what."
Getting a baby brother would be like getting someone else's puppy, when what you wanted was a kitten of your very own. Her mother didn't understand. But that was ok.
"Don't worry," she had tried to comfort her mother, "It'll be a baby sister. You'll see."
And she was right.
She waited and waited and waited and WAITED and finally, her parents brought home a baby sister, wrapped in soft pink blankets. Her baby sister had tiny little fingers, even more beautiful than hamster paws. Even better than puppy fur. Her baby sister was tiny and delicate and beautiful and the most perfect baby sister ever.
"I have a baby sister! I have a baby sister!" she shouted to anyone and everyone. It was one of the happiest days of her life.
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