El quijote

Princess pooh
My big sister is ten years old .her name is penelope Marie Piper, but everyone calls her punny.
Everyone except me . I, patty Jean Piper, call her princess pooh. No one knows I call her that, but it’s the perfect name for her. All day she just sits on her throne with wheels and tells everybody in the whole world what to do.
When we go shopping at the mall, princess pooh rides onher throne while dad wheels her around. She smiles and waves like she’s some kind of movie star. Mom carries the princess’s crutches and I, patty jean the servant, carry packages. Sometimes there are so many I look like a box with legs.
Everyone loves the princess.
Grandman and grandpop and all the aunts and uncles and cousins in our family hug her and say how sweet and wonderful she is.
Thenthey look at me and say I am growing like a weed. That’s the way it has been for a million years. The princess is a flower. I, plain old patty jean, am a weed.
Once we went to carnival. Princess pooh watched me ride a hundred time on the roller coaster. It was fun, but it would have been better with a friend. I almost wished the princess could ride with me. Then I tried to win a pink stuffedpoodle. I spent all my allowance and threw a thousand balls, but couldn’t knock down the bottles. When we left, the man handed princess pooh a yellow stuffed poodle with a diamond collar! That’s how it is. Everyone gives her things.
My school is a hundred years old. It is so far from my house I have to ride for hours on a school bus to get there.
Princess pooh goes to the new school right acrossthe street. She can wheel herself there in one second.
If it rains, Dad carries her and her throne to his car and gives her a one second ride. I, patty jean, wear an icky yellow raincoat and stand in mud puddles, waiting for the bus.
Saturday is chore day. Mon mows the lawn.
Dad washes clothes and cleans the garage. Then he brings the clean clothes to the princess, and she folds then into pileson the table. I, patty jean the maid, clean the bathroom.
One Saturday, mom asked me to fold clothes because princess pooh had therapy. I sat at the table pretending I was the princess. I folded the clothes very fast and put them in perfect stacks.
When the princess came home, I waited for mom to tell her to clean the bathroom. But mom put her right to bed because she was tired. So I, exhaustedpatty jean, had to clean the bathroom, too.
It is summer now. All my friends have gone to camp --- everyone except me. Mom says there’s no money to send me to camp because the princess got new braces for her legs.
Princess pooh doesn’t need them anyway because all she does is sit. She only takes little tiny walks, like when she has to go to the bathroom at a restaurant and her wheelchair won’tfit though the door. Mom says she walks at therapy, too, but I’ve never seen her do it.
After dinner I go outside. The princess is in the hammock reading a book.
“Do you want to make a puppet show?” I ask.
“no, thanks”, she says in her princess voice.
“I’m going to read lots of books so I can win a prize in the summer reading program.”
I don’t feel like reading, but I get a book anyway and lookpictures. I am finished in one minute.
“this book is boring”, I say. “let’s play with puppets now.” The princess doesn’t answer. I look over at the hammock ---- there she is, asleep.
Behind the tree is the tree is the throne. Seeing it empty gives me the best idea anyone in the whole world has ever had. Today I, patty jean, will be the princess!
I sit on the throne. It is covered withcushions and feels like a could.
“I will rest on my golden throne for the whole evening”, I say. I imagine all the people in my kingdom, looking at me and living their beautiful new princess.
The throne is hard to wheel on the grass, so I get up and pull it to the front yard. Now I will spend every minute on the throne, I say.
I decide to ride to the princess’s school. There is a nice, steep little...