Guest blogger Caitlin O’Rourke is a member of St Bridget’s, Church, High Dudgeon, New Jersey. Caitlin is eight years old.

Sister Hagatha is my new teacher and I know her name is really Sister Mary Agatha but Flora’s little sister Jennette called her Sister Mary Hagatha when we were riding home from school on the first day and then Jimmy Pochowski did too and so now everybody calls her Sister Hag and Jimmy even called her that to her face and we all laughed and her face got red and she puffed her cheeks out and you could see her little mustache and nobody likes her not even Father Florsheim who likes everybody you can see he doesn’t because when we asked him if he liked Sister Mary Agatha he said everybody has strong points and we should try very hard to like her which means he doesn’t like her either and I can’t believe how much homework she gives us and if you do something wrong in class she makes you stay in from recess and write the act of contrition ten times and when I did I wrote it backwards on purpose and she couldn’t make me do it again because I had written it like she said and anyway I didn’t put the cheese pimento sandwich on her chair on purpose and how did I know she was going to sit on it and leave a big orange spot on her backside and that Jimmy was going to yell out sisters sat on something when she turned to write on the board and that everyone would start laughing and I laughed so hard I fell off my chair and knocked over the table with the Holy Family on it and the flowers and candle and everything and the vase broke which was ugly but Melinda’s mother gave it and everybody doesn’t like it because it’s purple and the water spilled too and that made everyone else laugh even more and then Sister was so mad she came to grab me and slipped on the water from the flowers and fell on her backside so Aunt Margaret had to come to pick me up from detention because Mom was at the hospital with granny again and when I told her she said she was just the same when she was in school except that she would have put the sandwich on sister’s chair on purpose and if sister didn’t like children she never should have become a teacher in the first place but she said I should still try to like Sister Agatha because at least she was a proper nun and not like Sister Joan who used to wear brown dresses that zipped up the front and sandals with socks and burned candles that smelled bad and went on retreats about praying with dolphins so Aunt Margaret made me promise to be nice to Sister and not call her Hagatha anymore and I will try and make it my New Years resolution but I bet not eating chocolate cake for a whole year would be easier and I told Flora and she said she would try too but Jimmy Pochowski said he would still call her Sister Hag because she was one and he wasn’t going to go to confession either and I told him that if he wasn’t nice to her then I would tell Father Florsheim and he wouldn’t be able to be an altar server anymore because Father Florsheim is very strict with the altar servers and makes them wear black lace up shoes and everything and if they come to church with sneakers on he makes them sit with their mother instead of serving.