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

See what you probably didn’t know is that my middle name is Agnes but I don’t tell anybody because I don’t like it very much because Granny had a friend she used to take me to see who was in a nursing home and her name is Agnes but I didn’t go for a long time after Granny died but Aunt Margaret goes now sometimes and I hope I don’t have to go again I tried really hard to like her I really did and she would always smile at me and say I was a nice little girl but I could tell she didn’t like children very much because when she smiled her false teeth kept dropping down and she pushed them back up with her thumb and say damn these teeth then not talk to me again like it was my fault and you know what her room used to smell bad like somebody had peed in the corner and I never used to like to go there because there was also an old man with hair growing in his ears who asked me to play checkers which I never did because I was scared of him and I even brought old Agnes flowers that we bought at the gas station once but she said she didn’t like flowers and I should take them away so I never went back again and I don’t know why they gave me the middle name Agnes I only ever told Flora what my name was and maybe one other person but the thing I was going to tell you is that Jimmy Pochowski learned that my middle name is Agnes and he started calling me Agnes on the playground and at Mass Fr Florsheim told us the story of St Agnes and how she was only twelve when the cut her head off and he said on St Agnes Day the Holy Father blesses lambs because Agnes sounds like Agnus which means lamb in Latin so Jimmy and Ronny Cotton and Sam Homburg and Ricky Barton were all following me and Flora around making baa-ing sounds like lambs which really made me mad and I tried to not do anything bad because last time I hit Jimmy I got a detention and I thought of old Agnes in the nursing home that smelled like pee and crossed myself and said a prayer for her and I remembered that the real Agnes was pestered by a lot of boys before they cut off her head and she was a martyr and you can see her bones in Rome if you got there so I didn’t say anything except I just stuck my tongue out at Jimmy and told Sister Aquinas but she just told me that boys will be boys and didn’t do anything at all and then after school Aunt Margaret picked me up and I asked her why God let Saint Agnes die like that and why he let’s Jimmy get away with being so bad without doing anything about it because if God is so powerful he could send a lightning bolt or something to teach Jimmy a lesson and I was mad at Sister Aquinas too and thought God should teach her a lesson but Aunt Margaret said Saint Agnes and Agatha and Lucy were like Saint Therese who is one of my favorite and that they were all little girls and she said that everybody has to become like them and be little children if they want to even start to think about going to heaven and Aunt Margaret said God loves the little children like you wouldn’t believe and that’s why Jesus blessed them and I should never be ashamed of having the name Agnes because she is one of God’s little girls and then Aunt Margaret who is always saying crazy things said she thinks one of God’s favorite songs is Thank Heaven for Little Girls and maybe he likes to sing it with a French accent like Maurice Alleyway but I don’t know who he is but Aunt Margaret started singing it and taught it to me and then we went to Hamburger Heaven and got a milkshake which is what Aunt Margaret always does to cheer me up and you’ll never believe it but Mrs Pochowski was there with Jimmy and Ronny Cotton and they were getting milkshakes and chocolate chip cookies too and Jimmy smiled at me and gave me a cookie and you’ll never believe it but he said he was sorry for making fun of me and I think he really meant it so I was glad that I didn’t throw him down and give him a black eye like I usually do.

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Use the “Categories” tool in the right sidebar to read all the archived Caitlin O’Rourke posts. Here are a few favorites: Caitlin goes to the beach. Caitlin goes to Bible Camp Caitlin on Praying for the Dead

If you like my alter egos, why not pop over the right sidebar and purchase the first of the Vicar’s full length short stories? It tells the story of how he and Daphne wound up in Great Snoring. It’s available for $2.99 for Kindle or you can purchase a Word document download by following the links for just $1.99