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


I didn’t want to go but Mom said since Mrs Florsheim invited me I should and I don’t really like the beach that much because the sand is always too hot and it burns your feet and with my red hair I always get sunburned and you wouldn’t believe how much more my freckles come out and I hate that but I went anyway since Flora is my best friend and her big brother Arnold was taking a friend and you’ll never believe it but it was Jimmy Pochowski and I was so mad when I found out but it was too late to say no so I had to go anyway and all summer at the pool Jimmy kept calling me Fatty Catty and laughing at my swimming suit that Mom makes me wear because she says its modest and I wouldn’t want to wear a bikini anyway because Papa says most women wearing bikinis look like a set of hams that have been strung up and hung out to dry on stilts and once he was talking with Uncle Mortimer who said he always wondered why the women he wished would wear a bikini at the beach never do and the ones he wished wouldn’t wear a bikini always do and isn’t that just too bad said Mom when she heard them talking on the porch and told them to mind their language because I was listening but I didn’t mind because I think they were funny and I wouldn’t wear a bikini if you paid me to so then Jimmy sat in the back of the van all the way to the beach and played games with Arnold and was okay but when we got to the beach they were being bad the whole time and then pretending they were being good to the grown ups and I hate that when Jimmy smiles and says YesSir and YesMa’am and they all smile and think he’s wonderful so anyway Flora and I found out that they were going to go swimming late at night without having permission and so we listened and when they went sneaking out the back door of the beach house we followed them to see what they were going to do and you will never believe it but they took off their swimming trunks and ran down to the beach naked to swim so then I had this idea so me and Flora snuck down and stole their towels and swimming trunks and ran back to the house and sneaked in the back door and the grown ups were on the front porch with the lights on and so we locked the back door so they couldn’t get in and they went around the front and we didn’t dare watch but we heard Arnold asking his Mom for a towel where they were hiding behind the side of the house and then the grownups saw what happened and we were sorry we did it the next day because Mrs Florsheim told us off at breakfast but Mr Florsheim didn’t care because I could see he was trying not to laugh but we were still sorry and went to confession and I think the priest has a cold because after I told him he did a kind of snorting noise and I think maybe he was sneezing because I don’t think a priest should laugh at your sins but he should be serious and give you a good penance now what is really bad is that everyone at school will know and they will laugh at me because I have seen Jimmy Pochowski naked but not really because it was dark and we were a long way away and I only saw his backside and that doesn’t really matter because everyone has one of those.