In the days that followed, Daddy didn’t come back to play with him, and Mommy was too upset and busy, and Jimbo wasn’t around and Kathy was too little. Billy wanted to play with Kathy, talk to her, but Mommy said she was a little girl and he had to be very, very careful. So when he got lonely and bored again, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

“Christene” opened her eyes and went to Kathy’s crib. When Kathy cried, Christene knew by the expression on her face exactly what she wanted, and she went to tell the beautiful lady that Kathy was hungry.

“Thank you, Billy,” Dorothy said. “You’re a good boy. You watch your little sister and I’ll get dinner ready. Then I’ll come and read you a bedtime story before I go to work.”

Christene didn’t know who Billy was or why she was being called that, but she was happy she could play with Kathy. She took a red crayon and went to the wall beside the crib to draw Kathy a picture of a doll.

Christene heard someone coming; she looked up to see the beautiful lady glaring at the drawing on the wall and the red crayon in her hand.

“That’s bad! Bad! Bad!” Dorothy shouted.

Christene closed her eyes and went away.

Billy opened his eyes and saw the anger in his mother’s face. When she grabbed and shook him, he got scared and cried. He didn’t know why he was being punished. Then he saw the drawing on the wall and wondered who had done that naughty thing.

“Me not bad!” he cried.

“You drew that on the wall!” she shouted.

He shook his head. “Not Billy. Kathy did it,” he said, pointing to the crib.

“You mustn’t lie,” Dorothy said, jabbing her forefinger hard against his little chest. “Lying … is … bad. You’ll go to hell if you’re a liar. Now get to your room.”

Jimbo wouldn’t talk to him. Billy wondered if Jimbo had drawn the picture on the wall. He cried for a while and then he closed his eyes and went to sleep …

When Christene opened her eyes, she saw a bigger boy asleep on the other side of the room. She looked around for a doll to play with, but all she saw were toy soldiers and trucks.

She didn’t want those toys. She wanted dolls and bottles with nipples and Kathy’s cuddly Raggedy Ann.

She slipped out of the room to look for Kathy’s crib, peeking into three rooms before she found it. Kathy was asleep, so Christene took the Raggedy Ann doll and went back to bed.

In the morning, Billy was punished for taking Kathy’s doll. Dorothy found it in his bed and shook him and shook him until he felt his head was going to fall off.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she said. “That’s Kathy’s doll.”

Christene learned that she had to be careful how she played with Kathy when Billy’s mother was around. At first she thought the boy in the other bed might be Billy, but everyone called him Jimbo, so she knew he was the older brother. Her own name was Christene, but since everyone called her Billy, she learned to answer to it. She loved Kathy very much, and as the months went by, she played with her, taught her words, watched as she learned to walk. She knew when Kathy was hungry and what foods Kathy liked. She knew when something was hurting Kathy and she told Dorothy if anything was wrong.