we cannot live in a castle because we are not princesses. we are humbled peasents. we tell the world that, but our home is huge.

i came to my home when i still felt little even though i was the size i am now. it was surrounded by tall christmas trees. i think when i have my own home (which i think about as often as the second hand) i will plant christmas trees. one year my best friend and i made snowmen outside while watching people cut the trees and give us a little bit of money. i think i might give my trees away for free.

my home had an ark outside of it. the man who had lived here, who had died, who we have made up stories about, built an ark in his shack and so get it out he had to cut the shjack open. the ark was here when we looked at the house but when my mum decided she wanted it, it was gone.

the house was big. the bottom floor was a cave, like a grotto. it was all cement. we broke in. after we bought the house, it was summer, and i would play games and heat up hot dogs and if i had to use the toilet i had to walk across the street. we live across the street from a big lake called deep lake because they have never reached the bottom. they have toilets there, and a soda machine. i would take over little coins and buy me and my sister sugary drinks while my parents put walls up downstairs.

i remember when my room as done, after i picked out blue like the top of the sea for the carpets, and i sat in my closet with my knees under my chin and felt safe. we moved my stuff in. i had a big golden desk. i sat there and watched josie and the pussycats. i could see the driveway and people coming in and out and my grandmother fixed us dinner and brought us plates with various foods like we were rich and had cooks, and i awtched the pussycats sing and eat and i was happy, very happy.

in the summertime my family sit on our porch that hovers over the ground and build a fire and eat chocolate melted and watch the bats sink close to our heads and sing. we have a lake in our backyard that ducks live in. we weatching them grow from ducklings.

one fall my house burned. it caught on fire and my family escaped into a really dark night and we heard our animals that we could not yelping for their lives and it was very painful. and then we had to live in a tiny treehouse in my town, where it was only a short walk to the grocery store where i could buy sweet milk for our snow.

while we stayed in the tiny house, sharing rooms and anger, we built our house even bigger. i would come to visit the construction and wonder how we were ever going to fill it up. it seemed too big.

i'm not sure if it is, but it isn't a castle, but it also isn't a shack. and if we're peasents we don't look like peasents. either way, we'll never be royalty.