A Bite-Sized Gem

Read this perfect little story and follow the link to find more:
When I was young, I was in the care of two women. Their names were Jane and Grace. Jane was very urbane, very breezy, very lipsticked. She never lifted a duster in her life. Grace was soft; she was proper and colourless. She told me Jane was a saint. Jane drank dry martinis straight up with a twist. Grace had a single sweet sherry before lunch on Sundays. Grace told me to sit on my potty and give it a good try. So I'd sit and sit and sit and imagine what was living in my body, in the little cave of my body, warm and comfortable and dry, and what wanted to come out. After a while I'd drift back into the nursery and Grace would say "Did you try?" and I would say that if she looked in my potty, she would see some try. Jane was hazy about bodily functions but she was pretty sharp about language. She didn't like rudeness. She hit me across the face in a public elevator. Men were watching, or maybe it was only one man. The first thing I stole was a Barbie head. It fit perfectly inside of my closed fist. Jane asked me how I managed to get another head for my Barbie and I said that my best friend's mother had driven by in her blue convertible and had pulled over to the side of the road and said "I knew you would want this: here it is." My best friend's mother looked like Grace Kelly and she used to sing in an off-key sort of way and most people would ignore it but I liked it, it made me happy. Jane said I had to take that Barbie head right back to where I stole it. God would be watching, she said. And how did I think I could get away with something like that, anyway? Who did I think I was? That summer I almost drowned. I was swimming with two girls. One had very broad shoulders and hunched her body over. She was hiding her chests, Grace said. The big girl had a younger sister who jumped around a lot. They were like a gorilla and a gorilla's tiny friend. The three of us tried pulling up the ropes that held the swimming raft in place. There were rocks weighing down the ropes and when I swam beneath the raft I could see the light of day above me and the deep green water, the sweet dark lake filled with flecks that sparked and bobbled like an invitation. When I dropped the rock the cord wrapped and twisted round my legs; it pulled me down. I looked up towards the bright surface of the water, the innocent legs of girls kicking around on a warm afternoon, and I was enthralled. One can only imagine what might happen next. One can only try.

Carolyn Smart rocks. She has published numerous books of poetry and a memoir, At the End of the Day. She's funny, too.