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To: Patient Quality Care Office
From: Nicola Bream and Lindsay Feeler
Priority: HIGH!!

We are two grade five girls who have been visiting Shady Oaks Retirement Home. We’re writing you now to complain about how the old people are treated there. The food is really terrible and nobody wants to eat it. There are no fun things to do and no decorations for Christmas or Hanukkah. Flowers aren’t even allowed! And the old people are given sleeping pills in the day. Some are locked in their rooms. Will you please investigate and do something about this place as soon as possible? The patients should be smiling and laughing and not sleeping all the time. Also, one bath every month? How would you like that?

Please help them!

Nicola Bream and Lindsay Feeler

* * *

“This is what we know,” Nicola said, lying on the bed with June Bug while Lindsay sat at the foot. “Mr. Milton went into one of their rooms. Mrs. Tanaka’s, or Mr. Fitzpatrick’s, or Mrs. Michaels’. Or maybe all of them. He saw something that surprised him so much that he started to talk again. Now he’s trying to get someone to let them out.”

“We know they’re angels,” said Lindsay.

“Mrs. Tanaka seemed to glow,” Nicola agreed. “But why didn’t we notice before?”

“Because the lights are so bright! And here’s another thing about Shady Oaks. The TV is always blaring. Couldn’t that be to drown out the sound of their singing?”

“I wonder about that Mr. Devon,” Nicola said. “I really do.”

“He gave me the creeps!”

June Bug stretched her muzzle along Nicola’s thigh and sighed. Her white ear was turned inside out. Nicola flipped it back. “Say they are angels. What are they even doing there?”

Lindsay’s face scrunched up. “They give off light, which we really need in winter, right?”

“Hey!” Nicola said. “Did you notice? Hardly anyone put up lights this year?”

Lindsay frowned. “I wondered why it didn’t seem like a Christmassy Christmas. The lights are one of the nicest things.”

“There are all these holidays with lights. Hanukkah. Diwali,” Nicola said. “New Year’s Eve fireworks. Except there weren’t any fireworks this year, either.”

“So do they glow to put more light in the world?” Lindsay asked.

“Jackson has to have a night light,” Nicola said. “But what about this? When someone’s smart, we say they’re bright. Or brilliant. So maybe they glow to remind us to be smarter. To use our heads and think.”

“Ah!” Lindsay said, looking out the window. “I have to get home before dark. I should go.”

Nicola and June Bug walked her to the door. “I like talking about these things,” she told Lindsay. “It makes me believe in them a little bit more.”

“I totally believe in them,” said Lindsay.

“What I need,” Nicola told Lindsay, “is a sign.”