Revenge of the Little Match Girl
     
     By Paul Genesse
     
     The little girl shuddered as a gust of freezing wind blasted through her thin apron where she carried the bundles of matches. Tall men in thick coats jostled past her in their rush to get home.
     
     “Only a penny a bundle.” She held up the matches as the men hurried to see their families on the last evening of the year—New Year’s Eve. Carriages raced home in the muddy streets. No one even gave her a second glance as her fair hair became white with snowflakes. She brushed the snow from her brow with fingers that had started to go numb, wishing dearly she owned a scarf or a bonnet.
     
     After wandering in the cold she took shelter beneath the awning of a shop, which gave her some small protection from the falling snow. Darkness would come soon and she asked a man who came out of the doorway if he wanted to buy some matches.
     
     “Get away from my shop, you filthy wretch.” The merchant raised his fat fist to strike her and she bolted into the muddy street. Her heavy clogs slowed her down, as they had been her mother’s and were twice the size of her tiny feet.
     
     A carriage thundered toward her, the driver’s uncaring eyes locked onto hers. He barreled ahead and the little girl ran for the other side of the road. Another carriage came at her from the opposite direction. Horses’ hooves pounded and sloshed through the mud as the wheels cut ominous furrows.
     
     One of her clogs became stuck in the mud. The carriages sped toward her. She slipped out of the shoe and staggered through the frigid mud as fast as she could. The other clog fell off and a bundle of matches slipped out of her apron and into the street as she dove onto the sidewalk.
     
     The carriage ran over the matches and one of her shoes, pressing her lost items deep below the muddy street. She started to reach for the lone clog still above the surface when a boy with cruel eyes snatched it up and danced away with a mocking grin.
     
     “Steal shoes that fit next time, you stupid little girl.” He scraped the mud off and flung it at her. The mud hit her in the face. She could barely feel the sting on her numb cheeks. She wanted to tell him the shoe belonged to her mother, but he wouldn’t care. No one listened to her anyway.
     
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