Nursery Terror

She was small made, black oily hair tied into a bun at the back of her head, fixed in place with a metallic thing, not a hair clip more like a clothes pin. She had a big, round black mole just where her right ear met her cheek. We at the nursery nicknamed her Mousey. Mousey was the caretaker/ baby sitter/whatever odd jobs people used her for. I remember she also opened and locked our playroom when the tall man was on leave.Of course there was one more reason she was called that apart from the attributes of her stature. She had a weakness for our snack containers. Mine was one among her favorites. Mousey was a terror in terms of her glaring eyes and her ability to shift from a smile to a sneer.

She would smile at me when the teacher was around, she would smile when someone came to take me home. She would sneer when she saw me helplessly watch her eat my snack. She would devour my snack box exactly at ten in the morning especially if it contained chocolate covered nuts. To me those were moments of agony watching her take my choco nuts one by one, lick them, smile to herself as I imagined them melt in her and then sneer at me for watching her so. She would sit beside me and when the nuns passed by she would coax me to eat the nuts as if I was refusing to eat. I do not know why I never complained against her. I loved food, to me it meant great pain to see someone devour what I loved.  I would watch her take them one by one between her two dark skinned thin fingers, look both sides of the corridor and then there went them down her guts. I remember her eyes scared me especially when she sneered. I felt a strange terror as she sat beside and pretended to coax me to eat my snack while I watched her mouse on my snack. She did threaten to pierce my eyes if I reported it. I was not afraid because then I had this strange idea that my eyes were balls of fire from heaven.I do not know what it was, I just never wanted anyone to know my choco nuts were being eaten away by someone with me watching them being eaten.