to the Sunshine Nursery School That made her feel happy and proud Still even though she was happy most of the time it seemed as if rarely a day went by without at least a few tears running down Elisa’s cheeks She’s a crybaby grumbled Russell Everyone cries sometimes said his mother I cried when I watched a sad movie on television last night And just yesterday you cried when you broke the model of the dinosaur that you were building Yeah Russell admitted reluctantly But Elisa cries all the time Elisa cried when she discovered that her favorite red shirt was in the laundry and she couldn’t wear it to school Elisa cried when the box of cereal was empty
and she had to have toast for breakfast instead She cried when she fell in the playground and she cried when her balloon broke at the zoo Elisa cried when Russell found a nickel on the sidewalk and she didn’t Crybaby Crybaby Elisa is a crybaby taunted Russell Russell’s words always made Elisa cry even more She didn’t like it when Russell teased her Stop said Mrs Michaels When you were her age you had awful tantrums that Russell What are tantrums Elisa wanted to know Tantrums are loud crying and kicking and yelling They are not very nice Neither Russell nor Elisa could
remember the tantrums I don’t believe it said Russell You’re just making it up Elisa said her mother if you can’t wear your red shirt today it means you can wear it tomorrow If the cereal is all gone it means I will be buying a big new box of it Elisa blew her nose and nodded her head She knew her mother was right It was silly to cry about her red shirt But sometimes she couldn’t help it The tears just popped out of her eyes And whenever they did Russell teased her Crybaby Crybaby he would say It always made Elisa cry even harder Sometimes when Elisa was home from nursery school she liked to look at the family photo album It was filled with
many many pictures Elisa liked to see pictures of Russell when he was a baby It was hard to imagine that her big brother had once been so small She tried to imagine what it was like when Russell had one of his tantrums There were many pictures of Elisa too Where is my hair she asked pointing to one of her pictures You were bald for a long time said Mrs Michaels laughing Elisa ran her fingers through her hair and tried to remember what it felt like to be bald She could not remember it at all As she turned the pages Elisa found it interesting to see the changes Gradually she had grown hair and gotten bigger Russell had gotten bigger too The newer pictures looked more and more the way
