What a little angel she isWhisper the Jewish Sunday-school ladies behind gloved handsAs I flounce down the hallAll dressed up in my blue silk party dress, the one with the frills on the bottomAnother gift from Daddy’s friends in ChicagoA special dress for a special girl like youMy proud parents beam with pride when I stand behind the microphone in the school auditorium:Oh, say can you see . . .?The only first-grader allowed up on stageWhat good manners she hasThe waitress at the diner smiles over the counter at me when I ask for a strawThese are the three keys—thank you, you’re welcome, and may I pleaseHands pressed together firmly each Yom KippurOh God and Father, creator of Heaven and Earth, I penitently acknowledge my sins . . .I can’t bear to tell a lie, come home crying if I doMommy, Mommy, I was the one who took the last cookie from the jar!I wish that God made more little girls like you, sighs the mother of Jack Davidson, who got expelled from my school for punching a kid in the stomachWould you care for a cupcake?No, thank you. My mother says it has too much sugar.Want a bag of chips?No, thank you. My mother says they have no nutritional value.I come home proud and happy from schoolThe blinding red A-plus in the corner of my drawing too hard not to noticeHave you ever thought of putting your daughter in the gifted class?Time for the school playI stand in the wings in my blue-and-white-checked dress, dark hair twisted into two neat braidsAll ready to go on, dance my way down the yellow-brick roadSomewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of, once in a lullaby . . .How talented she is! Everybody tells meBut “Nothing gold can stay,” my mother recites every time someone tells me I’m an angel,Shakes her head and glances sadly out at the setting sun,Puffy white clouds fading away into the dusk.Straight out of Heaven.