Where the Sun Sets
Chapter 4
Josephine found it difficult adjusting to the strictness of St.
Agnes. She was not used to rules and regulations. The single fact that
there was no television anywhere on the campus baffled her. She spent
weeks searching for one. Antonia on the other hand, was always reading,
so having nothing else to do didn't bother her at all. Josephine was
constantly bored and found the fact that her friend did not share her
boredom, aggravated her to no end. So she started to entertain herself.
She took things from the other girl's rooms and hid them throughout the
buildings, just for fun. After about a month the game got old, for
Josephine as well as everyone involved. Antonia, being the poor girl who
never owned anything, was repeatedly blamed and punished for the
disappearances. She was banned from interacting with anyone for a week.
She had to eat alone and study alone. She was not permitted to go to
classes and had to sit in the maintenance building while she did her school
work. She also had to sleep in the infirmary.
When Josephine asked her why she didn't deny taking anything, Antonia
would simply say that she knew she did not do it and that was all that
mattered to her. But Josephine didn't like being without Antonia. She
grew angry and thought that Antonia took the punishment, just to hurt her.
Sister Katherine seemed to have a bitter taste in her mouth for
Antonia. She was harder on Antonia than she was with any other child.
Everyone saw the dislike. Everyone it seemed, but Antonia. She never
seemed to notice. She never seemed to care.
Sister Katherine would randomly pick a girl and make her stand and
recite passages from the bible. If the girl did not know the passage, word
for word, Sister Katherine would make her write it one hundred times. Once
she had Antonia in her sights, she never asked anyone else. But Antonia
never slipped up. She had read the bible, front to back. It was what she
did. She read. She read everything. So on the day that Sister Katherine
requested she recite a specific passage, in Latin, Antonia stunned the
whole class by obeying perfectly. Sister Ursula sat off in the corner of
the room, smiling proudly to herself. Sister Katherine was furious. She
accused Antonia of trying to humiliate her in front of the class. For
punishment she was made to kneel on a cane pole, in the front of the class,
for the remainder of the school day.
Together, Josephine's antics and Sister Katherine's hostility made
daily life a puzzle for Antonia. She never knew what each new day would
hold for her. But by the time the girls had completed their first year,
Sister Ursula had decided to put an end to all of it.
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