Mathias was very mean. I was looking at the new margarítka that popped up on the far side of the lot near the lyútiky when Mathias came and stomped all over the margarítka . Why did he do that? The margarítka was not mean to him. Maybe it is because Mathias is just mean.

I tried to see if the margarítka was still okay, but it was all ripped. People shouldn't be mean to flowers. The flowers were my friends. None of the other kids on the street liked me because I was still not very good at English. We had only been in America for a few months. Katyusha had lots of friends, but that is because she is very outgoing. Natalya was still a baby, so she wouldn't have a bad time learning English. Papa said that America would be fun. He said that it would be warm and that I would make lots of new friends. Even though I had no real friends, I had the flowers (and that hamster that lives in the linen closet that I never told sister about).

"Hiya! What are you doing?" A boy's voice said. I looked up to see Alfred, one of the other kids. He was standing over me, looked curiously at the flowers.

"Mathias hurt the margarítka. I am sad."

"A margarita? That's not a margarita, that's a daisy!" Alfred pointed at the poor little flower. So it was called a daisy. English and Russian were very different.

"in my home, it is a margarítka." There were only eight petals on the ground, but the flower had fourteen before. Some must have stuck to Mathias's shoe.

"Mar-gah-reet-ka. Cool." He smiled at me, then pointed at the lyútiky. "What are these called? In English they're buttercups!"

"Lyútiky." I said. None of the other kids had ever asked me what the words for things were. They always wanted to hear me say things in English so that they could laugh at me. Although, it was pretty funny hearing Alfred try to speak Russian. I giggled as he tried to copy what I had said.

"Loo- lyoo- loot- ugh, this is hard!" Alfred pouted and nearly sat down on a patch of tyul'pany. I almost got angry at him (the flowers never did anything bad!), but I realized it was an accident. Alfred wasn't mean like Mathias.

"English is hard for me. I do not speak things right, so the other kids laugh." I buried my chin in my scarf. I hoped that Alfred would not laugh at me. I did not think that he would, but maybe he was only pretending to be nice.

Alfred sprung to his feet. "Which kids? Tell me and I'll beat 'me up! No one makes fun of my friend!" Friend? This was the first time we had talked. Were we really already friends? Was this how easy it was for sister?

Wait. Alfred said he was going to beat people up. That was not good. Papa and Katyusha both always say not to beat people up or be mean to them. Even if the other people were being mean, you had to be nice.

"Please do not hurt kids. Stay and play with me, da?" I grabbed his sleeve and pointed at the flowers behind him. "In Russian, they are tyul'pany." Alfred smiled.

Later, after I had learned about tulips, blue bells, gladioluses, daffodils, dahlias, and sunflowers (my favorite!), it was dark and Alfred had to go to dinner. But before he left, he gave me a whole daisy and promised to play with me again. I couldn't wait.