She was a little girl of about 9 years old, that's the age when she started to become aware of all the things going on around her but she still didn't understand most of them.

She combed her hair in the mornings when she left her house, but no adult supervised her so her hair was done badly. Apparently no one in her family cared.

She also did not like to bathe. She spent the day in the backyard, running around with her brothers, jumping logs, climbing the fruit trees she loved so much, she spent her day having fun, but no one forced her to take a bath, that's how she decided not to take a bath to go to school.

So she went to school with a bad hairdo and without taking a bath, and that didn't bother her in the least. Nobody told her that she had to brush her teeth. She was 9 years old and never brushed her teeth, she had beautiful teeth, by this I mean that her teeth were all complete, she had no cavities even though she didn't brush or take care of them and her teeth were all in a perfect line.

It was at this age that she was introduced to bullying. In her classroom everyone started to make fun of her physique and the way she was. She was 9 years old and didn't know how to socialize and didn't have any friends, at home no one allowed her to be friends with people outside her family group.

But one day, once she was having a conversation with a boy he asked her… 

“Why do you have dirty teeth?”

Why didn't she brush her teeth? And the child's astonishment was very great. But she didn't want to be exposed and all she could say to her credit was.....

I just had lunch and I was told to take a message to someone.

While she was waiting for the answer to the message the child approached her. This was the first time she had ever heard someone talk about brushing their teeth.

When the little girl got home she asked her mother what it that whole brushing their teeth thing was. That's when her mother told her what she should have said that to her when she was a very little girl, but she didn’t for some reason and she hated her mother for it. She hated her because her mother never told her that people should brush their teeth every day.

She didn't say anything back to her mother then, but inside she was just saying to herself…

Why not tell me anything while I was growing up?

...Why didn't I ever notice my dirty teeth until that child told me?

...How many other things I should know that no one has told me?

 The girl grew up and never realized that she had to comb her hair after being away from home, or at least comb her hair again while she was at school. Or at any rate have one of those things that grab long hair and hold it in place. Her hair was long and unkempt, it was also easy prey for lice so at school she got lice very easily.

Her mother was very angry because she often had to wash and brush her hair in search of these insects, since they were always nesting in her hair.

Her mother had a “foolproof” method and that was to put cockroach repellant on her head and leave it on for an hour.

That was supposed to kill the bugs… and in the process almost killed the girl. It was the most horrible thing to have on her scalp. She felt a fire burning that was getting stronger and stronger and she hated her mother for it. It was the worst way she knew how to get rid of scalp parasites.

But it was worse to know that she had some things walking around her head and taking her blood through their bite.

The little girl never knew she had her hair disheveled at school because no one told her and she didn't look in a mirror to see how disheveled she looked.

She realized when she was older that she found a friend. That friend told her that she had seen her pass by her house many times, when she saw her pass by, it was after school and she always looked at her disheveled. It was at that moment that she noticed that someone noticed her dirty teeth and, that same someone, also noticed her uncombed hair.

How embarrassed she felt, now she was an adult who wore make-up on her face. She combed her hair a lot and brushed her teeth several times a day. But the memory of knowing that as a child she did not bathe, brush her teeth or comb her hair gave her a feeling of abandonment.

Why didn't her parents or siblings ever talk to her?

Why did no one ever told her what she couldn't notice? They didn't even realize that because of this she was the target of many years of bullying by kids who did know things about life, things that are taught at home, things that should be said in the bosom of the home.

But now is a different time, she would never want to meet the children of her past and now that she is a teenager she has to tell herself that they remember her as the chubby little girl who didn't bathe, didn't brush her teeth and didn't comb her hair.

This is a fictional story, that could have really happened.

I'm @gert13 from Venezuela.