Louise Newton Keogh

He would help you.

So follow Jesus, do what he asked you to do, be good, and Jesus would solve everything.

So I thought, oh, cool.

So if I'm really good, if I am really, really good, then Jesus will listen and he will answer my prayers and my mum will be fine and my dad won't drink and this was what I thought I would do.

So I made it, my mission was to be good.

The goodest kid that ever was.

And the trouble with that is I didn't actually know how to do that because I was a pretty good kid anyway.

So I thought there were three things.

One was my times tables, which was another big deal in grade three.

So I went out of my way to learn them.

I spent every night before I went to sleep reciting from 2-2s to 12-12s and back again.

And the other one was I did the dishes without complaining, even when it was not my turn.

Felt really proud.

And the other one was not fighting with my brother and sisters.

And that was hard because once they cottoned on to what I was doing, they absolutely went out of their way to make me crack.

It's like, let's see if we can make the angel crack this time.

So that was hard, but I persevered.

Didn't seem to help, but then came the glory day when it was our feast day and the whole school was given rosary beads.

The entire school.

And apparently they were blessed by the Pope himself.