Maggie, a student here, is obsessive-compulsive when it comes to her bed. She wants it to be clean. So clean. It must remain clean. Each night, after her shower, she goes right across the hall, changes quickly, and gets in bed before she has the chance to encounter any more dirt.
On Wednesday afternoon, people were coming in and out of the dorm, claiming their children and their children's clothes for the five-day holiday. One student's five-year-old sister, Sara, was running through the halls at this time. Sara has Down Syndrome, and she is the busiest kid I've ever met. She runs and runs. She runs to the edge of the stairs on the girls' hallway, looks around, then goes down the stairs and up to the boys' hall. She's tough to catch up with, and impossible to stop.
Maggie and a few other girls happened to be with me in my kitchen that afternoon, when Maggie's roommate came in, asking in Chinese who the little girl was. We told her, and she said, "She came into our room, looked around, and went to Maggie's bed. She moved all the covers, and left!"
Maggie bolted out of my kitchen to collect her sheets and blanket, and immediately did a load of laundry. Maggie's roommate stayed in the kitchen, looking puzzled. "I don't understand it," she said, "She just came in, went straight to Maggie's bed, then left. It's like she knew."
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