A window at the side of the sewing room was open and a cool wind had swooped in closing the door.
I went over and closed the window then hurried out of the room.
I strolled down the dim hall passing the two closed doors on my right and the wall that enclosed the second staircase on my left. I stopped at a floor to ceiling bookshelf at the end of the hall. A huge ragged scrapbook caught my eye and I lifted it and started leafing through it expecting to find more wedding announcements but instead it was a collection of old newspaper clippings on newsworthy events. I don't remember what they all were, but one was about two prisoners that had escaped from the prison farm a couple miles down the road. That happened a long time ago so it didn't interest me much. The item that really caught my attention was the story the first successful sex change of a man transformed into a woman that took place in Switzerland. It was almost more than my young mind could comprehend. I couldn't believe that the beautiful woman that posed in the pictures was actually a man, or had been a man.
I turned so I would have better light from the window and something suddenly lodged against my back feeling like a gun barrel. I froze not knowing whether to drop the book and throw my arms in the air or to scream and run.
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