Girl With a Black Eye

I watch her sitting there, and I'm amazed that she can grin exultantly. It's clear she's just engaged in a horrendous fight, but on her rosy cheeks, there's not one tear. She looks to be about ten years of age, this girl with a black eye and bandaged knee. She sits alone outside the office of the principal just smiling, worry-free! She's wearing a disheveled white dress blouse, brown lace-up shoes, a blue and red plaid skirt, white socks that, pre-fight, must have come up to her knees. You know that shiner had to hurt! Who was the instigator of the brawl that caused this little girl with braided hair to wait for her chastisement by a man, bespectacled and stern? Will he be fair? I doubt she's bad! She must have been engaged in fisticuffs in self-defense. Her grin says "VICTORY!" What does the other kid who fought look like--the one who didn't win? *title of 1953 Norman Rockwell painting February 13, 2019, entered in Line Gauthier's Creativity in Visual Art Contest February 23, 2022 entered in Brian Strand's Visual Poetry Contest