Hello Katya. How are things? Hope it’s going fine. In my previous letter I promised you to write about the girls I socialize with. Today I had a word with Anna—I think, about the first time ever. Do you remember I wrote that she comes from a really wealthy family? Well, you can see that at once, because she’s always dressed to kill. I’m not fond of this style, but I have to own up: one can tell from her outfit that it costs a helluva lot of money. Her stepmother sends her the dough every month, just to keep her away from home. I wonder what’s so bad she’s done. There’s not much of an opportunity to spend money here in school, but she goes shopping in town. However much she has bought, she always has spare money, so she pays for her friends’ purchases when we go out somewhere on Saturdays. She buys tons of things, I’ve seen her once when she was choosing shoes. Shopping seems to be the only activity she enjoys. She’s gotten so packed with clothes and bags that she doesn’t have any spare room to stuff them into. The director allowed her to use an old closed classroom as a wardrobe. By the way, there’s a school legend that a girl hanged herself in there several years ago. Bullshit, I know. Anna lets the girls borrow any of her clothes and then lets them keep them. Because of that, nearly all girls think she’s a friend of theirs, while she told me calmly that she doesn’t have any friends down here. As a matter of fact, you know, we talked for two hours and then I realized that I had told her everything, while she’d told me almost nothing. I bet she’s more smart and sly than she seems.

Cristina