My sister and I grew up poor. Our clothes were old, patched, and too small. At school, we were easy targets—laughed at, whispered about, ignored. Mum couldn’t afford new clothes. She barely managed to put food on the table.
But in literature class, we were different.
Books were our world, our escape. We read everything we could find, sometimes by candlelight when the electricity was cut. We memorized poems, shared quotes, and lived in stories.
One day, our teacher announced a regional literature competition. She chose us to represent the school.
Laughter erupted. “Them? In those clothes?”
Ms. Andreeva stood tall. “You’re laughing for nothing,” she said. “They read more than all of you put together.”
We didn’t win, but we came close. And we never forgot her words.
Now we live in different metropolises, with full lives and full closets. But we still carry her voice with us—proof that belief can be louder than ridicule.