If there is one way to describe her it's to say that she had the oldest eyes that I had ever seen on a girl so young.
   Blue eyes with the hint of green and grey. Mysterious at times too. With the look of trying desperately to hide guilt or shame. She seemed to have been hiding something at least.
   Yet, when you talked with her, she was almost like an open book. Only there were a few parts you'd skip because you didn't think that that information was vital to the story of her life. And she would allow you to. Those parts were ones she didn't like talking about, they were the ones that she tried so hard to hide from everyone. Including herself.
   Which was what made her so different from all the other kids her age. The parts that everyone would skip were the parts that made her… her.
   I met her when…

   "Diana, I want you to meet my niece. Keron, meet Diana Hanson. Diana, meet Keron O'Connor." Mrs. O'Connor stated warmly as she introduced the two.
   The three were out on Mrs. O'Connor's porch, in the late afternoon of a late summer and early fall day.
   Diana looked over the young girl perceptively. "Hi, how are you?" She asked kindly as she extended her hand.
   Keron looked up at her from her gaze on the floor. "I'm fine." She said softly, giving a brief almost sad-like smile. "And how are you doing, Misses Hanson?" She questioned, her eyes softening to a gentle kindness as she shook her hand with a strong grip.
   "I'm doing very well, thank you." Diana responded as she continued to look this girl, in front of her, over.
   The girl noticed that she was being inspected, and Diana stopped. But Keron gave her another sad-like smile, and said nothing. As if being inspected and accessed was something that she had lived with for a very long time.
   "Where do you come from, Miss O'Connor?" Diana asked hesitantly. Unsure if she should be talking to this girl, after being caught observing her.
   Keron gave her a brighter smile to encourage the conversation ahead more. "I'm from Oklahoma City actually."
   Diana's face showed relief at how the conversation was flowing smoothly. "So you've only come here to see your aunt?"
   Her face clouded over, but only for a second, before the familiar smile crossed over her lips. She shrugged her shoulders gently. "Not specifically." She admitted slowly, not willing to give the specific details of why she was here. "It was a combination of reasons actually."
   She gave a soft sigh when she saw Diana waiting for more, "I just went through some tough times with my folks and family, I just started home-schooling, and my aunt needed someone with her while Uncle Mark is away on his business trips." She explained carefully.
   "Oh." Diana said nodding her head, understanding what she meant. "So what do you do in your spare time then when Margaret is busy."
   She laughed lightly then. A new smile appeared. This wasn't quite sad or strained, but more sheepish and excited. "I read and I write. That's basically it. I mean, besides talking with Aunt Margaret."
   "She's also addicted to that small idiot box in Mark's den." Mrs. O'Connor said smiling happily at her two friends.
   Diana laughed also. "Ah, the computer. My sons are well addicted to that thing also." She stated. "Tell me what fascinates such young minds with sitting still for so long?" She asked Keron. "When they cannot seem to achieve it when getting their haircut, or in church, or in school?"
   Keron's smile was sad-like again. Taking on a childish quality now and again. "Well, you spend time talking with another person, without having to worry about if you're dressed right, if your hair is in the perfect place, or even if you're in the 'in crowd.' "
   She gave a soft dazed smile, "You're just who you are then. Just your own words coming from emotions. What could be better than that, other than having it actually in real life?"
   Diana and Margaret both stared at Keron. Surprise marking their older facial features.
   "Why do you think we can't have that in real life?" Mrs. O'Connor asked gently. She knew this was shaky ground with her niece. She had been told some of the "difficult times" she had had in her home.
   "That's not the real question to ask." Mrs. Hanson interjected. "The real question to ask is…" She started.
   "If we can have it in real life." Keron finished as she positioned herself comfortably between the two chairs the older women were sitting in.
   She hugged her knees to her chest. "That is what you were going to say, wasn't it, Misses Hanson?" She asked without looking over at her.
   Baffled, Mrs. Hanson stuttered out her reply. "Why y-yes. Yes, of course. How'd you know that?"
   Keron shrugged her shoulders yet once again. Her eyes focused on some faraway sight, that neither of the women could have seen. "It will never happen in real life, Misses Hanson. It's not possible."
   "And what makes you say that." Mrs. Hanson inquired as she leaned slightly forward. Becoming eager to hear this child's opinion.
   "Because each person raises their child differently. Some families have parent's that criticize their kids. Telling them that they have to be number-one, that they can't be losers. That, that family doesn't accept second place." Keron said distantly.
   "Other have their children sealed in a glass bubble. Making them live in some make-believe world where the harsh realities of life have yet touched." She was silent then. "There are some homes though," She started quietly. "Where the parents are there, yet don't seem to care. Where make believing that everything is all right means that it actually is. Then there's the homes where no one is home, and they don't bother with or care for their children."
   Diana looked over at her friend Margaret. Stunned by the outlook that this young girl had. She was about to comment when she saw the girl about to speak again.
   "There are some families too, who teach hypocrisy and abuse." She looked over at each of them then returned staring at nothing. "No matter how you look at it, people are much too different to just walk up to and accept. We as people accept what we see first. No matter how much we deny it, looks matter a great deal in this crazy world. It's a reflex, second nature."
   "We are basically bred into the sins of our parents. And then comes the tricky question of what is right and what is wrong? Because there's so many different religions and ways of life, the complete meaning has been lost. There's no longer any common ground basically."
   At that, Keron was silent on the matter. Feeling as though she had expressed her point to the hilt.
   "Do you think children can live better if brought up by psychiatrists and scientists then? Almost like puppets?" Mrs. O'Connor asked timidly.
   "You mean like lab-rats." She corrected dryly.
   Keron looked up for a moment at the pealing paint on the porch ceiling. "Everyone has a discrimination, a prejudice against of some-sort against something. And children live what they learn." Her shoulders sagged, "If a child is brought up with it, they usually take on the views as their own. That's what they learn, that's what they in turn believe."
   Mrs. Hanson, Mrs. O'Connor, and Keron sat in silence for almost thirty minutes straight. Each wrapped up in their own thoughts, and someone else's opinion.
   Soon it was time for Mrs. Hanson to go. "It was nice meeting you, Keron." She said respectively.
   "It was nice meeting you too, Misses Hanson. I hope we can sit and talk again sometime." She said as the same sad-like smile appeared once again on her lips.
   "I hope so too." Mrs. Hanson replied smiling. "By the way, just how old are you?" She asked as she inspected her looks again.
   She had the body of a frail teenage, yet the mind and eyes of someone thirty years her senior it seemed.
   "I'm sixteen, ma'am." She answered confidently.
   "That can't be right." Mrs. Hanson stated quickly. Surprised at such a small number.
   The same sad-like smile appeared. "It is, ma'am. I can assure you that much."
   Mrs. Hanson shook her head, and allowed her friend to walk her home, down the three houses. "That child cannot be sixteen, Margaret." She stated as confidently as Keron had stated her age.
   Mrs. O'Connor laughed. "Looks are deceiving, I know." She answered lightly. "But she is, and those are her own thoughts and opinions that you heard today."
   "Not even Ike, Tay, and Zac would want to go that far into an opinion with an adult." Mrs. Hanson explained as she shook her head slightly. Still awed by the girl's in-depth performance.
   "She's got the old eyes." Mrs. O'Connor said gently. "She just got them a few years ago. But she's got them. She went through some serious rough times up at her house." She admitted sadly.
   "My sister in-law and brother in-law didn't raise their children quite all that well. Mark and I are amazed at how Keron turned out." She confessed quietly before turning silent for a moment. "She's the baby of the family, you know?" She asked, but didn't expect an answer.
   An odd admiration sparked in her eyes and voice, "Keron, she won't accept help if she's been offered it. Likes to prove that she's strong." Again the silence weighed between her sentences.
   She stopped outside the gate to Diana's house. "Diana, Keron has to be number-one in her own eyes. She considers herself unworthy. So she presses herself always farther and faster, and has these unreachable goals that no one would ever ask of themselves. Or actually think that they could achieve." Her head shook. "She does that just to have a goal. Some way to prove to herself that she is worthy of something."
   "And then when she fails at them, she believes that what her family has always told her is true. That's she not worthy. That she'll never be good enough. That she'll never make it." Her head shook, "No matter what, she always seems to be losing."
   Diana watched as her friend struggled with finding more words. But she helped her out. "Like you said." She commented softly. "She's got the old eyes."
   Margaret nodded her head and hugged her dear friend tightly. "Come over tomorrow if you like to hear more from Keron."
   She gave a proud smile. "She'll talk up a storm on the right subjects. Bring the boys over too, if you think they can handle her." She added smiling now the same sad-like smile that matched the one that Keron wore almost continuously.
   Diana nodded her head also. "Will do, Margie." She said as she went inside, waving her friend off.
   Walking inside her house, Diana looked around. She stared at the pictures of her family. Each of her kids smiling brightly, something different lurking in each set of eyes.
   She smiled the infamous sad-like smile she witnessed so much of today when she saw that none of her kids had 'old eyes.' Her children were still kids.