Birthday

"Happy birthday" Emi smiled at me when I woke up in the morning and put a paper bag on my bed.
 "I remembered that we didn't celebrate your twelfth birthday three days ago, so I brought you a cake and a present".
The piece of chocolate cake that Emi brought was very sweet but good. So that I wouldn't need to walk around in that hospital shirt all the time, Emi found me some clothes in the storage room next to the dining room, where we all went for meals and where, in addition to bed linen, there were various clothes on hangers and in boxes, donated by people or brought from evacuation centers and underground shelters.
After opening the bag, I found a big white t-shirt with a picture of a falling goat, gray-green shorts with pockets and black sneakers with dark socks, it was a bit loose on me but it was better than the shirt that was tied at the back and most importantly I could wear it even normally outside in the hospital yard.

The next day after breakfast, I immediately went out to walk around the yard in new clothes and see how it looks in the area of the former monastery where the hospital was located, I wasn't very fast with my crutches, but it was easy to walk on the paved sidewalks and I didn't have to rush anywhere because there were still a few hours left until lunch. 
Even after all these decades, the monastery garden was still maintained, and as Emi told me in the morning at breakfast, the religious sisters have here again to these days, just like the religious brothers for centuries, their own vineyard and orchards with several fields where they grow their own fruit and vegetables, they sell wine to the entire region and thus earn money for the operation of the hospital and the church where they live.
During the walk, I met a lot of other girls from other rooms in the hospital as well as other religious sisters, and I found out that the whole complex is located on a small island surrounded by two branches of the river, which, according to one of the religious sisters I met after lunch in front of the monastery library, was called Vratka.

I spent the rest of the week walking around the hospital grounds and the monastery gardens, so I didn't need crutches at the end of it. During the weekend, even though it was nice, I lay in books and textbooks because I had to go to school with the others during the next week to repeat what we remember from our original schools and learn how the world looks today after the great disaster that, as Emi told me, almost wiped out all of Europe and destroyed most of the major cities and metropolises around the world.
I liked going to school, but back then it looked different than it does today, several girls in the dining hall said that it was terrible and that they didn't want to sit in class for 8 hours every day, and that after school we would still have some exercises so they would knowwhat job could we do after we are 15 years old.
For the rest of the day, I tried not to think about it because it was very strange, from what I knew, you always started working like that at the age of 18 and here they will want it so soon, I don't know what will happen to me when some former classmates told me during sports lessons and on trips that I am lazy as louse.