The little girl with the matches (Addicted to drugs)

This story recounts the experiences of a 14-year-old girl living in poverty. She and an older boy try to survive together, but their situation worsens when she becomes addicted to drugs.

The old man was drunk and in a bad mood. The girl knew this all too well. She just tried to stay out of his way. Yesterday had been her birthday. She was now fourteen, but that hadn't changed anything.

Nevertheless, she had gone home that day, hoping to find a surprise waiting for her. But there was only her father, lying smelly and asleep on the dirty sofa. After her mother died, social services had snooped around for a while, but her aunt, who lived in the same building, kept an eye on father and daughter.

Back then, her father still had a job and earned quite well. After school, she would go to her aunt's to eat, do her homework, and play outside or in the flat until her father came home. He didn't really know what to do with her, as he had never cared much for the little girl. Her mother had looked after her until she fell ill. Things didn't get any better for her until she was admitted to hospital more frequently, and didn't come home again.

Things went well with her aunt until she fell ill too and rarely left her flat. Now, the child did the laundry and cleaned the flat as best she could. He didn't really notice. He came home later and later, often drunk. The girl was usually already in bed because she had to go to school the next day. At some point, he stopped going to work and was fired.

He spent days on end swearing and sitting in the pub with his friends. When his daughter spoke to him, he snapped at her and sometimes slapped her. He used to give her a certain amount of money each week for shopping. He paid her aunt, who still did the cooking, separately. However, as money had become tight, he only gave her money when she asked. Never enough, because he needed to spend a lot on himself and his friends at the pub.

The girl got into trouble at school because her clothes were clean but old and threadbare. Some pupils found that reason enough to pick on her, and it got pretty bad over time. Eventually, she stopped crying. Besides, there was no one she could tell anyway. She learned to fight back and began to enjoy it. Now, when she wasn't looking, there was whispering and sniffing. Her bony fists had made sure of that.

Her grades worsened because she started provoking teachers and disrupting lessons. The same classmates who had previously excluded her thought it was great when she picked a fight with a teacher. Suddenly, she was somebody, and people made way for her. The giggles of her peers when she gave cheeky answers and experimented with her newfound power on the unfortunate individuals at the front of the class were the only recognition she needed. Letters came home, but she usually intercepted them in time. Her father never bothered to go to the letterbox, but he did once get his hands on a letter.

He beat her black and blue. Even before that, she hadn't been going to school every day. Now, she was missing school more and more often. The youth welfare office had been in touch, but she made sure that letter disappeared too. Going home was out of the question because she had Kai now. He had approached her while she was loitering outside a shop, trying to steal a shirt from one of the street stalls. She was nervous, but she desperately needed something to wear, as she didn't go home very often anymore. The salesman hissed in her ear: 'Get lost, girl. You're attracting attention.'

She walked on, but after a while, someone tugged at her hair from behind. It was the same boy, grinning broadly as he held out the shirt she had been eyeing up. 'You haven't been with the gang long, have you?', he said. From that day on, they spent almost every day together. Kai told her things that made her realise that her previous life was not as bad as she had thought. Kai had been living on the streets for three years and was now seventeen. He didn't want anything from her, he just wanted to be her friend. She hadn't experienced anything like that in a long time. In fact, she had forgotten that such a thing even existed.

He knew lots of places to sleep and showed her every dilapidated house and sheltered passageway he knew of. The most important thing, he said, was not to sleep in the same place too often. Together, they begged for money outside department stores and collected bottles. At first, the girl went home more often to bathe or get food, but then her house had its electricity cut off. She couldn't find her things anymore, he had probably thrown everything away. In the cold room, all she could hear was the man snoring. She snuck out of the flat before he woke up. Outside, she threw her key into the drain – that was goodbye.

The wonderful summer had turned into autumn, and she was always cold. This was partly because she wasn't eating enough, and partly because Kai had revealed the reason behind his behaviour when they met late at night occasionally. He stole other things too, which he sold to get money for his 'ticket', as he called it. At first, she was afraid of the drug. She didn't even want to try it. But Kai said it was pretty harmless.

Recently, he had needed a ticket more often, and eventually she had joined in. It made you not feel hungry, or at least you didn't really notice. Above all, it made everything seem far away. Kai and the drugs helped the girl get through autumn and into early winter that year. She forgot a lot. Once, Kai asked her for her mother's name, but she could only just remember it.

On her birthday, he gave her an extra ticket and a ring that he had 'bought' in his own way. Then he left with a grin, saying: 'See you later, you know where.' However, when she arrived at the cafeteria where they usually met after having scrounged enough money, Kai was nowhere to be seen. She stayed there until she was shooed away, ordered only a bottle of mineral water, which she held onto for two hours. Then she waited outside the shopping centre until it was completely dark.

She and Kai were always on the run from the police. If they were caught, they would certainly be separated. Kai would probably end up in a youth detention centre, while she would most likely be sent to a care home. Something had clearly gone wrong with Kai; otherwise, he would have come with her. When the sleet started, she shivered her way to an uninhabited house on the outskirts of town. There was a garden with a tool shed. Under a loose floorboard were the things they had stashed away: their tickets out of their awful lives.

The girl rummaged through her frayed rucksack for her blackened spoon and searched for her lighter. It didn't even give off a faint spark – it was completely useless! Panic rose within her, but then she found an almost full box of matches under the floorboard. With clenched teeth and ice-cold hands, she carefully opened the box, taking out one match at a time. She boiled her ticket in the spoon because she didn't have a candle.

She felt strangely warm, burned her fingertips and laughed. She wasn't afraid anymore. The train pulled away, taking her with it. Before falling asleep, she wondered why her breath hung in the air like a cloud in front of her, despite the warmth. She would sleep there tonight, and everything would be fine when she saw Kai again tomorrow. He would surely come. He would never abandon her. Everything would be fine.

A few days later, the city's daily newspapers reported that children playing had found the youngest drug victim in recent years, and that urgent action was needed to address the situation of homeless young people.

© 'The little girl with the matches (Addicted to drugs)': A short story by Pressenet (translated by Izabel Comati), 06/2025. The image shows a burning match, CC0 (Public Domain Licence).