Nina Runs Away

Mom holds the family’s dog on her lap. Her daughter Nina is jealous and feels she doesn’t belong. She teases the dog and Mom scolds her. Nina is cross and goes out of the house, and she ignores her worried mother’s calls. While she is wandering around outside, all alone, she meets different kinds of folks: a girl with a parrot on her shoulder, a man carrying two suitcases, and two women who may be somebody’s grandmothers.

Nina asks them if they love her. Their replies are vague and insincere, and do not satisfy her. Nina doesn’t believe what they say and she is not nice to them, and even a little rude. But in the end, all’s well. Nina comes across a teddy bear that was once hers, and she remembers she’d given it up when it lost one of its ears. She realizes that her mom isn’t perfect. The teddy bear tells her: “Whoever is abandoned always finds their way home,” and Nina remembers where there are people who love her. When she gets home, her mother is cross, but affirms her eternal love for Nina, and this time Nina believes her.