(I do not own House Of Anubis or it's characters. I just own my .)
The woman looked around her bedroom. Her baby slept happily in a cradle right next to her bed. Her husband snored softly beside her. She looked at her child and thought of how she'd been treated.
The happily sleeping little girl wriggled a little.
The woman smiled softly at her baby. She longed to reach out, pick her child up and cuddle it. She remembered her life before she left home.
She got a little look in her eye as she felt every little infliction of pain.
*A little one year old child sat eating a cake. She'd been given it as a treat. She wasn't used to luxuries like cakes.
She dropped one tiny crumb. It landed in her mother's carpet. Instantly, her cake was snatched away and she was smacked.
Two firm hands she knew to belong to her father lifted her roughly and threw her into the cellar. Without a word, the tall and hardened man left his shaking daughter in the dark.
She sat there, in the dark, crying. She knew that the cellar was infested with spiders and mice and cockroaches. She hated them, they scared her. She longed to be older, to be free.
At the age of six, she was finally let out. She'd been given a small meal and mug of water every day, enough to keep her alive. She'd only had her little dress to keep her warm. The lack of light made her smaller than ever, her body smaller than her head and her face so small and her eyes massive.
Her parents fed her and watered her and let her have sunlight. She spent a few years happily out in the back garden, not knowing children at all, just her parents.
She grew into a teenager, healthy and beautiful. Her parents let her walk around in the garden with them. Nobody remembered the child that had once lived there. To her parents, as much care as they showed her, she was a shameful secret.
At the age of thirteen, she was a curious creature and wanted to know more. She slipped out of her home one night, roaming the streets. She found an all night store. While there, she bought herself a packet of crisps and a bottle of cola. She found them strange, not knowing what they were.
She found a strange little thing with odd shapes printed in lines and a bright front. She went and paid for them, with the money she'd been saving from when she'd lost her milk teeth.
The assistant watched her as she tried to work out what to do with her new purchases. He though it strange that a teenager didn't know how to open a packet or unscrew a lid or how to read.
He asked her if she needed help. The girl nodded and watched in amazement as he pulled open the packet and unscrewed her cola. She was so happy, she hugged him, repeating "Thank you" over and over.
Then a new attack of curiosity came over her and she politely asked what the nice shapes were in the book. He taught her the alphabet, teaching her simple things, making her glow happily. She was a thing he'd never seen before.
He asked her what she did know. She smiled.
"The sun is hot and the moon is cold. These crunchy things are nice and this fizzy thing is nice. I like this thingy, but I don't know what it is."
She pointed to the book.
The shop assistant wondered at her.
"Who teaches you, child?" He asked, wondering why she knew so little.
"A lady and a man. I live in their house. I don't really understand why and they tell me that I don't need to know things, but I like knowing."
The assistant thought that she wasn't getting any education.
"How old are you?" He asked.
The girl was confused. "I'm not sure. I don't understand what you mean. I think I might be not very old but not too young."
"Well, are you over fourteen?" He asked her.
"What's that?" She asked, looking around.
"A number." He replied, patient with her.
"What are those?" She asked, her eyes light with excitement and curiosity. "Are they like those pretty things in that song? Like A and B and C?"
"Sort of. Numbers are infinite. Look at your hands. You have ten fingers." He told her.
She looked but struggled trying to comprehend.
He counted them with her. Then he taught her numbers to fifty. It made her happy to learn. She caught his lessons quickly.
Eventually, she could count to fifty in French, Italian and Spanish, repeat the alphabet forwards and backwards and she could read. It stunned the shopkeeper that she could be so slow at first then learn so quickly.
She loved learning and she couldn't get enough. She sang a little song he taught her and was amazed by her singing. That was something she had a natural talent for.
He said "Most girls already know lots. What do you know about colours?"
She smiled. "I know that the sky is pretty and the sun is bright. I know that the sea is sparkly and dark at night." He heard her say it as if she was reciting poetry.
When she went home, she was very proud of herself and she was very grateful to the shopkeeper. She'd given him the rest of her money as a thank you gift for teaching her so much.
Her parents weren't so pleased. They heard her stumble through a few simple sentences in her book and they felt a little bit of pride in their child, for the first time since she was born.
They thought their child wouldn't cry if she was held, but she did, a lot.
After that, they'd hurt her just so she wouldn't cry. When she told them she'd eaten something crunchy and wonderful that the shopkeeper had called crisps and drank something fizzy and delicious that he'd called cola, they went mad.
They locked their child in the cellar and left her there. She dug around in the dark until she found a candle and some matches.
She lit the candle and read by the light. She enjoyed her book so much, she read it repeatedly. Then she dug up some paper and ink. She grabbed a knife and some wood and worked out how to fashion a pointy part on her stick. Then she set to working on her own little story, chewing her lip as she focused.
When her parents came for her, she showed them all her paper, decorated beautifully with special handwriting. She'd written a story about a young girl who spends her life in the cellar, thinking of how her parents were always so sweet and loving, locking her up when she'd been bad.
It ended in her parents lifting her up and cuddling her, telling her that she was special.
Her parents were touched that she'd written it and asked her how she'd learnt to write.
She smiled at them. "My book told me how to read and I let my hand make words with the stick thingy and the gold water."
They looked at the gold ended pen she'd made and the now empty bottle of gold ink. They looked at their teenage daughter, proud of her. They sat down and hugged her.
She had it alright at that moment. And she was happy.
Though not too long later, she accidentally spilled her ink. It stained her carpet. Her parents found it out and they hit her. A lot. The poor girl cried and told them it'd been an accident, she'd fallen asleep.
She snuggled up to them, resting against them. She was only four feet, two inches in height and she was stick thin, even for a girl of fourteen.
They didn't have the heart to hit her more, not while she was innocently lying there, on their laps.
She was a nightmare to them sometimes, but she was their child and they really did love her.*
A baby cried and woke her mother from her memories.
The woman carefully lifted her child and let her feed. The baby snuffled and pressed closer to her mother. The happy woman smiled at her baby, feeling love toward the child.
Her husband woke and sat up, hugging his wife. She smiled up at him too.
"Look, baby girl, it's Dada. Dada's up." She cooed, stroking her baby's fuzzy little cheek.
The proud father looked at his daughter. "Hey, little one."
The little baby sucked more milk, watching her parents cautiously.
Willow, Alfie and their baby Plum. It'd been a fun decision to name their daughter Plum.
Willow vowed her child would never grow up in the way Willow herself had been raised.