Orphaned
The day started out normal. I woke up along with my five-year-old sister Edith and my other three-year-old sister Agnes. I was seven. We got dressed pretty quickly and raced each other downstairs to the kitchen, where Mom was making pancakes for breakfast. That was a big time family favorite. It was kind of a tradition; Mom would make the pancakes, Dad would set out a bunch of toppings, ranging from syrup or butter to chocolate ice cream or sprinkles. We never chose the same toppings two days in a row.
Today, I chose to go with just syrup and a little butter. Agnes had sprinkles and melted a chocolate bar on top. Edith went with whipped cream. Mom and Dad both had just butter. Mom was always really pretty, even early in the morning. She had bright blue eyes and her hair was a mix of brown and blonde. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a checkered apron. Dad had spiky black hair with brown eyes. He wore a black turtleneck with black jeans. But don't take him as emo or Goth. When I was born, I got Dad's eyes and Mom's brown hair. Edith and Agnes got Mom's eyes, Edith had Mom's blond hair, and Agnes got Dad's hair.
As we ate, Mom, as usual, started up the conversation. "So, what are we all doing today?"
"Well, it's Saturday, and I don't have work." Dad said. "Neither does Mom. So I say the girls should decide."
It was the day after school had gotten out. My sisters and I were excited to finally have more time to hang out with Mom and Dad, our two most favorite people in the world.
"Watch toonies!" little Agnes cried. She still didn't talk that much like an older girl.
"I wanna play in the fort!" Edith piped up.
"I'd like to make cookies." I offered.
"Nice choices." Mom said. She turned to Dad. "Honey, what do you think we should do? Cartoons, fort, or cookies?"
"All three!" Dad cried. "We can bake cookies first, watch cartoons while their baking, then take the cookies and go play in the fort!" Agnes, Edith, and I cheered, and Mom laughed.
So that's what we did. We all helped out in making chocolate chip peanut butter cookies. That was yet another family favorite. While the cookies were baking, like Dad had said, we watched a bunch of cartoons. Thank goodness Agnes had grown out of Dora and watched SpongeBob now. We laughed a lot until we heard the beeper from the oven. Mom, Agnes and I got up and opened the oven. The smell of fresh cookies overwhelmed my senses, but in a good way. Mom walked across the kitchen to get some oven mitts, but then I saw Agnes reach for a cookie. I almost stopped her, but then she pulled her hand back sharply, screeching like a banshee. In a heartbeat, we were all crowded around her.
"Honey?" Mom was really worried. "Agnes, where does it hurt?"
Agnes, with all the strength a three-year-old could muster, stopped crying and pointed to her wrist. We looked and saw a red burn mark.
"She must've burned herself when she reached for a cookie." I guessed. Agnes nodded, tears flowing down her cheeks again. While Mom got the cookies out of the oven, Dad picked up Agnes and helped her run water on her burn. Then he sat down with little Agnes on his lap. Then Edith came over and offered Agnes a fresh cookie, which she took gratefully. With further searching, I realized Edith had pulled a chair over to the rack that held the cookies.
Once the burning incident was over and we all got a few cookies, we went to the fort. The fort was a tree house in our backyard. Mom and Dad stayed inside while we played. The tree house was pretty big, and it was divided into three sections for me and my sisters. Agnes' section had a bunch of rainbows and unicorn stuff. Edith had a bunch of pink things, but mostly pictures of guns, even a few wooden ones she had made. My section was decked out with purple and a teddy bear named Chance.
The three of us played for a few hours before Mom and Dad called us in for lunch. Sandwiches and cookies, as usual. About halfway thru lunch, the phone rang. Mom got up and answered it.
"Jones residence, Mary speaking." Mom said. There was a garble from the other end. I listened intently as I ate. "Yes, she is….sure, give me a second." Mom turned to me. "Margo, the phone's for you." I wiped my mouth with a napkin and walked over, taking the phone.
"Yes?" I asked into the phone.
"Hi Margo." A voice said on the other line.
I almost groaned. It was Max from next door. The little creep was always pestering me and my sisters. "What do you want, Maxwell?"
"I hate that name!" Max yelled. "Anyways, what has two legs, four eyes, and mud for hair?"
"Gee, I'm not sure." I said sarcastically. I knew he was talking about me. "What has bottle blond hair, white teeth, and a soon-to-be black eye?"
"Whatever!" Max said. "Gosh, I don't know how your parents live with you and your sisters. You guys are so-" I hung up before he could finish. Max was probably the cruelest, meanest kid on the block. He was always saying he felt sorry for my parents that they had me, Agnes, and Edith for kids.
"Jerk." I muttered as I sat down.
"Let me guess." Dad said. "It was Max."
"I swear I'm gonna shoot that freak with a freeze ray or something!" Edith growled.
"What have I always told you girls?" Mom sighed. "Just ignore him."
"Do you hear what he says to us?" I demanded.
"Meanie Max." Agnes agreed.
"Well, why don't you forget about Meanie Max?" Dad suggested. "And how about we go to the movies? Maybe even out to dinner?"
Everyone perked up. Dad pulled out his laptop and we crowded around it, looking at movies. It took a long time to decide, but finally agreed on one movie in a theater close to town. So we changed quickly and piled into the car. It took about a half hour to drive to the theater, get the tickets and snacks, and find seats. The movie had long since started, but all we missed were the previews. The movie was about an hour and a half, but it was hilarious! Then we went to a cool restaurant for dinner, and my sisters and I got milkshakes with our meals.
You can imagine that we were pretty tired when we got home, and it was pretty dark. So Mom and Dad helped us dress in our pajamas and tucked us in.
Dad noticed that I was looking a bit glum. "Still thinking about Max?"
"What if he's right?" I wondered. "I feel like a joke to our family."
"Margo, don't you ever think that." Dad ordered gently. "You don't know how lucky you are to have a family at all. Don't think about what Max said. Remember that you'll always have a family that will always love you." Dad kissed my forehead, and then he and Mom went off to bed. So I fell into a happy and peaceful sleep.
It didn't last long.
I woke up sometime later, smelling the heavy stench of smoke in the air and feeling my eyes burning. I coughed as I sat up, and I found my room in flames!
Immediately, I hopped out of bed and ran down the hall to Agnes and Edith's rooms. I found Edith already awake and huddled in her closet. I pulled her along as I grabbed Agnes from her bed. She was trembling in my arms as I pounded on Mom and Dad's door. Fortunately, they were already partially awake, and they came out of their smoke filled room, coughing.
"The entire house is on fire!" Mom told us. "We have to get out of here!" Dad took my hand and Mom scooped up Edith as we ran down the flaming inferno that used to be our hallway. We stumbled down the stairs and kept going, and I saw that Dad was leading us out the back door. But flaming planks of wood blocked our way, so we did a U-turn and went towards the front.
Suddenly, a bunch of wood finally fell, separating me, Dad, and Agnes from Mom and Edith. Mom gave Edith to my dad. "Take the girls and go! I'll find another way!"
"Stay here, I'll come back!" Dad ordered. He picked up Edith and we all ran outside, where firefighters and an ambulance were waiting. Firefighters desperately tried to extinguish the flames, and one of them came over to take Edith from Dad's arms.
Then, Dad ran back into the house!
"Dad, come back!" I cried.
"I'm going back for your mother!" Dad called. And he disappeared.
The next half hour was a blur to me. I remember the flames being put out and my parents being pulled out of the house by some paramedics. I heard people talking, one of them saying that a cigarette had been tossed on some grass and it was still alight. That had to be the cause of this.
But I heard one thing that made my blood run cold.
"The poor kids' parents are dead…."
No….
I held Agnes in one arm and held Edith's hand with the other as I pushed thru the crowd towards my parents. I saw them on stretchers, and I managed to get a look at them.
You know how you look at a dead person and it just looks like they're sleeping? Well, not this time. My parents looked dead. So that had to mean they were dead.
I pulled my sisters away and the three of us ran away without anyone noticing. We hid out in our tree house, which wasn't even touched by the flames. The three of us decided to sleep there the rest of the night and figure out what we'd do the next morning. So we did, and when Edith and Agnes asked me what happened to Mom and Dad, I had to tell them the truth, and that they were in a better place. They didn't fully understand. They're so young!
Eventually, I managed to make them understand that we couldn't go back to the house.
"So, where do we go?" Edith asked.
"Perkins?" Agnes suggested.
I thought about it. Mr. Perkins was a close family friend; he'd be more than happy to take us in. "But we don't know where he lives."
Edith's face fell. "Then what do we do?"
What could we do? We had some spare clothes up here in the tree house, and right now we were in out singed pajamas. Someone might come looking for us. I had to make sure my sisters were safe. But we can't go to an orphanage. At least, not to just any orphanage. That idiot Max has an adoptive sister, and she came from a place called Miss Hattie's Home for Girls.
No, we can't go to any orphanage at all. They'd separate us. Nobody would adopt all three of us.
"Margo?" Edith asked timidly. "What do we do?"
I sighed. "We can't hide out here forever, so we'll have to run away. We can surely find someone who knows Mr. Perkins and tell us where he lives. So let's pack up." Agnes, Edith and I kept small suitcases up in the tree house and started packing. We changed pretty quickly into our spare clothes and packed our pajamas. We also each packed a blanket and our piggy bank. Edith brought her wooden gun and Agnes packed her plush unicorn. We didn't pack that much because the suitcases were small, but Edith revealed that she had stashed some of the cookies we made yesterday in the tree house, and I stashed those into my bag. Then the three of us climbed down and started out. But first, I went back into the burned house and found Mom and Dad's wallets. The cookies weren't gonna last us that long, so I thought our parents wouldn't mind if we took some of their money to pay for food. Unfortunately, I only found a few bucks in Dad's wallet and a five in Mom's. Altogether, about eight bucks. Not much, but it'll get us thru for a while.
So we began our trip. We didn't really know where to go, but I knew Mr. Perkins worked at a bank, so I got directions from a lady watering her garden to the nearest bank. When we got there, some adults gave us strange looks. I guess they thought we were street kids. I walked up to the nearest clerk that was available, Edith and Agnes right beside me.
"Uh….hi…."I said, peeking over the high counter. The man behind the desk had a nice enough face, and an even nicer smile. He peered over the desk at us.
"How can I help you ladies?" he asked.
"We're looking for Mr. Perkins." I said. "He's a close family friend, and we really need to talk to him."
The man gave me a weird look. "Perkins, huh? I'm sorry to say that there never was nor has there ever been a man named Perkins that worked for this bank."
"Oh." My heart sank. "Thanks anyway."
I led Edith and Agnes out of the bank and out onto the sidewalk. We did find many other banks besides that one, but we went thru the same routine every time. Many people had never heard of Mr. Perkins, and some people who did had the wrong person. One lady threatened to call our parents, and Edith had almost broken down into tears.
By the time the sun was setting, the three of us were on a bench in the park with nowhere to go. What else were we supposed to do? We couldn't just wander around and ask every single person in town if they knew Mr. Perkins. We may never find him.
"Margo….." Agnes whimpered. "I wanna go home."
"We can't." I explained sadly. "There's nothing left for us."
"Can we have a cookie?" she asked. I dug the cookies out of my bag and gave each of us one. We ate in silence, and I noticed Agnes was shivering when she was done.
"Maybe we should get to sleep." I suggested.
"Here?" Edith was shocked.
"Where else?" I demanded. I pulled out my blanket, which was the biggest one, and covered the three of us in it. Then, we fell into an uneasy sleep for the night.
The next morning, we started walking around, not really sure where to go. We stopped by a fast food place for breakfast, but that basically left us with only a few dollars left. I was really starting to get worried now, seeing how we had nowhere to go. We passed by a bank we hadn't checked, so we tried one last time.
"I must say I've never heard of a Mr. Perkins." The lady said behind the counter. "I can't help you." At that point, I gave up. "Where are your parents?"
There was no one else there except for her, me and my sisters, so I told her the whole story.
"Oh." The lady seemed a bit overwhelmed. "I truly am sorry." She sighed at our sad looks. "Listen, I don't want you girls growing up on the streets with no one to take care of you." She started typing something on her computer, and then printed out a few sheets of paper. "Here; they're directions to Miss Hattie's Home for Girls. I think you'd be happier and safer there."
"Is it an orphanage?" Edith asked.
"Yes."
"Then we can't go." Edith said. "We can't be separated."
"Then tell Miss Hattie that." The lady said. "She'll understand." For once, things were actually working out. The three of us thanked the lady and followed the directions to a large brick building covered in chalk drawings. We walked in and a house cleaner led us to the lobby. We found a blue room with a bunch of photos and a large lady behind a large desk. We walked up and peered over the desk.
"Uh…"I started to say something, but the lady cut me off.
"Stand behind the line, please." She said curtly. Edith, Agnes and I looked down and obeyed, seeing a black and yellow striped line. "I'm Miss Hattie. How can I help you three girls?"
"Our parents died in a house fire." I explained. "We need a place to stay until someone can adopt us."
"Well, you've come to the right place." Miss Hattie said. She seemed very bored.
"But, there is a condition." I added. "The three of us refuse to be separated. If someone wants one of us, they'll have to adopt all of us."
Miss Hattie sneered. "Do you know the odds of that happening?" But she noticed our determined faces. "You know what? I'll make you a deal: most of the money we get to support this place comes from selling cookies. Not all of the girls here sell cookies, but if the three of you work together and sell cookies as a group, you may stay here until someone adopts all three of you."
It seemed like a really good deal. Maybe someone would see us and adopt us. So we agreed, naturally. But after just one week, we saw how nasty Miss Hattie was. She had what was called the Box of Shame. Agnes, Edith and I spent a few days of our lives in there.
But it worked out. We got a room together and we were willing to wait for someone to adopt all three of us. A couple people came for Edith and a couple came for Agnes. One set of nice people came for them both. But they didn't want all three of us. Soon, I realized that I might not get adopted, which means I'd be keeping Agnes and Edith from a good home. It was about two years after we had come to the orphanage, and I decided to talk to them about it.
"We're not leaving you." Edith said firmly.
"You got us here." Agnes added. "You'll get us out."
I smiled, thinking I had two of the best sisters around. We spent another year at the orphanage before we were all adopted.
We didn't find out until later that we had been adopted by a weird Russian bald guy with a pointed nose and was apparently a villain.
STAR STAR STAR STAR STAR
"I am not weird!" Gru cried.
I laughed. "You were weird when we first met."
"Whatever." Gru sighed. "I can't believe that happened to you."
"Yeah." I sighed. "Edith and Agnes don't remember much, but that fire burned itself into my memory."
Gru stared down into his cocoa cup. I sipped mine. After waking up screaming from a nightmare, Gru had brought me into the kitchen and had his minion Dave make us cocoa. It was pretty good.
"You know, if you think about it, you kind of did get you and your sisters out of the orphanage." Gru told me. "I mean, if you hadn't come to my door, I wouldn't have remembered who you were."
"But then you saw us deliver cookies to Vector and decided to use us for your nefarious plans." I added.
"I know." Gru grumbled. "And it ended with you being sent back." He groaned. "That was the biggest mistake of my life."
I smiled. "But you came back. And you did save my life." I gulped down the rest of my cocoa. "Thanks…for everything." I gave him a hug and Dave the minion escorted me back to my room.
I think Mom and Dad would be happy with where we are. Maybe a bit surprised, but happy. Gru was teaching Edith how to use his ray guns, but nothing good can come from that. Agnes is happy as a clam with Gru as her daddy. And I'm like the mom of the house, keeping my sisters out of trouble.
Overall, it was a pretty good life.