Chapter 1
Stupidity was never something that I had been acquainted with. Unfortunately, I was being forced to do just that in my pitiful position.
I remember when I was the smart kid. The straight-A student. I was the one who memorized the whole textbook, cover to cover. My hand and the air were best friends. Now, I can't even answer a damn riddle. Even UnAware children can outsmart me, a twelve year old. I'm Aware. I'm supposed to be smart.
At times, the frustration is overwhelming. Why should I, Jane, resident nerd, have to deal with this eternal struggle? Why must I cry my eyes out because of my sheer inadequacy? Why am I a failure? Of all the things, why did MY brain have to simply pack up and leave at a time when I needed it the most? My troubles have gotten to the point where I carry a pocket dictionary with me at all times. I like to keep the artifact on me as a constant reminder of the fact that I am no longer worthy of the title "Aware".
Alright, maybe that's just me being ungrateful and not acknowledging that I have clothes on my back, a roof over my head and food in my belly. Or maybe I just can't appreciate being Aware. Then again, all I ever really wanted was to be UnAware. The only kids at the Orphanage who are Aware are myself, and an over-nourished whale of a girl named Tammy. She likes to flap her gums a lot.
We were both sworn to secrecy. Or at least as much as toddlers could be. At Wammy's, being Aware meant that you knew exactly what the Orphanage was meant for. You would think that this is an honor, but I beg to differ. Being granted Awareness guaranteed you another Aware roommate. For me, that was Tammy.
Oh, joy.
The UnAwares are supposed to think of us as a completely different subspecies. We're the elite of the school. The alphas. The very best that Wammy's had to offer. Except we're not. It makes me wonder what they really must think of Tammy and I.
But there are far worse implications of having the Awareness. Being Aware could mean that your parents dumped you in this train wreck of a place before you could understand what goodbye really meant. It could mean they were a pair of idiot teenagers when you were dragged forcibly into this world. It could also mean that your mother's source of income is the sole reason that you exist. That you were an accident. That you were dropped off at Wammy's in a basket with no more than a short handwritten note saying that "Mummy was so sorry she had to do this" and that "you will understand soon enough". Most of all, being Aware meant that you weren't allowed to be adopted. A precious child like you, who knew far too much, could not be let out of Old Roger and Matron Avery's sights.
It meant that your destiny was set in stone. You were only worth enough to be the replacement for a coward who couldn't even show his face to the world. But now I couldn't even do that.
Old Roger and Mister Wammy routinely interrogate Tammy and me on what we want to be when we 'grow up' (not that we have much of a choice, anyways). Wammy would stroke his chin while harboring a twinkle in his eye. Roger'd always stare intently in the depths of your soul, gauging your intentions. Every time, stupid Tammy would roll her eyes upwards and think very hard (if it was even possible) and say, without skipping a beat, "L's successor, of course!".
L's the greatest, most elusive (not to mention faceless) detective in the world. He's the reason Wammy's exists; L is too valuable to cease existing after his death. That's also the original intention of Wammy's: to produce a successor. But the life of L is a very lonely one, and any L mustn't have emotional attachments. And so ensued the creation of Awares and UnAwares. Awares, children with no parents and no chance of adoption, are given the chance of possibly becoming the next L. UnAwares are allotted the privilege of adoption.
But Tammy's not quite the sharpest knife in the drawer. I know that, Roger knows that, and even Old Wammy, who seems a bit vacant upstairs, knows that. There's no way in hell she's becoming the next L.
As for myself, I aspire to be average, seeing as I'm now intellectually challenged. I'll get an average 9-5 job, marry an average man, live in an average house, have average children (2.6, no less), and die an average death, with my husband crying averagely over my average corpse and everything. The whole nine yards.
Something tells me that this is not what I really want. I guess what I really want is the be extraordinary. I want to be big, like L. I want everybody to know me. It's just that the justice system is a big snore. And let's not forget that any trace of intelligence left in me is long gone.
But it's not like those birdbrains that we call grown-ups would ever allow their stupid, unwanted, blissfully Aware, beloved little Jean to ever become anything other than L's successor. And seeing as Tammy's too dumb to function, I was their last, and only hope. My fate was set in stone.
I don't really understand why it had to be plain ol' ME to succeed L. Wammy's housed plenty of genii. I didn't really get why they couldn't just make a bunch of the honor students Aware and let Tammy and I sit on the back-burner for a while. When I voiced my rather reasonable concern to Matron Avery, however, it was immediately shot down. No words had to come out of her thin, pursed lips. All she did was shoot me a malevolent glare through her coke-bottle glasses and go right back to scratching away at what appeared to be a lengthy form.
"Miss Jane, it would be best if you left this instant. I am expecting company rather quickly, and you have no business here. You are to return to your dormitory and stay right there, as the 8:45 Aware curfew has almost dawned upon us." Matron Avery did not so much as glance up from her paperwork as she verbally shooed me out of her study.
I stayed rooted to my spot while indignantly crossing my arms and pouting my perpetually cracked lips.
"Matron Avery, I do believe that as an Aware, I reserve the right to demand equality within this institution that you run." I sat down in the pristine, dust-free chair that stood across from Avery's desk. I crossed my legs and began to examine my unkempt, plan fingernails.
"Miss Jane, you and I both know that there is a time and place for everything. These deman- pardon me- concerns are destined for a time that I am not frantically filling out paperwork for a New Arrival. It would be best for the both of us if I escorted you back to your dormitory, where you will retire to for the rest of the evening. Do I make myself clear?" Avery glared into my eyes with an intensity unmatched by the Night-crawler himself. She stood up, as if to reiterate once more that I had no choice but to follow her orders. I nodded.
"Very we-"There was a knock at the door. Matron Avery's eyes darted to the thick mahogany door and almost burned a hole through the damned thing. Without prying her eyes away from the source of her distress, Matron Avery hissed through clenched teeth, "Leave. I want you out of my sight immediately.
But there was nowhere for me to go, because Matron Avery's study only had one door. Avery seemed to come to this conclusion as well, so she turned to face me before roughly snatching me by the shoulders and shoving me under her desk.
"Not. One. Sound. Will. Leave. Those. Lips. Of. Yours," she spat, after exposing me to the evil eye.
I settled down, making myself as comfortable as possible. I'd never been out past curfew before!