Legacies of Olympus
Narrator.
Life in an orphanage is not fun. No one knows that better than Lucas and his younger brother Casper. They have been in six different orphanages in seven years. By the way Lucas, is seventeen and Casper, he's only thirteen. Their mother passed away ten years ago, they were on the streets for three years when someone from the government placed them in their first orphange. Casper has ADHD so he is always getting into trouble and then Lucas gets into trouble when he tries to get him out of trouble. But despite everything Lucas loves him, plus he promised their mom that he would always protect Casper no matter what. Their mom never spoke much about Lucas' father, she only said he dissapeared after Lucas was born and Casper had a different Dad with the same story. Which was funny because Lucas could't remember much about Caspers Dad. True he was only four but he always thought he should have some memory of the mom was beautiful: she had blonde hair and emerald green eyes, she was tall and slender, with a loving smile and friendly face, her eyes were creased with laugh lines and she was always happy, from what Lucas could remember. Then she got sick and they couldn't afford the treatments that their mom needed. Lucas could telll she was getting worse but she never stopped smiling. Finally on the night she died, she handed Lucas and engraved dagger that had belonged to one of her distant ancestors, she never got chance to say which one she just said that he would know what to do when the time came but after seven years of evil social workers and horrible care kids he was starting to wonder when that time might be.
What makes these care homes worse is the way they deal with Caspers anger issues and out bursts, they lock him in a room with no meals until he calms down, of course it never works and normaly he just breaks the door down or punches holes in the wall damaging his hands in the process. Lucas is usually the one that deals with broken knuckles. Casper was in isolation now so Lucas was sat listening to Casper punch the walls. However Lucas' thoughts were else where, his dyslexia had been playing on his mind because his mthers dagger had an engravement on it that Lucas had never deciphered, his dyslexia just wouldn't allow it.
"Are you gonna help me or not?" Casper cried from the locked room. Lucas smiled to himself.
"You know, if you hadn't of thrown that egg at Matthew you wouldn't be in there." Lucas heard Casper growl .
"He threw bacon at me first..." Lucas smiled.
"Still..."
"Lucas." Casper whined. Lucas sighed.
"Fine let me get Ralph."
Ralph had been the boys best friend since they arrived at this orphanage. He was 21 and on crutches but he was a great friend and always stuck up for the boys.
"I told you he'd get stuck in that room again you owe me 5 bucks. Lucas laughed and handed him the $5.
Ralph pulled out two pins he kept in his left crutch and started picking the lock. Five minutes passeed and finally the lock clicked and the door flung open an unimpressed looking Casper was stood on the other was stood on the other side
on the other side. Lucas couldn't help but smile at his baby brother.
"How your knuckles feeling?"
"I'd tell you, if there was any feeling there."
Lucas rolled his eyes, what was he going to do with him.
"Come on lets get you fixed up before lunch. Thanks Ralph." He patted his friend on the back as he walked past. Lucas had always admired Ralph. He was a good person who'd survived in this hell hole for 15 years and had come back to work here after he left at the age of 18. The one thing Lucas never understood though was that Ralph always wore a baseball cap, no matter the weather and whenever Lucas asked about that or his crutches Ralph would just cahnge the subject. Lucas wrapped caspers knuckles in bandages humming to himself as he did so.
"You always hum that same tune." The statement caught Lucas off guard.
"And, it's afree country."
"And, I recognise it I just don't know where from." Lucas sighed to himself. He finished wrapping his brothers knuckles and turned to face him.
"You recognise the tune because when mom was alive she used to sing us to sleep, I don't remember all the lyrics but the tune stuck. You were so young when she passed Casper barely 3."
"I miss her Lucas."
"I know buddy I do too. But mom wouldn't want us to be sad, she'd want us to go down stairs and have lunch." Both boys laughed before heading down to lunch.