"Mama" Eponine said quietly in a voice laced with anxiousness.
"What" responded her mother harshly, finances in the tavern were bad and it looked as if they would have to leave and head for the Parisian slums.
"Mama, where is Gavroche?"
"I don't know what you are talking about Eponine, now go, you are in the way"
"Mama, where is Gavroche?" Eponine asked again, louder this time.
"Really Eponine, I don't know what you are talking about and you are starting to get on my nerves, now go away and leave me alone"
Before she could ask again her mother ran off and left Eponine alone with her thoughts. It had been over a week since she saw her brother, ever since her father left with him on a trip to Paris and returned alone. Gavroche was smart but he often would get so entrenched in a thought or idea he would forget what was going on around him, and after all he was only four. He needed her. She tried to think about something else, she went into the corner and played with the rag doll that the girl Cosette had left when she disappeared with a rich man three years ago. Not long after her father walked in the door, slamming it loudly behind him.
"Papa" Eponine said in a loud excited tone as she ran over to him
"What do you want?" he asked gruffly as he looked at the floor besides her, he didn't look at her any more. She longed for a loving embrace from the father that joked around with her as he swindled customers; she longed for her old father back but it seemed that he left along with Cosette.
"Where is Gavroche?"
"Gavroche? I don't know what you mean" he started to walk away, but Eponine was not having any more of this, she needed answers. She stomped her foot and asked again loudly,
"WHERE IS MY BROTHER!?"
Her father turned around then and walked towards her quickly raising his hand, Eponine did not flinch or back away, she stood her ground, she needed to know where her brother had gone. Her father stood in front of her and looked her in the eyes for the first time in weeks before slapping her across the face with a blow so hard it knocked her to the ground and responding with an answer just as loud and powerful, "YOU HAVE NO BROTHER!"