Disclaimer: Cherub was invented by Robert Muchamore, I'm just borrowing his idea for a while, Sarah and any other original characters belong to me.
Summary: All she ever wanted was to prove them wrong to show them that she had a future, that she could make something of her life. But things never turn out quite how we imagine them. This is Sarah's story.
Carrington Lancashire April 20th 2005
Sarah Hill seated herself at the battered white MDF desk in her room, it matched the cheap white wardrobe and draws that stood on the opposite wall to the white metal bedstead. She stared at the page of her exercise book, she had a new English teacher, the old one had gone to have a baby leaving her with Miss Fitzpatric and a rather bizarre English assignment. Fitzpatric wanted them to write down their aims in life.
Sarah had aims, and dreams, however she knew that most of the children who attended her High School did not. The school was located in one of the roughest areas of town and got some of the worst marks in the country. Sarah did not want to be there but as a resident of Sunny Hill children's home she had no choice. However Sarah liked school and she did well, she had come top of the year 7 Christmas exam, by 50 and she had better things to do tonight that stare at a blank page in her workbook, she started to write.
My Aims in Life by Sarah HillMy first Aim in life is to get out of care, I want to get a job and earn a decent wage. When I was 7 my older brother killed my parents and tried to kill me, in my case he failed. He did it because he said that no one on this estate got anywhere they all failed, it was better to kill me before I fail too.
But I am not going to fail, I will prove it to them all.
When I finish school I will go to college and then join the Army they pay well and sort you out with a house that way I can give something back to the country, to the people who helped me.
I remember before my Grandma died she always used to tell me to hold onto my dreams and not let them go, don't let go…
As she wrote Sarah's mind drifted, away from the bedroom with the faded yellow walls in the grey block that was Sunny Hill. Her mind drifted past the roaring motorway that ran by her bedroom window and away from the drudgery of a school where most students couldn't even be bothered to turn up yet alone work.
The ring of a bell brought her back to earth, the completed essay took up 5 pages in her exercise book, more than enough to fill the 250 words required. Setting her book and pen into the cheap black backpack she set off down the musty smelling pink corridor to the dinning room to get her tea.
The dinning room walls where painted lime green with an orange border and the tilled floor was always sticky despite the fact it was mopped regularly. Sarah queued up at the hatch with her plate, it was no different than school diners, the same catering company supplied the food and people dressed in identical blue Aprons with the county catering logo printed on served it.
Sarah got a burned sausage, a scoop of what was supposed to be mashed potatoes and boiled carrots for her tea, dessert was the usual, a bruised apple or an overripe banana. The general consensus in the home was that Jamie Oliver should be killed, since his TV series there had been no chips, cake, or chocolate in the home. Still it was food and she was hungry. Always tall for her age Sarah had dark brown shoulder length hair and rich hazel eyes. She was not the sort of girl who was stunningly pretty, but neither was she what the lads around the home refereed to as minging. She was solidly built but skinny enough that people never mistake her for being fat and she was fairly active.
Just as she was scooping up the last of her mashed potatoes a commotion broke out near the door.
"Looks like another new kid" Mark a short tubby 10-year-old remarked his mouth stuffed with carrots.
"Wonder what crimes they committed to get stuck in here" Ben his equally tubby mate replied.
"Or what crimes their family committed" Sarah remarked
"Eh?" Mark replied his mouth now full of banana.
"Well look at us all," Sarah explained. " Mark's parents where drug dealers, Ben your Dad was a car thief, mine where killed when my brother blew their brains out, now he's on life without parole, most the kids here are here because their parents are crooks, them that aren't get moved to foster homes or Spring meadow." The boys looked at her thoughtfully.
"That's true, wish I could go to Spring Meadow, that place is sorted, they've got PC's and everything. Ben remarked, Spring Meadow was the other children's home in the nicer part of the town and the local council's flagship in its child welfare reforms. It was where the nice kids got sent or the high profile cases, kids who'd been rescued from abusive parents or those who went to good schools, not kids of council estates like Sarah and her friends.
The new kid walked over to their table, he looked to be about 12 with black hair that flopped into pale blue eyes. He looked like the sort of person who did a lot of sport and as he sat down at the table he looked like the prospect of eating the food appealed to him about as much as the idea of rolling in dog dirt.
"Hi I'm Craig" he said with a hint of an Irish accent. "Do you mind if I sit here?" he asked.
"No it's fine, be my guest." Sarah told him.
"Be my guest, you speak pretty posh for someone living in this dump," Craig told her grinning as she turned scarlet.
"All them books she reads," Ben told him. "Hundreds of them, brings them back from the library all the time."
"Really, what sort of things do you like?" Craig asked, he sounded interested which made a change from people laughing at her.
"Um all sorts, I like Lord of the Rings the best, I'm starting on the Silmarillion now but It's pretty heavy going." She told him still a bit pink.
"Wow, I must say I'm impressed, my brother is 15 and a bit of a Rings nut but even he balked at the idea of reading that." Craig told her with a grin.
"Well yeah, listen, they take us swimming on Tuesday nights if you want to come, the pools not much but it beats sitting around here." Sarah told him eager to steer the conversation away from her literary endeavours.
"Cool, is this one of those, reforming the childcare system things the counsel are big on at the moment? He asked.
"Yeah, I'm taking advantage whilst it lasts, those two normally come as well" she said nodding to Mark and Ben, "we just lark around and have a laugh, swim a few lengths with a few of the others there's about 10 of us that go." She told him, Tuesday was one of her favourite nights of the week.
"Sounds good, when do we leave?" he asked.
"7pm, we meet by the main doors, a couple of the carers take us down in the minibus." She told him.
"See you at 7 then, what did you say your name was again?" He asked.
"I didn't" she laughed " It's Sarah, Sarah Hill, This is mark and Ben" she pointed them out to him.
"I'll see you at 7 then." He told her jogging off.
Sarah dumped the plates back on the dish pile and headed off to her room to get her swimming things.
