Skye is 5 when she first meets Grant Ward.
She is sitting on the grass, back against the fence. Tears rolls down her face as she recalls the circumstances which brought her here.
The Millers had fostered her for 3 weeks before they decided she was too much trouble. She had tried her best to be good, following their every instruction, keeping her room as neat as it could be. But as always, something happened. the first week she was there, Skye was reaching up on the counter for her glass of juice.
She was too short to see over the counter, but if she stood on her tiptoes she could reach to the top of the counter. She fumbled around for a few seconds before she felt the cool touch of glass. She stretched a little farther and wrapped her fingers around the rim of the glass and pulled. The glass was heavier than she anticipated and she pulled a little harder. The glass moved an inch, she pulled harder. All of a sudden, the glass moved, fast. Skye was startled and was too slow to catch the falling glass. The cup flew over the edge of the counter and made contact with the floor. With a crash, it broke into a million pieces.
Skye stared in shock at the shattered glass. She heard the running of feet down the stairs and Mrs. Millers gasp of shock. They ran toward her, Mr Miller scooping his arms around the little girl, while Mrs. Miller searched for the broom.
"Mary! What did you do?" Skye looked at Mr. Miller hesitantly,
"I wanted some juice. I didn't want to wake you." Mrs. Miller grumbled from her position from the floor,
"How many times have I told you, you have to ask to get things."
"I'm sorry."
The next week when she stretches out on the couch after a nap, she accidentally pushes a vase off the coffee table. This time Mr. Miller just gives her a disapproving look. Skye wishes he would hold her like he did the first time. Instead he sends her to her room. Mrs. Miller brings her dinner later on, telling her she has to be more careful. Skye promises she will, they're a very nice family and she wants to stay with them.
The straw that breaks the camels back happens on a Saturday. Skye is sitting in the den, watching the shows the Millers had set up for her on the computer. She goes to reach for her cup of juice when she accidentally knocks it over. She watches in horror as the liquid moves over the desk and flows over the edge, on top of the computer hard drive. The box starts to smoke and the video cuts out on the screen. Skye hesitates for a second before running to the kitchen and grabbing the spool of paper towels.
When she makes it back to the den, she's surprised to see Mr. Miller already there, looking at the smoking hard drive. He looks up when she walks in and Skye recognizes the look of anger in his features.
She's back in the orphanage the next day.
Skye sniffles at the memory, seeing the Millers drive out of the driveway, and the nuns walking her back in. A voice breaks her thoughts,
"Hello?"
Skye freezes. She doesn't recognize the voice. She stands up and moves closer to the fence,
"H-hello? Is anyone there?"
She hears a movement and the voice again, closer this time,
"Are you okay? I heard you sniffling." The movement stops, "Were you crying?"
Skye doesn't answer. She's embarrassed that someone heard her crying. The voice comes again,
"I'm Grant. What's your name?" She considers which name to tell him, the ones the nuns gave her, or the one she gave herself. She finally decides,
"Skye."
They continue talking for a few minutes more. Without realizing it, Skye begins to relax, focusing on the voice through the fence. She tells him about the Millers, and how they returned her. She frowns when she hears Sister Agatha calling to her from inside. She calls back and stands up, wiping the grass off her shorts. She pauses for a moment,
"I have to go. It was good meeting you Grant." She barely hears Grant respond before she's heading back inside.
A month passes and Skye promptly forgets the voice through the fence. She's playing kickball with the older boys when she kicks it too hard and it sails over the fence. Liam is the first to turn nasty,
"Good going Mary! Look what you did! This is why you can't play with us! Now we have to get Sister Nancy to go over and ask for the ball." Skye tries to apologize, but nothing seems to pacify the boy. He pushes her to the ground and strides away, his friends following along. She can feel tears prick at her eyes. She crosses her legs in defeat.
A noise behind her catches her attention. She turns and gasps, the ball had been thrown back over the fence.
"Grant?"
"Hey Skye!" he responds brightly
"Did you hear all that?" For some reason, Grant always seems to appear in her most embarrassing moments.
"Yea. Why is he so mean?" Theres so many reasons Skye thinks, but theres one reason that stick out the most,
"He's just mad that the Miller's had chosen me over him in the first place." She hears Grant snort in laughter. She immediately becomes defensive,
"Why are you laughing?"
"They picked you, brought you back and still didn't pick him. I think that's pretty funny." Skye considers it for a moment, even with all her misfortune, she was still better off then the bully Liam. She starts to giggle. Then she starts to chuckle, and soon she and Grant are both laughing themselves silly. She stands for a moment, reveling in her happiness. It seemed too short when the nuns called for the end of playtime. The sadness returns to her chest,
"I guess it's time to go."
"I'll talk to tomorrow then!"
"Tomorrow?
"Yea! Playtime tomorrow! This part of the fence. I'll be waiting." Skye wasn't sure. She was only 5, yet she knew people didn't always keep their promises,
"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow." She turns back to the house, still not convinced Grant would be there in the morning.
The next morning she approaches the fence warily.
"Grant?"
"Hey Skye! So I was thinking, instead of talking through the fence, we could maybe talk face to face!" Skye scoffs in disbelief. The fence was like 10 feet tall! How was she supposed to see him?
"That's impossible. The holes in the fence are too small to see through and I'm not tall enough to see over the fence!" The response was immediate,
"Is there a chair that you can maybe stand on, one that maybe the nuns wouldn't mind you getting dirty?" Skye has to think for a moment. The nuns were usually pretty strict about having feet on the chairs. She thinks back to an incident where one of the kids had spilled a glass of cranberry juice on one of the dinner chairs. She didn't think they had thrown it away.
"Mayyybe, hold on, let me go check." She runs off to the side of the house, just under the eves, and spots the chair, the red stain still bright on the cushion. She struggles with the chair and drags it back over to the fence. "Found one! Now what?"
"Stand on it and see if you can look over." Skye climbs on the chair. To her disappointment, the top of the fence was still quite a ways away.
"I still can't see!"
"How far are you from the top?"
"Still kinda far."
"Okay. Do you know if the nuns keep around any old crates or boxes that they wont miss?" Skye climbs down from the chair and thinks carefully for a moment. She remembers seeing a pile of thick books in one of the storage closets, something called a 'phone book.' She runs off again. The storage closet proves to be more than useful. She finds several thick books as well as a taller chair, which she mentions to Grant as she remakes her tower. She finally climbs on and finds himself face to face with a little boy.
He has short black hair, and creamy brown eyes. She's taken aback by the excitement in his eyes. She flashes a smile at him, which he quickly returns accompanied by his outstretched hand.
"Hello, I'm Grant! Nice to finally meet you." She returns the gesture and reintroduces herself. She takes a second to look at his yard. It was manicured and basically empty, a stark contrast to the filled yard behind her.
"So this is what the other side looks like," Grant comments. She shrugs,
"Yea. It's not much. At least the older kids are in school."
The noise behind Skye seems to fade away as Grant talks. He tells her about his brothers, Cristian and Thomas, and begins to tell her how he once punched a teacher. Their conversation was interrupted by Sister Agatha,
"MARY SUE! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" Skye turns at the mention of her given name. She watches the plump nun rush to her. She's suddenly lifted up off her tower, and placed firmly on the ground, "Mary! What are you doing! You could've fallen and hurt yourself! Who would want to adopt a broken child!" A pang of sadness enters Skye's chest, and she casts her eyes down in shame.
"I was talking to my friend Grant." she whispers. Sister Agatha then turns her attention to Grant and gives him a warning. Skye sees his head disappear from the top of the fence, and Sister Agatha kneels, leveling her face with Skye's,
"Mary, you cannot continue to misbehave. Parents want proper children like your friend Grant, not rule breakers like you. Let's get you inside and cleaned up." Sister Agatha grabs the girls hand and leads her back into the house, calling for the end of playtime. Skye can hear the grumbles of children, upset that their time was cut short. When they enter back into the orphanage, the sisters rush her into the bath. She can hear them whisper about the boy in the backyard. The guilt of getting Grant in trouble settles in her chest.
The next day she finds him waiting at their spot. She begins to apologize profusely for getting him in trouble, but he will hear none of it.
"It's okay Skye! I can deal with a big scary nun." Skye still feels guilty, but doesn't say so. Grant pipes up again, "Yesterday I saw a little spot behind one of the trees. Do you think that the chair could maybe fit behind there?"
"I can try it. But Grant, do you really want to risk getting in trouble again?" Skye asks,
"I've got nothing better to do!" Grant replies enthusiastically. Skye investigated the area briefly, and found that if positioned correctly, she could actually slip the chair between the trees. They take a moment to move their operations, and when Grant's head popped up on his side of the fence again, Skye couldn't hold in her grin. They exchange pleasantries once more before Skye asks the one question thats been burning in her mind,
"So about that teacher you punched...tell me more!"
When Skye settled into bed later that night, she can't help but smile, as she thinks about the boy next door, she drifts off to sleep.
This is a sequel to my story Over the Fence. You should be able to read this independently. For those of you who have read the story, you'll notice a lot of overlap, but as the story progresses, there will be more to Skye's story than just Grant and a lot more original material and stories.
Please Rate and Review. Let me know what you think should happen.
-Alex