I've had to repost this as doesn't seem to want to put up the name of Briar's sponsor. Both times it is typed in this chapter did not show up, weird. So I had to delete it and repost it, so enjoy ^_^
"Hurry up, my arms are about to break." I heard Sebastian complain from underneath me.
"Shut up, I'm not that heavy." I snapped back at him. He was just being antagonistic, as usual. I was currently attempting to break into the school office. Sebastian and I both attended Belleview Private Academy. I was an orphan with an anonymous sponsor, and he was an openly gay teenager whose upper middle-class parents were embarrassed by him. His open femininity coupled with my strange "abilities" made us outcasts, we bonded from the moment we met (three years ago when we were twelve) and now were inseparable. He was my family – the only person in the world I cared about. Not that I knew that many people in the world. I'd attended a private elementary school before this one and when I was twelve I joined this school. I knew I was an orphan; that much had been made clear to me. The identity of my sponsor (sponsor being the one who paid my extortionate tuition fees and paid money into a bank account each month for my leisure) was however not disclosed with me. If they had just left it at that, I might have left it alone, but the headmistress – Mrs Rawlings, an evil bird-looking woman – had told me that the sponsor had specifically asked to remain anonymous, which just piqued my curiosity. Why would they go to the trouble of spending so much money on me without telling me who they were? Sebastian thought I should just accept the fact that I had a very comfortable lifestyle, and that my only metaphorical family was him. Of course, when I suggested breaking into the office he had rolled his eyes in that way that told me he was thinking I was insane (a regular occurrence) but had supported me 100% like he usually did.
"All of the weight is in your mouth."
"Fuck you Seb." I laughed. I knew I was pretty rude to most people. No wonder, they were always making fun of me because they didn't understand me. Stupid people. Just because I was the strongest in our gym class even though I was very small and elfin-looking wasn't THAT weird was it? Or that when I got angry somehow my canine teeth extended. I remember the time I was kissing Justin Krauser behind the greenhouses and that had happened. They seemed to get kind of sharp at the ends because I accidentally nipped his lip and there was blood. The smell of blood is strange to me. A lot of people say it's like rust, but it smells like a steak before it's cooked to me (hey, steaks are bloody before you cook them, it makes perfect sense). Anyway, I was so embarrassed I ran out of there. Afterwards his friends had told their friends and their friends had told their friends and soon everyone was joking that I must be some kind of vampire. Ridiculous, vampires didn't even exist, and even if they did, I could go out in the sunshine. Granted, when the sun was fully shining outside my very pale skin had a sort of glow to it. I thought it was just a healthy glow until Sebastian informed me that people who have a healthy glow generally are not the colour of pearls, as he said I was. I try not to think about these abilities most of the time, but I can't help it when I'm writing in class, concentrating on what I'm doing and the pen snaps in two. You would probably be amazed at how often that happens.
"Just swing your leg over; there should be a unit of some sort underneath." He boosted me up through the window and I threw my leg over, holding onto the thin wall as I did so. Just as well I was so tiny because this thin window wouldn't allow for any sort of curves. I landed as gracefully as a cat when I swung my other leg over the side. I frowned at this. I had professional ballerina grace without even trying. The only dance practice I got was when Sebastian and I snuck out of the school at weekends and went to clubs. We had fake IDs and I was very, very charming, so it was never a problem to get in although we were only fifteen. According to Sebastian I could sell sand to the Egyptians, I was so charming.
"Okay, hand me the flashlight." I whispered to Sebastian.
"Here you go." He held it up and I took it. "You'll probably be able to see it anyway." I couldn't see him because of the wall, but I could tell he was probably rolling his eyes right about now – he was jealous of my 20/20 vision and he had to wear contacts. I always joke that he rolls his eyes so often that his contacts will end up falling out. He glares at me when I say that, haha.
"What are you going to do if you get caught?"
"Pretend to sleepwalk of course."
"That's so lame." I muttered under my breath, laughing. I walked over to the filing cabinet which held student information. It was not locked; the office was locked so it didn't need to be. I was not in the habit of breaking into educational establishment offices, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and desperate was what I was at that moment in time. I had to know about my background, it killed me not knowing where I was from, who my parents were or who my mysterious sponsor was. I scanned the room quickly. It looks as Mrs Rawlings office always looked. All of the furniture was a light pine colour and the walls were neutral beige. Beige was among my least favourite colours. If you're going to paint something, why use a boring grandma-styled colour like beige? If anything you should use vibrant red or orange. Red was my favourite colour by far, I had little red streaks dyed in my shoulder length black curly hair. Curls are also among my least favourite hairstyle. More often than not, I just tied them up into bunch buns, which were wild and hanging out. I hated my hair, but Sebastian loved it. He could sit for hours playing with my hair and styling it, much to my annoyance. It couldn't be properly styled anyway. Okay, back to the task at hand. I opened the appropriate filing cabinet drawer, holding the flashlight under my left arm as I used my right hand to flip through the files.
"Okay, Myler, Naismith, Naylor, Neilson, Northman, ah-ha!" I picked out the file with my name on it: Briar Rose Northman. I think whoever named me had some kind of Disney princess fetish, I mean, isn't that what they called Sleeping Beauty when she went to stay with the fairies? I read quickly through my school profile. It had my name, birthday (December 5th), height for that year (how ridiculous is it that they measure you at the start of each school year? I was 5'1", shortest girl in my year), eye colour (dark brown), and a list of other physical attributes. Onto my psych evaluation.
Briar-Rose is a very engaging young girl. She is enthusiastic and happy given her circumstances. A very intelligent young girl, who excels at all mathematical and science class challenges. However, I would like to register my concern that she is not very sociable. The other children find her to be peculiar and at times arrogant and rude. I myself have witnessed her flippant attitude when it comes to being questioned on how she feels about her parentage. As a child psychologist I can tell that this is a front for her real feelings, but I have genuine concerns about the repression of these feelings.
Ugh, I'd read enough. Dr Monroe was always trying to get me to talk about "feelings". We had spent countless hours going over how I was "repressing" and "putting up walls". I wish I had his personal number, because whenever I had trouble sleeping I could call him, ask him to talk about his theories on my repression and my walls and I'd be out like a light in less than five minutes. BORING. After that I had copies of my report cards. There was no point in these; they had no one to send them to. After that were some receipts of payments made to the school. This was more exciting, I read it thoroughly, but aside from numbers and the name of the school, the only piece of information was a name. The name was Mr G. Northman. We had the same last name, perhaps we were related? I was excited now as I flipped through the thin folder. Mine seemed much thinner than everyone else's.
"Fuck." I said out loud. The rest of the sheets of paper were all receipts like the first one. Sighing, I tried to fix the contents of the folder so it would not look as though it had been jostled through. Upon doing this, I made a small brown envelope fall out of the folder that I hadn't noticed before. I knelt down to pick it up, and when I turned it over I saw that it was addressed to the school – specifically to Mrs Rawlings. I pulled out the small slice of paper inside the envelope and unfolded it. It was a very short letter.
Dear Mrs Rawlings
As I have instructed previously, Briar-Rose must not know my identity as her sponsor. However, I would be obliged if you would send me yearly school photographs of her and her report card.
Thank you, Mr G. Northman
So my sponsor DID care about me. At least a little bit. I also wondered why we shared the same last name. Were we related? I had to find out. There was an address on the letter, an address in Dallas, Texas. I could have danced in happiness, but instead I remained calm, took a mental note of the address and put my file back as neatly as possible. I quietly made my way back to the window, pulling myself onto the sideboard/unit thing with ease.
"Sebastian?" I whispered.
"I'm here B." He assured me.
"Get ready to catch me." I pulled myself over the window again and Sebastian was waiting there with his arms extended to catch me. "Hey wait a minute, I hear someone." Sebastian took this seriously as he knew I had awesome hearing too.
"Shit. Quick, jump, I'll catch you." I jumped the few feet from the window and Sebastian was true to his word – he did catch me. He took my hand and moved as quickly and quietly as he could towards our dorms.
"No, they're coming that way. They're just around the corner." I panicked, looking at Sebastian. For all my physical advantages over Sebastian, he was definitely the logical thinker of our duo.
"There's an old mop cupboard around this corner, come on." Still holding onto my hand he dragged me around the corner, opened the cupboard which was mercifully unlocked and pushed me in. He stepped in beside me, closing the door as quietly as he could. "You keep listening so we know when they've gone." We stood there in silence for a few minutes. I heard whoever was walking the halls at this time of night pass right by our cupboard, so closely that I inhaled out of nerves. The footsteps passed, and went right towards the front entrance of the school.
"Okay, all clear." We left the cupboard and Sebastian walked me back to my private dorm room.
"So did you find what you were looking for?"
"I found an address and a name." I nodded. He looked at me knowingly; he knew what I was thinking.
"So when are you leaving?"
"I was thinking I'd leave on Friday night. You know the security is lax around here on a Friday, and we're allowed out on Friday evenings anyway. So I figured I'd go to the airport then."
"And where are you going?"
"Dallas."
"As in Texas?" Sebastian looked at me wide-eyed. "You're a crazy bitch, you know that, right?"
"Yes, I know that. I have to know though Sebastian. The name I found was the same last name as me. What if we're related? I could actually have a living relative. How awesome would that be?"
"So awesome that if they were your relative I could kick their ass for not being in contact with you." I smiled at that. Sebastian was so protective of me. For a skinny fifteen year old homosexual, he could certainly throw down too. Only yesterday he'd punched Rick Hanlon right out of his seat for calling me a freak. I loved my Sebastian. He was a gift from God – the only one I'd ever had, that was for sure.
"I need a cover story though. What do you think?"
"I'll tell them you ran to a convent in Washington. Lead them west of New York instead of South." We both laughed at that. "You think you can get on a plane even though you're only fifteen?"
"I'll talk my way onto it. I have a passport." Upon entering Belleview Academy, all students had to get a new passport in order to go on the field trips that were provided. As much as I didn't like Belleview, I had to admit, they had some kick-ass field trips. I'd been all over America, and some places in South America too. I hadn't been in Texas yet, but that would soon be changed.
"Well we'll talk strategy in the morning. Get some sleep B." Sebastian hugged me and then turned to walk to his own private dorm room. That night I lay in my bed with a smile on my face. Perhaps this weekend I would finally get some long-awaited answers. I fell asleep pretty soon, contentment easing my passage between the waking world and the sleeping world.