I opened my eyes as a floorboard creaked in the next room
I opened my eyes as a floorboard creaked in the next room. I rolled my eyes in the darkness, imagining what game the boys were playing tonight. Last night they were pirates sailing to the Bermuda triangle, only to find their passage blocked by the formidable kraken, which was ironically played by tiny, feathered Tommy Haines.
Oh, how I wish the walls between the girl's and boy's dormitory was sound proof! Rolling over, I covered my head with my pillow, only to be attacked by the sound of cannons and gunshots. What were they thinking? Every night I couldn't sleep because of them yet the head mistress continued to do nothing. I guess it was only the girls she hated. The girl in the bed next to mine started to talk in her sleep, wailing and tossing franticly. Nightmares were common around here.
"Mommy, please don't go. Don't leave me. I love you. Mommy?"
We've all had nightmares, but most of us keep them to ourselves, not wanting the head mistress to hear and get angry. She hates children, but not as much as she hates the parents who bring them into the world and dump them on her doorstep. She especially hates me, why, I don't particularly know. I guess I was just unlucky. If only I could find a four leaf clover or a pot of gold. I've been to a total of five different orphanages, my first one being when I was a tot, too little to remember anything. I stayed there for a year, or so I've been told and after that everything was a blur. Well, at least up until a week ago, when I learned I was finally going to be adopted. It's not completely final yet and though I haven't seen them, I'm hopeful. I can just imagine them, kind yet nervous, happy yet afraid. The man will be tall with a handsome brow and warm brown eyes. His wife will be tall and willowy with long dark curls and high cheekbones and an award-winning smile. That would be perfect.
Shouts interrupted my thoughts, causing me to loose my patience. I threw the covers off me, the cold spreading through me, bringing with it pain. I wrapped my blanket around me, creating a soft, snug cocoon that drove out the cold. I tiptoed over to the door, floorboards groaning with my every step. Removing my arm from my cocoon, I leaned over and turned the ice-cold doorknob. It was locked, just as I knew it would be. I reached up and tugged at my hair, letting the hairpin fall into my palm. Forcing it into the keyhole, I wrestled with it until I heard the soft groaning of the door welding under my pressure. The head mistress never trusts us children, believing them to be the spawn of the devil. I don't know about that, but I will agree with her that you should never trust us, were just too mercurial. For example, only today I was giggling and joking around with John O'Ryan, being the best of friends, and now I would like nothing better than to see him shot out of a cannon.
The hallway was dark and creepy, the wind whistling through the cracks in the walls. Only the thought of shutting up the boys once and for all drove me on. The door stood crookedly, as if an earthquake had occurred. And listening to the commotion within I didn't doubt it. The hairpin took longer this time as if the door was purposely trying to keep me from entering. When it finally gave up the room had gone quiet and all I could see was darkness. The cold froze me in my tracks and my eyes settled upon the open window. Wasting no time I leaped over to the window and slammed it shut, praying all the while that the head mistress had her earplugs in tonight.
When I turned around everything was still. Not even a breath interrupted the silence. I leaned over the beds and saw the messy hair of my friends and enemies. Tommy Haines started to snore rather loudly than ceased abruptly. I crept over to his bed and stood there for a few minutes, listening to his quick, uneven breaths. I was just about to turn around and pretend to leave when I saw an unfamiliar head sticking out of one of the beds. To make sure, I counted every boy and was surprised to find there were three more than there should have been. Were they playing a trick on me or was my eyesight going bad?
I looked around for the one object that could help me and smiled when I spotted the gleaming copper wick in the corner. I had never been in the boy's dormitory before and all the crap on the ground disgusted me when I put a match to the candle. There were broken, misshapen toys scattered everywhere and I wondered how I ever managed to avoid them.
Picking my way through the minefield, I found the bed with the stranger hidden beneath its sheets. I was nervous, but I couldn't explain why. My hand shaking with spasms, I directed the light to my unknowing target and suppressed a shock to find no one was there. The bed was empty. Suspiciously I looked around, missing nothing. Where was he? I took a step forward, only to trip and land painfully on my back. I heard laughter and the creaking of the window being opened. Screaming with frustration I bounded to my feet and witnessed the most curious sight. A boy. But no ordinary boy. He stood in front of the window with his hands on his hips. He was decked in green from head to foot and flashed his pearly white teeth in a cocky smile. Then, with barely a backward glance, he jumped out of the window to his doom, or so I thought. St. Catherine's Orphanage had three floors and a concrete street below. You would have to be made out of rubber to survive a fall like that.
I screamed. Who wouldn't? Two of the boys rushed past me and headed toward the window, only they didn't slow when they approached it. Not wanting any more casualties I raced after them and caught hold of the last one's foot as he disappeared from view. I guess I had thought that I could just pull him to safety. The problem was that I hadn't calculated his weight and before I knew what was happening, I was plummeting after him. People say that right before you die your life flashes before your eyes, but what if you had no life to watch except for a small, dirty room filled with small, dirty children?
So as I sped downward, all I could see was darkness, which probably represented my sad, empty life. I wanted to cry in self-pity but I told myself I was not going to die blubbering like a baby. When the mistress found my body I'd be smiling with a face that read, "Hello Dorothy, what a beautiful morning, I wish I could see your sorry ass looked behind bars."(only thing I could think of)
Down I went, faster, faster, a stupid grin pasted on my face. But fate would not allow me to die, at least not now, not like this. I felt a sharp pain jerk through my body as I recoiled like a bungee cord. Someone or something had caught me. I took a breath of relief that was instantly stilled as I realized that my hand was empty. I had let go. I had killed the boy.
There was a catch though. When looking down to see the awful crime I committed, my eyes popped out of my head. It was like the boy in the bed. There one minute, gone the next. All that was below me was a street, and though it was dirty and reeked of rotten fish and dead rats, it was just your average street. No blood. No guts. No boy.
And then I saw him. It was while I was unconsciously being lifted higher into the darkened, star speckled sky. He was flying, actually flying. Just like a bird, only he didn't have wings and he was gliding back and fourth, smiling lazily. This had to be a dream and if it wasn't then I was certainly going crazy. I mean, I had read about flying people in old fairy tales, but it had always been make believe. It had always been a different world, a world to escape to from your troubles and enjoy yourself. A place where you never had to strive for happiness or freedom. It was there, your own little perfect world inside your messed up head. It wasn't supposed to be real; everyone knew that, or at least I thought so.
I was suddenly jerked from my thoughts when the something holding me up by my foot tossed me into the sky like a kite. Strong arms enveloped me on my way down, protecting me from my ever-hovering doom. I opened one eye than the other, afraid to gaze upon the face of my rescuer. If I was expecting to see an angelic person with a halo of light entwined in their golden locks, I was thoroughly disappointed. The face that stared down at me was sharp and fair, the mouth twisted into a wicked grin. Reddish brown hair fell past his brow in a jumbled mess. The eyes though, drew me the most, captivating me with an immortal glow. They sparkled like stars, two amber stones in the vast expanse of human knowledge.
I felt myself being carried through the air, not toward the dorm window, but in the opposite direction.
"Where are you taking me?" I whispered, surprised by the sound of my voice after the void of silence.
He smiled crookedly, his eyes filled with ecstasy and adventure. "Second star to the right, straight on till morning."
