Theodore Finch. He was hated by many and worshipped by many. He was a little extreme, but then again so was I. He had come to school painted completely red one day, telling some he was protesting racism and others the consumption of meat. He had worn a cape to school every day for a month. His personality changed frequently which confused some but made perfect sense to me. I dyed my hair so often that the teachers had just given up trying to get me to stop. They wanted to call my parents so I forwarded them to my foster home and apparently my foster home "didn't give a fuck". I once came to school with a paper pirate had, hook and eye patch and refused to answer to anybody unless they referred to me as 'Captain Jet'. I had never had a name so I changed it weekly. Sometimes I was something simple like Sarah or other times I was Ophelia.

I had lived with my neglective parents for 10 years before the authorities noticed that the Williams had a daughter who wasn't registered in the system and didn't have a name. I was then moved to a foster home where I am abused nightly and spend all my time looking after small children. But I don't care. I refused to let myself care.

I came to school the next day an hour early so I went to the preschool playground, took my book out of my bag and hung upside down from the monkey bars whilst reading my book. When I felt I was going to pass out from all the blood rushing to my head I jumped down and felt a little rain. So I just stood out in the rain for the next forty minutes before the bell rang and I walked into my next classroom soaking wet with blue lips but not shivering, because this wasn't cold, I knew cold and this was nowhere near as bad.

I sat at my desk while the others sniggered and the teacher ignored me completely. I pulled my hoodie on over my head and pulled out my pencil and book. I spent the rest of the lesson trying to stay awake whilst Mr Stewart droned on and on about some sort of historical event. I heard the bell ring and slid my book and pencil into my bag gently and zipped it up before spinning out of the classroom. I noticed as I looked out of the window Finch was down in the baseball court so I ran down to see what he was doing.

I slid down the stairs railing and pirouetted over to him and asked him what he was doing. I was still fairly new to this school since my last had kicked me out so I only knew about him from rumours but he looked nice enough. He said he was giving the dissected toads from the science lab a proper funeral and I asked if I could help. He said sure and pulled out a couple of shovels from his bag and handed one to me. I didn't question him about the shovels in his bag, I just started digging.

I returned home, if I could even call it that, late. Apparently digging a hole in the baseball court was not acceptable even if the poor things deserved a proper funeral and landed Finch and I detention, but we didn't mind. I drew pictures of toad ghosts haunting the principal and folded them into paper areoplanes and threw them at Theodore. He put them all in a folder and wrote stories about toads worshipping us always and doing everything we told them and threw them at me. I kept them all in my book. When it was over I was genuinely sad because I would much rather be here than at the house.

I walked into the house quietly and started up the stairs when I heard a smash and a slurred voice ask if it was that nameless shithead. I turned around and said yeah. He grabbed my by my long purple hair and screamed at me for being late. He punched me in my jaw and dropped me. I apologised and continued upstairs. The kids were doing their homework and I smiled at them to show that yes I was fine, and no they needn't worry about themselves.

I went to bed an hour later after chasing monsters out from under beds and singing lullabies to small children. I smiled to myself in the dark as I felt a little body find its way under my arm and slip its hand into mine. "At least we tried," I said to him, "maybe tomorrow night, huh?". He nodded his head and fell asleep. I followed soon after and spent my dreams dancing with Theodore to a choir of toads singing love ballads into the night.