Chapter 2 – The beginning of a new life
The past week sucked. Everything has sucked. I went to some fancy court room thing and listened to a bunch of grown, grumpy looking men in boring suits yammer back and forth while I sat in a chair next to my mom. I couldn't follow what was going on, but my dad was sitting in a different chair on the other side of the room next to this big fat guy in a black robe thing. I'm not sure what he was there for but he had a big hammer and he banged it sometimes. In the end, I just remember my mom crying and telling me she loved me before standing up and walking away. I was confused; I didn't understand where she was going or why she was leaving me here. When I tried to pursue her, these big old guys in blue outfits grabbed hold of me and held me back. I cried for her. I screamed out for her and she didn't look back at me.
I sighed and looked up at the seemingly giant doors in front of me, my travel bag in one hand and a lighter bag in the other. Yep, the past few days have sucked. I slowly opened the door and walked in to a room full of other kids my age. They were causing quite a commotion, loud noises everywhere. I instantly disliked the place. It was filled with a disgusting scent of dirty diapers and toys littered the bluish brown floor, ranging from small Lego-looking blocks, to wooden tower pieces and even log cabin parts. There were two grown ladies talking back and forth watching the kids, I assume they were there to supervise in case something went wrong, but I didn't pay much attention. Nobody saw any reason to even look my direction so I didn't have a reason to talk to them much at. It didn't bother me. I walked into the play room and took a passageway to the left into the hallway that led to the rooms we were supposed to stay in.
"Uh…where do you think you're going?" I think it was one of the supervisors but I didn't care. I wanted to drop my stuff into the room that the big man in the brown suit said I was supposed to live in for a few years until someone came and got me. When that was, I have no idea.
"Hey, turn around when I'm talking to you!" I heard her footsteps catch up to me and felt her hand grab my shoulder. I couldn't help myself; I flinched at her touch and whirled around bringing my arms up. I stood there for a few seconds, bracing for a possible smack when I felt her hands touch my fists.
"No need to get defensive; I was just looking for a response." She said quietly. "You must be the new girl then, what's your name?" Now she was trying to be nice to me after scaring me half to death and getting angry with me cause I chose to do what the big scary man in the brown suit said instead of her. I don't want to answer her but it'll keep her happy and not on my case. If she'll leave me alone then I can get on with what I need to do, I hope.
"I'm…Starr." I said quietly. She placed a hand on my head and smiled. I managed to lower my hands enough to get a good look at her. She was pretty, and quite young looking too.
"Hello Starr, I'm Alice." She said. "Let's get your stuff to the room and get you to the rest of the kids so you can make friends!" I nodded and allowed her to gently push me towards the door I was walking to originally.
The room was pretty bland with several beds stacked up like bunk beds would be. Before I could start walking in the room she took hold of my hand and started to pull me towards the right hand side of the room. The sudden contact on my hand startled me somewhat and I jumped a little. If she noticed she didn't say or do anything.
"This is your bed Starr." She said, pointing to a bottom bed on the right hand side of the room. I pulled up my small bag of belongings and set them on the bed and stretched for a second; getting the bag off of my shoulders felt great!
"Now come on, let's go out to the main room with the rest of the children." I was curious as to why she was rushing me but I couldn't form the words to ask her. I started to make some signs to ask her but she paid no attention to them. Instead, she grabbed both of my hands and started pulling me out of the room.
"…why?" I managed to get out. She stopped and looked back at me.
"Why what?"
"…why do I…need to leave?" She looked shocked at the question.
"Because I said so, that's all you should need. You listen to me." I didn't like her answer; it reminded me a lot of my father. I shuddered a little bit and nodded. She smiled and pulled me out of the room, closing the door as we left and deposited me in the main room with the other kids. A few of them noticed me stared for a little before returning to their tasks; generally ignoring me. I sighed and wandered over to where a few boys were playing with some wooden blocks and sat down. They stopped playing and looked at me.
"What do you want?" one of the boys said.
"…just wanna play." I replied. The boy glared at me before getting up and walking off. The others seemed to follow suit, leaving me alone at the blocks. I sighed and started stacking them as best I could while looking around the room occasionally. There were quite a few kids actually; I felt somewhat hopeful at becoming friends with at least one of them. That's when my attention drew to another kid who was sitting by himself playing with a few blocks of his own. I abandoned my attempts at building something with the blocks and wandered over to him.
"Hello?" I asked. He did not seem to hear me. I sat down next to him and poked him on the shoulder. He jumped in surprise and turned around to face me. I was surprised at him; it was like he couldn't hear.
"Hi there." I said politely. "My name is Starr, what's yours?" he shook his head and pointed to his right ear. I cocked my head and tried to understand what he meant.
"Can you hear?" I asked. He pointed to his ear again and this time his hands started to move.
"[I'm deaf.]" he signed. My eyes lit up a bit and I adjusted how I was sitting before I brought my hands up.
"[That's OK, I know how to sign.]" He smiled and he lit up, looking extremely happy.
"[Wow! That's great! I haven't talked to anyone in forever!]" His excitement was understandable; nobody else here probably knew how to sign!
"[I'm sorry to hear that. My name is Starr; what's yours?]" It took him a second before he replied.
"[My name is Louis, or so I think. I'm not too sure since I've never heard it. They get my attention by just grabbing my arm and moving me around.]" I felt sorry for him and I hugged him. He returned the hug and slid over some and indicated to the blocks.
"[Want to join me?]" he asked. I nodded quickly and sat across from him. I felt happier then I had in quite a long time. I had made friend for the first time and we were building blocks together.
…
"Alright children, time for bed." The ladies were working on putting things up and gathering us all up to go into our room for the night. I unwillingly helped pick up the blocks with Louis before following into the room.
"Hey! I don't want to stand next to her!" one boy shouted. It was the same one from earlier that didn't want to play blocks with me.
"Behave yourself." One of the older ladies said. "You're just walking in line to your room; your bed isn't anywhere near hers so don't worry." I felt slightly satisfied that he got put in his place so I stuck my tongue out at him before following the rest of the kids back into the room. When we got in, I hopped into my bed and stretched out, suddenly feeling extremely tired. The pillows were soft and the blankets were warm and fuzzy; put them both together and you have created a sleepy Starr. As I was adjusting myself to go to sleep, a head popped down from the bunk above me and I was surprised to see Louis looking at me. I waved at him and he waved back.
"[Just saying goodnight!]" he signed.
"[Goodnight friend!]" I replied with a smile. He waved before disappearing back into his bunk. Shortly afterwards one of the ladies had popped into my bunk and helped me adjust my pillows before tucking me into my blanket.
"Good night." She said. Before I could respond she was already walking out of the room with the other lady that watched us that day. The door closed and the lights flicked off and soon the sounds of light snoring could be heard across the room. I closed my eyes and looked back into the wall and the memories of what had happened to me slowly seeped back into my mind. My father angrily throwing me in the car, my mother just watching it all happen, and not doing a single thing about it, and before long I could feel tears start creeping into my eyes.
"Why mom…"I whispered. "Why didn't you help me…you promised me…" The tears began to run down my face and my nose started to run.
"You promised me mommy…" I sniffed before rolling over. The room was dark, spare for the two small windows letting in a little bit of the moonlight from outside. It was a new sight for me and it scared me. I wished mom could be here with me, I was scared again and there was nobody here to comfort me. I began to cry lightly as sleep slowly overcame me.
…
A gentle hand woke me from my sleep. I looked up and saw Louis leaning over me with a smile on his face.
"[Good morning. It's time to wake up.]" He signed. I nodded slowly and pulled the blankets off of me. Leaning up, I wiped my eyes and looked around at the room; everyone was just slowly beginning to move and Louis was already fully dressed. He held out a hand and I took it, helping me get out of the bed.
"[Hurry and get a change of clothes; you can get to the showers first and not have to wait.]" he said. I wasn't used to moving this fast and I nearly stumbled going for my bag at the foot of the bed. I pulled out a fresh set of clothes and walked out of the room. One of the ladies was already there, waiting for us to start walking out. She took my free hand and guided me to the restroom area where there was a shower already waiting for me. She pushed me into the room and closed the door.
"Just a few minutes now, don't take too long." I didn't bother replying and was already undressing slowly. It took me a few minutes to peel out of my clothes, still yawning and step into the shower. The icy cold water smacked into my face, jolting me to a new level of alertness.
"Eek!" I shouted in surprise. There were the sounds of laughter on the other side of the door.
"Is everything OK in there?" I heard the voice of the lady calling out.
"Um…yes ma'am!" I replied quickly before stepping back into the water. I wasted little time grabbing the soap and washing my body before using the shampoo and quickly washing my hair. I remembered the technique my mother had taught me in washing my extremely long hair; one of the few things I liked to remember about her at least, and quickly rinsed it out. I was in the middle of drying off when there was a knock at the door.
"Come ooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnn!" a boy whined. "Hurry up!" I sighed, quickly dried off and dressed before I walked out of the bathroom. It would appear I had grabbed my shin length blue dress that complimented my eyes and hair perfectly. It was a snug fit in some spots, but a brief check in the bathroom mirror gave me a little self-confidence boost. When I walked outside, the line of kids was looking slightly cramped and the boy that whined was standing next in line. He looked at me angrily before working his way around me and into the bathroom. One of the ladies took my dirty clothes and towel out of my hand before escorting me out of the hallway and out into the playroom. I was the first one out in the room. It took me a few minutes before I realized that someone was watching me. I looked up over to another doorway, presumably the one that led to the front of the building and saw two people watching me, a man and a younger looking boy. They sort of avoided eye contact with me. Undeterred, I walked up to them and smiled.
"Hello there." I said. They ignored me.
"Umm…hello?" I said again. The man continued to ignore me but the boy looked over at me and glared. His fierce blue eyes frightened me and I slowly backed away from him; they reminded me of my dad's angry eyes whenever he saw my hair. Were they the same? Why would they be? They don't know who I am though!
"Buzz off freak." The boy said. The bigger man placed a hand on his chest and whispered, "Be quiet son." and the boy closed his mouth reluctantly. But those eyes, those fierce blue eyes continued to bore into me and caused more pain then his words did. I could feel them even as I turned around to go play with some of the blocks I was using yesterday. No matter what I did, I could almost feel his eyes just glaring at me as if I had done something wrong.
After a little bit, more and more of the kids began to fill out into the room; there weren't many of us total anyway, probably about ten or so. Some of them looked different, dressed more cleanly than usual. I didn't get it until the man had pointed at one of the kids that were using another set of blocks. It was the same kid that had been rude to me yesterday. He smiled and stood up, walking towards the two. The young boy embraced the kid and they wrestled a bit until they let go, both smiling happily. The man seemed satisfied and one of the ladies was conversing with him. They all four walked through the doorway I originally saw them in and disappeared from my view as the door closed and locked with a click. I sighed and looked around, hoping to see Louis. He had been the only good thing to happen since I had arrived really and I saw him happily bounding across the room over to me.
"[Hey there Starr.]" he said.
"[Hi there Louis…]" I couldn't help but feel slightly sad and confused and Louis seemed to notice it.
"[What's on your mind Starr?]"
"[It's what happened before you got here; I'm not sure how to describe it.]" He nodded in understanding.
"[Tell me when you're ready.]" He signed before letting the subject go completely. Together, the two of us were able to construct a small little structure using the wooden blocks before he sneezed while placing a finishing block, knocking the whole structure down and tumbling himself over in the process. I giggled as he slowly sat up and looked at what he had done to the structure.
"[Ah…I'm sorry about that.]" He said.
"[Don't worry about it, it was funny anyway!]" I said giggling. He gave me a crooked smile before the two of us set back up to create more structures. All the while, more people had started coming into the room, just casually walking about, looking at all of us. But whenever they looked over to me and Louis their eyes skipped over us as if we were a plague. I'm quite sure though that it was me they were avoiding and that as a result, Louis was getting avoided too.
"[I think they're skipping over me and because you're near me, you too.]" I signed to Louis. "[I'm sorry.]" He shook his head.
"[Don't say you're sorry for something that isn't your fault. I'm having fun playing with you.]" His kind words made me smile and attempt to tune out the people watching. Though each time a set of eyes skipped over the two of us I felt sorry for Louis that my being near him caused him to be overlooked as well.
This went on for the better part of the day, and at the end of the day, there were four of us left: Me, Louis, and two other girls. The rest had walked through the other door and haven't walked back in since. I was curious as to what exactly was going on and where they went and I asked Louis about it.
"[Where did they go?]" He looked at the door I mentioned and back at me.
"[They were adopted.]" he said. The word was slightly odd to me.
"[What do you mean by 'adopted'?]" I asked him. He sighed for a second then stared off into space for a few minutes before looking back at me.
"[When you are brought here, you are in an 'orphanage'; that's what the last kid that I could talk to with signs told me.]" He paused for a second before continuing.
"[When they walk through that door, typically they will not come back here again. If they do they are considered bad luck by anyone that remembers them. Fortunately, that hasn't happened for quite some time here; at least so I've been told.]" I sighed and shook my head.
"[But what does it actually mean?]" I asked, still confused as to what he actually was getting at.
"[It means you leave here and go home with a new family, a new beginning, a new life.]" I stared at him, slightly stunned at his words.
"[A new family? How? The only family I know are my father and mother.]"
"[You learn to call your new mom and dad 'mother' and 'father' or you come back and deemed bad luck. Apparently from what I've heard-]" he stopped and chuckled at his choice of words-"[it makes it harder for you to be 'adopted' by another family.]"
"[It's almost like stealing someone else's kid; why does this happen? Does this explain why I'm here now and not at home with my mom?]" He shrugged.
"[I don't know; there had to have been a reason for your mom or dad to put you here.]" I thought back to my mom just watching my dad take me out the door. She did nothing when I called out to her; maybe it was her idea? No, she wasn't that cruel, maybe it was my father's doing. He didn't love me, no matter what I did to try to make him happy. All he cared was that my hair and eyes were white and he hated me for it.
"[You're crying Starr, is something wrong?]" Louis signed, grabbing my attention. I had been so focused in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed myself crying. I quickly wiped away my tears and shook my head.
"[No, nothing is wrong, I'm sorry.]" He shook his head and sighed.
"[It's harder to lie when signing then talking, your body language is telling me that something is bothering you. Would you please tell me?]" I closed my eyes and shook my head, not wanting to continue the conversation. However, I felt two small arms come around me and pull me close. Startled I opened my eyes to see Louis against me. He was holding me close. After a few seconds he let go and looked at me.
"[I don't get it; I see the way people look at you. They look at you like you're a freak! In my eyes however, your white hair and white eyes are beautiful in every way. They're different and most people don't realize that your eyes glow when the sunlight reflects off of them.]" I blushed at his compliments.
"[Thank you Louis, you don't know how much better that makes me feel.]" I signed back to him. He smiled, seeming satisfied at my response.
"[Now come, let's finish building something before they decide to usher us back into our room to sleep. I'm sure between the two of us we can get something done in time, don't you think?]" I nodded in agreement and smiled at him. He was a true friend to me and I only just met him yesterday! To think that I could make good friends so fast was great for me. We were getting started when I heard a pair of feet approach us. I looked back and saw a tall man in a brown looking suit. He seemed important looking and next to him was a small, blonde haired girl. She wasn't looking at me, but at Louis instead. Louis, however, wasn't paying any attention to either one and was instead working on building up the tower that the two of us had just started.
"Starr, get Louis's attention." One of the ladies told me. I waved in Louis's direction but he ignored me, continuing to play instead. I tried again, this time getting right in front of him and snapping my fingers in his face. He looked up at me and then at the man behind me then down at the girl before back at me.
"[I'm not interested in going.]" He signed. I sighed and looked back at the man.
"He says he's not interested in going."
"I do not care; tell him he is coming with me." The man said quickly. I looked back at Louis and got his attention again.
"[He doesn't care Louis; he wants you to go.]" He shook his head.
"[Louis! This is your chance to have a better life.]" He shook his head again. I sighed and looked back up at the man and shook my head. He pushed me aside quickly and grabbed Louis.
"Hey!" I shouted out angrily. However, nobody was paying attention. Instead, they were carting Louis by the collar out of the room towards the door. He was squirming and looking back at me. I could see his hands moving fast, faster than I could pick up, but I got their meaning. I got up and started running towards him but the lady stopped me and held me back.
"It's his time to go; don't try and stop them." She told me. He was crying at this point, seeing that I was being stopped. I reached out for him despite the lady stopping me and cried out for him; knowing he couldn't hear me. The door closed and he disappeared.
I stopped struggling after that. There was no point; I knew I couldn't open the door and the lady wasn't about to let me out either. I went back over to the blocks and sat down, looking at what Louis was trying to finish. It was a massive tower and if he had been able to continue, it would've been taller than me.
"What's the matter whitey?" one of the girls called out from the other side. "Your boyfriend get adopted?" They both laughed at me, knocking their own tower over they had been constructing. However, I didn't feel like talking; I was sad. My first and only friend in this place and the day after I meet him he is taken away from me. I sat down and stared at the floor for a bit before I felt the tears come to my eyes. I tried to hold them in, but they slowly ran down my face, dripping on the floor a little bit.
"Is she crying? Is she actually crying!" The two girls burst out in laughter.
"Oh yes, crying because her beloved boyfriend was taken and not her; boo hoo!"
"Shut up!" I cried out. I had had enough. I picked up a block and threw it at them, smacking one in the head.
"Oww!" she cried out. The lady walked over to me and smacked me across the face.
"You do not throw things at other people! Off to the room, early bed for you!" She grabbed me by my hair and pulled me across the room.
"Let go! That hurts!" I shouted. "Let me go! Stop pulling my hair!" She ignored my pleas for her to stop and continued to drag me along until we reached the room. The opened the door and threw me inside before closing it behind her.
"Get dressed for bed, let's go!" This lady had made me mad. First she lets the man take away Louis, my only friend, than when I retaliated against the others, she got mad at me and now I'm being forced to go to bed. I might as well not even talk anymore since whenever I've opened my mouth, bad things have happened. To make the lady even angrier, I put on my clothes slowly and put some of it on backwards. In retaliation, she swatted me in the bottom, but I ignored the pain now. It was just like when daddy was mad at me and I hadn't done anything wrong at first to get it.
"Now go to sleep!" she hissed at me before walking out of the room. I sat on the bed and placed my head in my hands and started to cry. My life was miserable. Nobody in the daycare liked me, not even the supervisor lady. My dad thought I was a disgrace, if he was still my dad. I didn't even know since the men in scary suits said a lot of words I didn't understand and now I can't see either of my parents. They hate me; they all hate me and all because of my hair. Maybe I'm better off dead then being surrounded by people who hate me.
I lay down in bed; pulling the sheets over me and looked up at the bed above me, the one that used to be Louis's. I missed him already; he was the one friend I had and those other two girls hate me. I sighed and rolled over, looking out from my bed at the rest of the room.
"I want to go home…" I whispered before slowly drifting off to sleep.