Three.
Nan Sharpe, shot up form the chair, almost knocking it, shock widening her tired eyes.
"To hell with it, I need her help... I just hope she'll listen...Im going to need all the help I can get to do what i need to do."
'A-Alice, stop it! That's not funny child!' Nans' voice shook a bit.
'Have you ever known to make a joke, Nan... Please, listen it's not what you think. Dr. Bumby deserved it, he.. he was – the things he was doing Nan! I had to stop him'
'Alice... Do you realise how this sounds?!'
'I know. I know Nan, but I need you to believe me, Angus Bumby was a bad man. He was selling his patients to slavery and the whore houses!' Alice couldn't help it, it all just began to spill out.
"This isn't at all how I planned on telling her."
'Alice, you're tired. Just go to sleep. Please!' Nan placed her hands on Alice' shoulders and pushed back, urging her to lie down and sleep.
'You've just been dreamin' up stuff again.' She pulled away. 'Whatever's happened to Dr. Bumby, I'm sure it wasn't your fault.. now please go to sleep Alice. You feel better in the mor-'
'NO! Nan, you need to listen to me!' Alice just sat up again, grabbing the big ladys wrist, not ungently. 'Nan' She looked straight into Nan Sharpes eyes, pleading. 'Just hear me out... I need your help...'
Nan Sharpe looked back at the skinny, green eyed girl before her, worry, guilt and pity creased her features.
'Alice , I can't help you... I-I'm sorry. I thought you were sharper then this, girl. If-If what you say is true then...' She sighed, eyes dropping to the floor. 'then you'd best pack up and leave this place as soon as you can.' Nan Sharpe then pulled herself free of Alice' grip and left the room, shutting the door behind her. She left Alice. Alice was alone.
All the girl could do was stare blankly at the door.
"I'm such an idiot! I'm such a FOOL!" She thumped her fist on the mattress, turning from the door. Drawing her knees up to her, she buried her face and wrapped her arms around her legs. "Why did I think that was a good idea?... Nan can't help me, of coarse she can't... But I just... just had to know." She lifted her head and rested her chin on her knees. 'And now I do...'
She woke the next morning feeling slightly more refreshed, but still emotionally drained remember the events of last night. She sat glumly on the edge of her bed. Nan couldn't help her. Nobody could. She'd have to leave and remain undercover for a while and then try to find a way to save those who still have a chance to be saved...
'Oh who do I think I'm fooling! There's nothing I can do... I'll have to just leave. It's time to start a new life, away from this god forsaken place.'
Alice pushed herself off the bed. She knelt and dug under her bed and pulled out an old, worn, brown suitcase, its corners and edges had a few burn marks on it. A momentum she'd grabbed from the remnants of her burned house before she was taken away.
Placing it on top of the bed she flipped the two latches and opened the lid.
'ALICE!' A rabbits head shouted from the inside of the case. Alice yelped, throwing herself backwards. She landed painfully on her back and elbows.
'What?!...what w-w-wha-...' she stayed their panting, heart thumping in her chest. Through her heavy breathing she shakily spoke, 'Wh-White Rabbit?.. ' she pushed herself up, but kept her distance. She stood on her tip-toes looking back into the suitcase.
Empty.
"White Rabbit... why?..." She stepped toward the bed again, and touched the case. "I must be truly going mad... maybe Nan is right."
She shook her head, turned to her wardrobe and gathered her scant amount of personal belongings. Next she headed for the cafeteria, where all the orphans received their breakfast and dinner, both dishes generally consisting of the same stale bread, moldy cheese and watery soup with no taste. Sometimes if the they were lucky dinner would include a small chunk of chewy meat and mushy green vegetables that didn't seem very edible. When she entered the long, dingy, grey dining hall she passed through the quickly filling long benches of orphans. At the left corner of the hall was a set of doors that led to the kitchen and storage area. She checked the roster stuck on the wall beside the doors. "My shift isn't 'til tomorrow morning, but if anyone asks I can easily say I got it mixed up or something.. It's not likely anyone will care enough to ask anyway..." She pushed through the doors, grabbed a white coverall from the wrack on the wall to the left, pulled her arms through the sleeves and then buttoned it up. Next she grabbed a hairnet and tucked her hair into it.
She then made her way to the tiny storage room in the back, closing the door behind her. No one was in here. No one saw her. Perfect. She set about the room grabbing two loaves of bread and cut a large chunk of cheese, wrapped them all in a discarded potato sack and tied it off. At the other end of the cramped square room was a ratty wooden door, that was always locked, but that wasn't what Alice looked at. On either side of the old door were two small windows, too small for a person to climb through, but perhaps just big enough to shove the bag of food through. The latch and hinges were stiff, but after much working on them they cam loose. Alice stuffed the bag of foods out side and closed the window again. The leaving the room she glanced briefly to the other roster workers. All had their heads down focused on their work. To her right was the double doors she'd come through. She just took a step towards them when a voice stopped her in her tracks.
'Wait! Alice!'
"oh no, no what! What could anyone possible want! Leave me alone!..."
Slowly she turned to the voice. It was Marianne, a weedy girl of about fourteen with long greasy blonde hair.
'What is it, Marianne?' said Alice politely, she never knew much of Marianne to well, but she was one of the least annoying people in this building. She was hard working and never asked for too much.
'Could you grab a bag of potatoes from the storage room? I have to serve the soup before peeling duty.
'O-oh yes. Of coarse...' Alice turned, awash with relief, back to the storage room. She grabbed the first sack of potatoes close to hand and left them near the chopping counter. Before any one else could ask of anything, Alice whipped off the coverall and hairnet, hung them back up on the wracks and left the cafeteria.
When she got back to her room she went to her window and pryed it open, glad for the first that her room faced the back of the building. Peeking outside to the yard to make sure no one was out there, namely the groundskeeper. The coast was clear. She started to clamber out the window, keeping careful of her footing. Reaching out with her hand and foot, she lowered herself all the way down to the ground from the drain pipe. This was easier when she'd been a child, she had always been a nimble climber. "Hopefully I'll be able to get back up again without too much trouble..."
When she hit the ground, she kept low, mindful of the windows, ran to the corner with the locked storage room back door in the corner of the groundskeepers shed yard, and there below one of the windows, the bag of food. She grabbed it and got back to the drain pipe just about clambering to her own window again. Brushing herself off she sighed in relief, panting a bit from the exertion of the climb back up.
walking to the suit case she dumped in the sack of bread and cheese, closed and picked up the suit case from her bed. Then she threw on a long mud coloured cloak with a large hood on it.
On her way out she stopped and looked back at her room, if it had seemed bare even with the pictures and drawings on the walls, it was even barer now.
"No, no looking back now. It's time to leave."
Leaving the building had been surprisingly easy, she hadn't bumped into anyone on her way out, though she still hid whenever she heard a noise. It was still quite early morning, so she supposed that most would be still in the cafeteria still eating or on clean duties.
When she got outside, she headed straight towards Moorgate station. "It's risky going back I know, but nobody should suspect anything yet. I shouldn't see any Bobbies yet... surely..."
