02 - To Be No One

St. Louise's Orphanage for Girls

June 17th, 1991

When Mrs. Darcy declared St. Louise's would go on a field trip, most of the girls dropped their spoons. Once the echo of the metal faded, the silence was deafening.

"You're jesting," said Lucy, one of the oldest girls. Someone dug their elbow sharply on my side, making me drop my spoon. Frowning, I looked at the girl – Jenny – then at the bewildered expressions all over the room.

No one was happy. You'd think the news of a field trip would cheer up anyone. Normally, they would, but at St. Louise's Orphanage for Girls, it was a sign of the oncoming apocalypse.

As it was, the 'oncoming apocalypse' was sitting across the table. Her blonde hair gleamed prettily in the morning light and her eyes sparkled with excitement. If I were to look under the table, I'd see her long legs bouncing up and down. Anyone who didn't know her would think her an angel, but Carol Davis was anything but that.

I almost groaned. But Mrs. Darcy's keen eyes wandered back and forth between Carol and I.

All right. I was at fault. I was just as guilty as Carol, but who'd been the one to throw my satchel at the River Thames the last time we'd gone on a trip, huh? Or who'd claimed it'd been an accident, she hadn't meant to hit it with her long arms, when her actual seat had been at the very front of the bus when I'd been forced to sit at the very back?

Then again, I'd retaliated by painting her bed linens red. Her linens had been the only thing she had of her mother – but the satchel had cost me a lifetime of savings. It'd taken me years to finally get one, and she'd thrown it at River Thames. Who in their right mind did that?

Mrs. Darcy's eyes flashed. "I'm not." Her eyes fixed on me briefly, then on Carol. The blonde stopped grinning once she became aware of the attention.

"What?" she snapped. Glares were thrown in her way, as well in mine. She had clearly forgotten that the scar on her shoulder and the one inside my elbow were the permanent result of the fight I'd started once the shock had vanished. No one knew how, but someone in the bridge had had a camera and managed to capture the entire ordeal, with the video appearing in the six o' clock news.

To the orphanage itself, it came to no surprise that Carol and I would eventually end up beating the other; but to the outside, watching two girls fighting like cats apparently was evidence of 'bad upbringing'. Couples stopped coming altogether for the next six months, and if it hadn't been for the head administrator's connections, St. Louise's would've closed.

Until now, that is.

"Where would we be going?" asked someone further down the table.

"TheZSL London Zoo."

My jaw dropped.

One of the older girls recovered and threw Mrs. Darcy an accusing look.

"Madam, with all respect, are you completely out of your mind?"

"Yes!" Another girl cut in. "Didn't you say there would be no more trips because of –" She fell silent as Mrs. Darcy looked at her plaintively.

"I remember very well what I said, Miss Zelda. But it has come to my attention that, in doing so, I have closed all of you from the world." The tone in which she said this gave me the impression Natasha had a hand in this. "And in the light that there have been no incidents between Miss Carol and Miss Anya for five months, I have decided to reconsider my decision." Mrs. Darcy then looked at us pointedly. "However, if anything small as a fight happens, I will, once again, ban every and any outside activity. Permanently.

"Prepare your uniforms. We part at eight o'clock in the morning."

There were many rules in St. Louise's, but the most important one was the one we lived by. It also happened to be the one I hated the most.

We are equals. We came to this place alone and with nothing on our backs. The world had cast its back to us and we, in turn, could only learn to accept it. And through acceptance, we learned how to blend in.

We were no one. We were everyone. Here, names didn't matter. Here, clothes rarely differed.

So I was not surprised when Carol, after finishing my chore, came to the kitchen and threw me a bag. It hit my back and fell limply. The hat and the shoes followed, but when I turned, the door was already closing behind her.

I turned off the stove and picked everything up. I wanted badly to open the bag, but I couldn't.

Three hours later, I ripped it open, and grinned at the sight of the green jacket. A beige skirt followed, along with its white shirt and a long ribbon that was the bowtie. I couldn't help but touch the buttons, their design just as pretty as I remembered.

So what if Carol and I got into another fight? Wearing this would be so worth it.


June 23, 1991

The line to the bus was long by the time I walked outside. And judging from the complaints, slow, too. The sun had yet to come out, which I considered a blessing. My feet barely shuffled as each girl before me disappeared into the bus, and I was nearly losing my temper when a hand appeared out of nowhere. Instinctively, i dropped one strop of my bag and held the other with both hands, ready to swing it at Carol –

But Carol didn't wear purple suits, did she?

Mrs. Darcy was clearly not amused.

"I've already told Miss Carol, but the warning goes the same for you, Miss Anya: if either of you so much as breathes the wrong way, I'll lock the two of you together in the basement! Understood?"

She meant well, but I still frowned at her. "I'm not stupid. I'd rather be eaten by the crocodile." I shrugged off her arm and boarded without another word. Without even bothering to hear the woman in charge of this bus, I headed to the back seats, dropping heavily on the last one and hugging my satchel.


St. Louise's girls were taught to follow the rules. In fact, the organization was rather known for creating "perfect ladies". But that was when everyone was looking; once people glanced away, the girls acted like – well, girls.

At the very end of the bus, Anya sat alone on the loose seat the driver had warned them not to sit on. You'd think she was basking in the light of the day, what with her face stuck so close to the window. If one knew her as well as her future friends would one day, they would have scoffed. Anya hated the sun. More importantly, she hated bright days; her eyes had trouble seeing beyond her unless she was in closed doors.

That's why she was using her hat to cover her face. Inside the bus, all they saw was a hint of her plaits and her bandaged hand (a souvenir of last week's fight). None of them could guess she was staring, almost transfixed, at the car that had miraculously travelled by them through all the way from Surrey.

People had always fascinated Anya. If there was one thing she liked, it was to judge them. Then she would feel guilty and forget all about it until it happened again. Today's subject was a beefy man with a rather large moustache that seemed to overtake most of his face. Not only his driving was atrocious (his car kept halting abruptly), his attitude seemed even worse than a bulldog on a diet. The man's family left a lot to be desired, too, what with them looking like members of the mini zoo. At some point, they even broke into an argument, which stopped at the next stop.

Minutes later, she looked away, bored.

She missed the pair of eyes watching her from the very same car.


The zoo was getting crowded by the time we arrived. Then again, it was Sunday.

Mrs. Darcy and other three employees held up pallets of different colors. I was familiar with the system, so I quietly joined Gale, a blonde woman who held a purple pallet. I stood behind her as the others made a mess from nothing. It wasn't difficult to understand: before we had taken off, Mrs. Darcy made us take papers from a hat; each little piece had written different colors, matching the pallets that the employees were waving around.

I sighed in relief as Carol joined team blue. I dodged a bullet there.

Except for the black gates, we sort of blended in the background due to our blazers. Despite Gale's insistence, I made sure to stay in the back of the group. That way, I had more chance of staring at the animals without any of the girls bothering me; the white tigers and black wolves were totally worth the run when my group had already moved to the bird cages.

I was pleased to find out I was wrong concerning the souvenirs. I did save enough money to at least buy a pack of postcards and (as luck would have it) a cheap fountain pen with a plastic lion figurine on the tip. On lunch and between bites, I drew the boy's face; I started with the eyes first, then the slope of his nose, his mouth, his hair, and finally the shape of his face. I didn't quite get it, but overall, the result was nice. Presentable. My favorite part, perhaps, was the bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, something I hadn't paid attention at the moment.

The day was going well. Too well. I should've known everything would go to hell the moment I let down my guard.

The Reptile House was the only building in the zoo to have the best of cooling systems. Considering how hot the day turned out, it was a surprise the reptiles were our last stop.

Looking at those creatures through a glass reminded me of Parents' Day. Locked to be admired. There were all sorts of lizards: chameleons, turtles, alligators...

And snakes. Lots of snakes.

I put up a good fight, but Gale's nails were worse than a cat's. In the end, I was dragged inside, said nails digging into my shoulder as she led me at the front – I couldn't say drag when she technically didn't have a grasp on me. I sort of felt like a pet, but the real ones looked on at my struggle, amused.

I was pretty sure the chameleons were laughing at me when the screaming started.

"Don't separate!" said Gale over the crowd. "You know the drill: hold hands and follow me!"

It didn't go as planned.

The woman hadn't taken a step before she was shoved aside roughly. I thought she wouldn't fall, but Gale's luck was rotten – her heel snapped. And she dragged me down with her.

I was free from her nails – a small mercy – but the stampede of people just kept pushing me down and down, and I resorted to drastic measures: I crawled.

The movies had made it look so easy, but the truth was that the protagonist had a clear path to follow. Me? I had to evade different types of shoes, keeping an eye out for the heels after a woman with needle-like ones trampled on my hand, leaving behind a clean hole that was spurting blood more aggressively than any other cut I'd had.

I was relieved when I saw the last person run out. Finally alone, I cradled my hands and looked at myself. The uniform – so so pretty hours ago – was now ruined.

I cried. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair!

Singing stopped my sobbing. The language was foreign to me, but amidst the chanting, I picked up a particular sound – a very familiar one.

It wasn't the fact that a snake appeared around the corner that shook me. No, it was the fact that the snake was a boa constrictor, of all things, that had me standing up in panic. It swayed to its own song, happily hissing as it slithered down the hall and toward me.

I moved to the wall and pressed my back against it, hugging my hand to my chest. But the boa didn't go past me as I hoped. It stopped, and I had a good view of its nostrils as they flared; its tongue snuck out to get a taste of the air, and my breath hitched when a pair of dark eyes focused on me.

We stared at the other, long and hard. Then, the boa constructor snickered.

"Oh, humans… they grow so laughable …"

The boa slithered past me. I stood there, stiff as a board, until a pale Mrs. Darcy came in running with two workers.

That night, I dreamed of snakes laughing at a giant cage full of boys with green eyes. Humans, apparently, were funny to laugh at like cats were.


NOTES:

I did some research, and it is a fact that Dudley Dursley's birthday (June 23rd) on the first book fell on a Sunday. Anya's eleventh birthday would then fall on June 27th, a Thursday.