"At night, the escapologist's daughter cried herself to sleep. She never said a single word about the evil aunt's bullying, as she didn't want to cause a fuss."
-I'm Here
~x~
By the time Jenny turned four, she realized that there were two sets of rules for her to live by, one for when Daddy was home and one for when he was not. Unfortunately for her, her father was gone the majority of the time, and Aunt Trunchbull seemed to hate her.
Jenny didn't know what she possibly could have done. Perhaps it was when she was so little that she didn't remember. Daddy always said that if you showed someone love and kindness then they would show love and kindness in return. Aunt Trunchbull always told her to shut up and called her a filthy maggot when she tried.
At first Jenny didn't know what a maggot was, and when she asked Daddy he showed her in one of his encyclopedias. Jenny didn't know why Aunt Trunchbull kept saying she was a slimy bug, but even though she didn't like it, Jenny knew better than to ask her to stop. When Aunt Trunchbull was in charge Jenny played a game where she pretended that she was invisible and had to stay very, very quiet or else she would be seen again. Aunt Trunchbull seemed happier during this game, and on the days Jenny remembered to play it she hardly ever got spanked.
Jenny got quite lonely pretending to be invisible all of the time, but being lonesome was better than getting yelled at, assigned chores, or hit. Still, it was hard, and no matter how hard she tried, Jenny always did something bad that made her aunt angry.
"You nincompoop!" Aunt Trunchbull hollered one day when Jenny accidentally dropped her glass of water onto the floor during lunch. "You clumsy fool! Look what you've done!"
"I'm sorry," Jenny whispered, clutching the seat of her chair with both hands so that Aunt Trunchbull couldn't see them shake. Shaking was bad, and would only make Aunt Trunchbull yell more.
"Well don't just sit there! Clean it up!"
Jenny slid off of her chair and carefully stepped around the shards of glass. When Daddy had broken one of his plates while doing the dishes he didn't let Jenny so much as move until he'd picked up all the pieces himself. It was just one more way life was so much better when her father was home, and as she toddled into the kitchen Jenny wished more than ever that he didn't need to be at work all of the time.
The broom was too big for her to use, and Jenny had a hard time holding both it at the dustpan at the same time. Sensing her aunt's growing irritation, Jenny decided it would be faster to pick up the pieces of broken glassware with her hands.
One of the jagged edges sliced her finger. Jenny let out a startled yelp and dropped the glass. A fat drop of dark red blood welled up from the wound and dripped to the floor. Drip, Drip, Drip. Jenny hardly noticed. Her finger throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and the sharp pain caused tears to well up in her eyes.
"You stupid child!" Aunt Trunchbull snapped, pushing out away from the table, "incapable of picking up the mess that you made! No wonder your father never wants to see you. I wouldn't either, if my own flesh and blood were so pathetic!"
Aunt Trunchbull pulled Jenny's arm harshly and inspected her finger. "It's deep," she said to herself, before smacking Jenny upside the head. "And quit your blubbering. It's just your finger."
But she didn't seem so sure. Aunt Trunchbull wrapped Jenny's finger in a dish towel and ordered her to her room. The last thing Jenny saw before exiting the kitchen was her aunt sweeping the evidence away into the trash, muttering something about hiding the blood.
~x~
Jenny was huddling between her bed and the dresser, trying her very hardest to play her game, when Aunt Trunchbull entered, unannounced and uninvited with a first aid kit in hand. One look of her niece's tear-stained face was all it took to earn a snort of derision.
"Disgusting little sack of snot. Come here."
Jenny hastened to do as she was told. Aunt Trunchbull grabbed her roughly by the arm and stole the bloody towel away. She inspected the cut a second time. It was indeed deep, with a jagged flap of skin covering the worst of it. Aunt Trunchbull opened the first aid kit and took out a roll of gauze and a bottle of iodine.
"Your father would be ashamed of your behavior today," Aunt Trunchbull said. "Not that I blame him. I've never seen such a useless creature in the entirety of my life."
That couldn't be true. When Daddy was home he loved her and held her close. Jenny was never afraid of him like she was he aunt, never felt like she had to pretend like she didn't exist.
"I expect once I tell him he won't come home for a week," Aunt Trunchbull continued blithely.
"I'm sorry!" Jenny said, her voice panicked at the thought of going so long without seeing her father. "Please don't tell. I'll be good, I promise."
"A child, good? Don't make me laugh. What chance does a lying pocket of puss have of being good?"
"I'm not lying," Jenny said, hissing in pain as Aunt Trunchbull dabbed a cotton ball soaked in iodine to her finger.
"Says the girl who just asked me to deceive her own father. Now, damnations, hold still."
Jenny froze as Aunt Trunchbull covered her finger with gauze, confused and not sure what she was supposed to think. She wasn't a liar, but she wanted Daddy to love her. Jenny's stomach twisted itself into knots, and a fresh wave of tears streaked silently down her face.
"You are nothing but a crybaby," Aunt Trunchbull said cruelly. "A cowardly, pathetic crybaby, detested by her own father. But..." she added, almost as an afterthought, "if your father does abandon you, that means I shall be the one forced to correct your weakness of character, and I'd rather shoot myself than be saddled with you for the rest of my life." She tapped the gauze and gave the surprisingly neat bandage a last going-over.
"For my own sanity, I won't say a word to Magnus, although he'll find out for himself if you're just as incapable of keeping your fat mouth shut as everything else," Aunt Trunchbull decided. "Really, you should be thanking me."
"Thank you, Aunt Trunchbull," Jenny said gratefully. "I promise I'll be good. I promise."
"You'd better." Aunt Trunchbull leaned down until she blurred in Jenny's vision. "Even your father has his breaking point, Jenny. If you keep making these mistakes, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes away forever."
Fear kept Jenny rooted in place until Aunt Trunchbull marched out of her bedroom. All at once her legs turned to jelly and she fell to the floor. She was afraid, so terribly afraid of her father hating her just like her aunt seemed to, but she didn't even know what she had done wrong.
Jenny stayed in her room for the rest of the day, and even though she knew she should be proving how good of a girl she could be by playing her invisible game, all she could do was cry.
~x~
Magnus Honey returned home from another long shift at the hospital. He gave his greetings to Agatha in the living room, noting that she was taking him up on his offer to enjoy the books in his personal library. It was one of the few familial gestures that she seemed to appreciate, and Mangus was surprised to find how much she liked reading Dickens. Tonight Agatha was engrossed in Nicholas Nickleby, and it seemed prudent not to bother her.
He climbed the steps up to his daughter's room as quietly as he could, while half-hoping that she would come out to greet him. It was late—well past Jenny's bedtime—but sometimes the creaking of the old stairs woke her. Tonight was not one of those nights, and he had to settle for looking in on her from the doorway to her bedroom.
The shades to her window were open, allowing the moonlight to stream into the room and illuminate the slumbering figure of his daughter. He listened to her breathe, unconsciously counting the respirations until he was satisfied that all was well.
"Good night, Bumblebee," he whispered, slowly closing the door once more. Magnus wished he didn't have to be back at work so early in the morning so he could see her before he left, but one of the doctors at the hospital was on vacation and another on emergency medical leave. Until they returned, he would have to help pick up the slack, just like his colleagues he done for him after his wife's death.
"I love you."
And when the door clicked shut, Jenny squeezed her eyes even tighter to keep herself from crying. He finger ached, but that was nothing compared to the feeling in her ravaged heart. Someday she would be good enough for her father, but until that time she resolved to suffer the unfair hardship of her life alone, and in silence.
