Chapter 48
Emily's Story (Part 3)
Hi there! It's Lenny! I'm back again.
Oh, and I suppose you've heard, Angie and Oscar were planning on getting married next week! It was Monday that day and their wedding was supposed to be next Monday. I sure hoped that Oscar could fit everything in this short space of time.
But before that time, he'd sent out lot's of invitations. And sure, I got one, Sykes got one, everyone at the Whale Wash got one, even my dad and some of his mob got invitations. And of course, we just couldn't leave out our newest little friend. Yep, I'm talking about Emily.
It was my job to deliver the invitations to the guys in the sunken ship. And it was also my job to deliver an invitation to Emily who was hanging around there too. The only problem was finding her, as always. But it wasn't to hard actually, 'cause the moment she heard I was there, she came swimming straight for me.
"Lenny…" She moaned. "When can see Angie and Oscar again? I know they've got a wedding to plan and I'm being kept here until I complete my mission, but surely they could take the time to come and see me. I haven't seen them in ages."
"I'm sorry, Emily. I know how much you miss everyone." I sympathised. "But I've got some good news!" I held up an invitation and passed it to Emily. "Here you go. Check it out."
Emily looked at the card. "What's this?"
"Well, read it and find out…" But then I remembered something. "Oh, yeah." Emily could read.
"That's another thing, I thought Oscar was gonna teach me how to read and write!" Emily complained.
"Shh…" I shushed her. "You don't wanna be shouting something like that."
"Why not?"
"Because if my dad finds out that you can't read then he might reconsider that assignment."
"What, just because I can't read?"
"Emily, everyone has to read or write. What if you find a written clue and you can't read it, or you don't even know it's there?"
"Look, not being able to read or write isn't such a bad thing where I come from!" Emily sounded a little aggressive. "In fact, no-one my age and read or write where I come from."
"Well, you're not in the English Channel now."
"Yeah." Emily sighed. "And a good thing too." She went a little quiet. "Reading and writing weren't necessary skills when all you were doomed to do for a living was get shoved inside machines."
"Don't think about that, now." I said. "You're with us. And no-one's gonna shove you inside a machine, that's for sure."
"Yeah, you're right. I have you, now." Emily smiled a little. "Lenny, you were the first friend I ever had." Then that little smile started to go away. "Unlike my sisters and my mother…they hated me!" That's when she started to go back to that sad little look she used to give me. "I hated everything about that place. Oh Lenny, I'll die if I ever have to go back!"
That's not what I wanted to hear. Everyone was relying on me to convince Emily to go home when the time came. I had to do something.
"Emily, would it help you to know that I once swam away from home too?" I tried.
"I already know. I was there the whole time. I watched that Shark-Slayer stunt come and go." Emily explained. "And I also know why you swam away from home. You're dad was pressuring you to be someone you weren't and could never be."
"And things have changed now. I'd hate to think what would have happened if I had never gone back."
"If this is supposed to be an attempt to change my mind about my world it's not going to work. Lenny, our reasons for swimming away are very different."
"No, they're not!" I objected. "You thought that people were being too hard on you."
"That's not the whole picture, mate." Emily looked down and sighed.
"Then what is?" I thought that this was the best time to ask about her story. "Emily, why don't you tell me the rest of your story while I'm here. I might help me to understand you a little better."
Emily looked back up and frowned a little. "You wanna hear the rest of my story? You're not scared by it? You actually wanna hear more?"
"That's the other reason I'm here." I relaxed and was ready to listen.
"Well, can you remember what I told you that last time?"
"Yeah. You got locked in the basement…and…" I thought I'd better not finish that sentence. But I didn't need to.
"…Got beaten?" Emily finished it for me.
I looked away and screwed up my lips, I wasn't sure what to say.
"You wanna hear the rest of it?" Emily continued. "Here it is…
…Well, the first thing I'll say was that that cellar was mighty cold. The Twilight Zone is always cold because there's such little sunlight, and it's even colder at night. I remember curling up in the cellar as night was falling and everywhere was just pitch black. I curled up because I was so cold. I was trying to keep away because I was so sleepy. I just remember singing our Local-Anthem as I started to get very, very sleepy.
But luckily for me, my sisters hadn't given up on me. Louise may have acted like she hated me all the time, but she couldn't leave me in that cellar. No matter how may times I'd cheated death, she knew I could die if I was left in the freezing cold much longer.
But Alice and Louise are labours like me, they don't have keys for the rooms. Only staff have the keys.
Guyles had already left and there wasn't many staff about at that time of night. But there was one young lady who would sometimes help us out in circumstances as grim as this.
Tilly La'Pelt was the Madam's daughter. She was about Louise's age and I could describe her as a bossy, spoilt brat. But despite her bossy attitude, she would sometimes help out the labours if her she thought her mother had been to hard on us. That's who Louise went to see.
They pleaded and begged for Tilly's help. Tilly knew that I would survive long down there and she took pity on us all. So, Tilly handed the key over to Louise and watched their backs as they went to free me from my icy prison.
It was the next day by the time I was properly awake. I remember waking up in the boiler-room, they took me there because it was warm. Everyone was relieved when they found out that I was ok. But Louise was cross with me the whole day because I was too weak to work and some of the other kids had to fill in my hours for me.
That night, at our mass-household, Louise was furious with me.
'What were you thinking!' She shouted at me. 'You never do as your told! You're so selfish! You never think about anyone but yourself!'
'Selfish!' I raged back. 'He insulted our mother! I stuck up for her and tried to defend our family's name!'
'By trying to fight a moray eel and getting yourself beaten for it!'
'What was I supposed to do!'
'Get on with your chores! That's what!'
I changed my tone of voice. I spoke quieter thought I was still just as angry. 'So that's it? That's all we're doomed to do…all out lives. Getting shoved inside machines and then getting smacked, scolded and beaten is good enough for you is it?'
'It's the way of the world. Learn to live with it.'
But I knew Louise was wrong. They were all wrong.
'You know what?' I said. 'Maybe Pratchet was right.' I glared at my sister as I spoke. 'Maybe our mother's nothing but a drunk and a psycho…' I continued as Louise glared back at me wide eyed. '…And maybe she'd better hurry up and die!'
SMACK! Louise smacked me in the face.
I just froze there for a few seconds as I brought my head back round and held my face in pain.
I looked at my sister. I frowned as my eye narrowed and filled with tears.
'Louise!' Alice called as she swam into the room with our crying baby brother Tyler. 'Help.' She whimpered.
Louise sighed. 'I'll deal with you later.' She hissed at me.
I turned my back and listened as Tyler continued to bawl. He was a very sick baby and he had a very high temperature.
Alice and Louise tried to get Tyler to stop crying and get to sleep.
Louise said I'll deal with you later. Like shell she would! I swam off from the house. I needed to blow off some steam.
I swam outside and around the streets. Well, we don't actually have streets when I come from. We all live in old timber and wrecks from ships and broken barrels and boxes. We don't have real houses like in this reef.
I swam around the wreckage of the Twilight Zone floor as I thought about stuff.
As I gazed at the timber ruins, I thought about how much I hated my family. We had had our mother taken away from us, my oldest sister doesn't notice how I feel, my middle sister doesn't see the horrors of the world she lives in and my baby brother probably wouldn't live through the next week.
Why couldn't they see that? Why didn't they notice how cruel this world was, the very world they lived in! Louise said that this was the way the world worked. She was WRONG!
I remember coming across a broken glass mirror and when I looked into my reflection I hated what I saw. I saw naffin'! I smashed it with my rage…and I cut my fin on the glass. And just like last time and every time before that, my injuries healed up before my eyes. And then, after I watched my blood stop bleeding…ever so slowly…I began to cry.
I spent the rest of the night outside the house. I daren't go back inside anywhere.
I covered inside an old ship bow. The ship was buried under the sand and there was only the tip bow sticking out.
I curled up under the rail that covered my head and I backed up against the wall.
I felt awful…
I felt like my whole life was crawling around me. I'd been neglected as an infant, abused as a young child and I recently been beaten to the brink of death. And somehow…no-one ever heard my screams.
There was silence surrounding me, but I could hear the cries of my baby brother in my head. As well as my screams of pain and frustration from all my previous incidents echoing in my mind.
I just wasn't fair. I couldn't put up with this. It was just to painful in more ways than one. And no matter what I did, no matter what I endured, I would always have to face it alone.
And I thought; 'That's right, I have to face everything alone. I can choose my own fate. I can make my own decisions…And with all the memories of every horror I had ever endured lingering in my mind, I chose my fate and made my decision there and then… If I could not change this world…I was going to abandon it…
I swam back to my house. And I was careful not to wake up any of the families, especially not my own.
I packed up all my things in to a bag. Those things I packed were the things that you and Angie found. Everything about who and what I was before.
I put my bag upon my back and looked in the mirror. I needed to be someone else…I needed to chance my identity…I needed to change my scales. And so I did! The colours I chose as the ones I'm floating in right this second.
I pulled out the band holding all my head fins together and reorganized my appearance any way I could.
And last of all, I picked up my turtle toy from the nursery and silently swam into the baby room.
I located my baby brother among all the other glowing babies asleep in the room. I placed my old toy next to my brother. I don't know why I did it at the time. I just remember how cute he looked, and how sad it was to see him like this. I wept as swam out of the room and left the younglings be.
With my bag on my back, and my change of colours, I floated outside the house and gazed at my world…for the last time…
…I swiftly turned round and swam away. I swam and swam and kept on going…and do you know what? I have never looked back."
I listened to the whole thing… So that was it. That was Emily's story.
"And after a while you found Reef City." I added.
"Yeah. Well, after about two months of the water getting shallower, brighter and warmer. It was a shock after the first thirty miles or so. I'd lived all my life in darkness and then I found this!" Emily sighed. "I remember when I first saw a bright like in the distance of the night and I wondered what I was. I was grabbing hold of a whale at the time so I just let the big guy unwittingly take me where ever he went. And he went here."
I could see the Emily seemed happier now that she was talking about Reef City again. But although I didn't want to make her sad again, I still had to talk to her about her world. "Emily, have you ever wondered what your sisters might have done when they found out you were missing?"
"Hmm…(!) 'When I find that little urchin I'll wring her neck!'." Emily in personated her sister Louise.
I shook my head. I knew that that wasn't true. I knew that Louise missed Emily so much. I also knew that she thought she was dead, and that she regretted everything she ever did to up set her.
"My sisters hated me, Lenny." Said Emily. "I just got in their way. They'll be happy…that is, if they haven't been eaten alive in that factory."
Sigh. Well, at least I knew Emily's story now. I also found out the reason she swam away.
But I knew I could relate to that. And if I could convince Emily how much her world is changing and also how much her family misses her then maybe that'll convince her to go home.
I just had to hope that those Twilight Zone fish were gonna win that revolution. If they didn't, and that world stayed that same, I knew that I'd never get Emily to go home.
I guess all I could do was wait…until the next report.
