2024 July 14th
Chapter: Daily Living
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Three days is how long I was confined to the infirmary. On the second day, I told Mama I was feeling fine, but she aired on the side of caution and kept me there two extra days.
Maybe it's just my paranoia, but I was scared Mama thought something else was going on with me besides a simple stomach bug.
Then the more rational part of my brain said she just doesn't want an outbreak of the flu happening. Headquarters would not be pleased about that.
"I'm so glad you're better sweetheart." Mama brushes her hand over my hair. Her smile ever the perfect picture of a caring mother.
"I'm happy too!" I simply say. Since Remembering, I try to say as little as possible around Mom. She is an expert of child behavior and I fear saying too much would make her think I'm not normal.
And well actually I do the same thing around everyone in the house. To appear normal, I created a shy persona of sorts. Wasn't difficult since I was an introvert in my last life.
She softly chuckles.
"Alright now, best to get dressed. I need to go help Susan with breakfast." She pats my head one more time before leaving. I follow her out the door but turn a different direction that leads to the girl's room.
While stuck in the infirmary, there wasn't much I could do.
Mostly, I went over all that I remembered from the manga.
There are missing pieces to the story and no matter how hard I tried; I just couldn't recall what happened after they find the bunker.
It was frustrating to say the least.
There are some things I do know that will happen after the escape.
The bunker has everything I would need to stay alive for years.
Norman never died. Where he went after being shipped is a mystery to me.
Mother Isabella will die at the end from a demon. Don't know why the demon killed her though.
Demons need to eat humans so they can remain intelligent.
There are hundreds of human farms, but only four of them focus on raising the best product possible.
Norman creates a bioweapon to kill off all the demons, but Emme was against his plan.
And that's pretty much it.
Nothing else comes to mind after they get to the bunker.
Good news is that my memory of the first few volumes is still in my head.
Although that thing Krone gave to Norman is blared out. It's like when you're watching a movie and they had to censor nudity or gore. I think back to the pages and the artwork for that device is a blotch of gray and black. And when characters talk about it, certain words have the letters replaced with random symbols.
It is disturbing how that one part is missing. Could just be a coincidence but how can that be when it's such an important part of the arc?
Besides thinking of the Promised Neverland story, I also thought of ways I could escape. But I would need months maybe even years to prepare and test out some theories I have about this farm.
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It's already six forty. The orphanage is filled with children laughing. I pass by many of them as they race to the refectory.
"Feeling better Shirley?" Margaret, the oldest girl, approached me as soon as I walked into the bedroom. She's only twelve years old, but she holds so much love and consideration for everyone that she sounds like a mother. Her hair is pure black as though she dyes it daily. It's slightly curled at the ends and has a nice bounce when she moves around. I'm insanely jealous about her hair. When I die again, I'm going to be praying for hair like hers in my next life. Her rich brown eyes have an almond shape to them, pointing to an Asian ancestry though I think there is some European blood mixed in.
Will they turn her into a Sister? She already acts so motherly towards the younger children and her scores are almost perfect. If they give her the choice, will she take it and become just as cold hearted as Mama and Susan? How much pain will she go through before she breaks?
I swallow down my fears for Margaret and show off a smile.
"Yup! Mama said I can play with everyone again." Please let that sound normal.
"That's great. Do you need help getting dressed?" She offered, though she knows I prefer to do it myself. Most of the younger children need some assistance getting ready in the morning, so she is often too busy helping them to help me. I'm normally the first one dressed anyways.
"No thank you." I shack my head. "Go help the others, I can do it myself."
"The others are all dressed Shirley. You're the only one left in pajamas." She pointed out to me.
I look around the bedroom and see that the few girls still here are dressed. Humm, so there's no one left that can take up Margaret's attention. Okay, so what would be the best thing to say to get an older sibling to back off without me sounding rude?
"I'm a big girl, I can get dressed all by myself." I declared, puffing out my chest and raising my fists in the air as a show of my supposed 'bigness'.
She giggles, her soft eyes looking down on me as though I were the cutest thing she's ever seen.
"Alright, if you say so. But never be too prideful to not ask for help when you need it." She pats my head before leaving the room with some other girls. I'm now the only one left.
I look over to the wall clock and see I only have ten minutes to be ready and downstairs for breakfast. On my assigned bed, I see my white button up shirt, skirt and underwear already laid out. Margaret probably put them there for me. The clever girl knew I wouldn't accept help, but she still found a small way to assist.
The smile I forced on drops.
Margaret's scores are better than what Joy's were, so at least I know she'll be around until her thirteenth birthday, possibly even until her fourteenth. Her birthday is in November, so she'll have around five months to one and half years. If she can get perfect grades, then she'll live to fifteen.
I don't know if that's enough time for me to create an escape plan. Or at least not one guaranteed to succeed.
In record time, I switch my pajamas for my day clothes and get my hair brushed.
The quietness of the room helps me relax, if only ever so slightly.
I'm almost out of time.
I shuffle to breakfast, going as slow as I could get away with.
Before I get halfway there, Frank comes running down the hall.
"Hi Shirley. Susan says you're better now, but I didn't see you in the refectory, so I thought to check on you." He explained, stopping in front of me.
"Yeah, Mama let me out of the infirmary a few minutes ago so I didn't get dressed until now." Shouldn't Margaret have explained that to him if she was the one that said I was okay. Well maybe he didn't think to ask her.
"Cool, let's get going then." He takes my hand and guides me to the dining area as though it's my first time walking there. I don't mind. It's common for us siblings to be touchy with each other.
As usual, the place is filled with noise. Children talking and laughing, dishes clanking as they get set out, and chairs scrapping against the wooden floorboards combined into a familiar chorus of the morning.
Everyone is here and most are already seated. There are three long tables covered with linin cloths, dishes, and plates filled with food. We can't touch the food until we say our thanks for it. We also don't get to pick which table to set at.
Like with most other things in this house, we're split up by age. The youngest children set at the middle table, the middle age children set on the left and the oldest set on the right.
Sister Susan can pick where she'll set. She normally goes to a different table each time we eat, but sometimes she'll set at the same place in a row. She doesn't have a pattern from what I've observed, but if a child is being too rowdy or being a troublemaker then she's more likely to set next to them. Mama has her own special set at the head of the middle table which is where the majority of children eat. She never sets anywhere else.
"Let's hangout during free time later." Frank says, letting go of my hand and walking over to the right-side table. He didn't give me time to say yes or no.
I quickly go over to my table on the left-side before Mama gets onto me.
Here is where I made a miscalculation so to speak. I choose the set farthest away from Mama, at the very end of the table. My thinking was that I might not be able to hide my anxiety well enough to fool Mama. Since I was sick for a few days, I knew she would likely keep a close eye on me for a bit. By setting here, I thought Mama wouldn't be able to see me act moody or unsociable. Problem with the plan was I forgot a very important piece to the game.
"Please scutch over a little, Shirley." Sister Susan walked up behind me. I jumped, not expecting her to want to set with me out of all the other children. I'm one of the quit ones. The only times I've been close to Susan during meals is if I happened to be close to a child she's keeping in check.
What a stupid move on my part. If I had sat nearer to Mama, then I would bet Susan wouldn't have needed to set right next to me. I just got out of the infirmary, of course Mama would have made plans to keep an eye on me even if it wasn't her.
"Okay." I mumble and inch over enough for Susan to set at the very end. Susan gave me a concerned look, but didn't mention anything about my nervous behavior. This end of the table got quitter at Susan's arrival, everyone knowing they need to be on good behavior lest they get chastised.
With all the stragglers now in their chairs, Mama rings a small handbell getting everyone to quit down.
"Another wonderful morning with all my adorable children. Let us now say thanks for our food." She says, clasping her hands together and bowing her head.
All of us mimic her actions then simply say "Thank you for the food." With that done the children dig into the piles of food.
The children talked, but not about things I found interesting. Mostly, the talk revolved around things to do during free time. Susan hadn't said anything as of yet, though I'm sure she'll jump in the interactions soon.
"Let's play pirates!" Ty, a fellow seven year old, suggested.
"I read a story about a pirate princess." I mentioned, trying to find some way to participate in a conversation.
"Oh cool." Ty, politely said in return, but it's clear he doesn't care about some book I read. Other children jump in on the pirate game idea and didn't ask me anything about the book.
Should have known better. None of these children are bookworms like myself. The handful who do like reading are closer to the front.
Being social with such young children has been difficult. Most of the time, I just listen and occasionally add a thought or two. It's not as bad with the older ones, but within my age group and younger it's easy to see I'm out of my depth.
"That sounds like a fun story." Susan says, and my inner voice spits out a jumble of curse words that I have never heard within this prison.
"Yeah, this princess was traveling the world when her ship gets attacked by a pirate ship and then- "And so for the rest of the meal, I talk about the pirate princess story with Susan. All the while pretending to be delighted someone wanted to hear about it. It helped that I actually did like the story.
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The classroom isn't as noisy as the dining hall, but the high-pitched voices can still cause a headache if exposed to it long enough. We finished the latency test a few minutes ago and now it's time for our math lesson.
The room wouldn't have felt out of place in a high school in my past life. Walls are painted white with a dozen posters decorating them. A dry erase board takes up most of the front wall. There's a teacher's desk although Mama doesn't use it for more than a few minutes at a time. Small shelves lined up on one side of the room that are filled with books, worksheets, office supplies and other things we might need.
Unlike a regular school, the room is windowless. Assumingly, it's that way to make sure none the children try to escape while Mama is in a different classroom.
With only two adults in the house, it's impossible to have every class be supervised. Instead Mama has us watch lesson videos so she can move between classrooms as needed. Not the best system, but it gets the job done.
She spends most of the time in the five and six years old class, or normally referred to as class one. That room has the most children and they need more help than the others, so Mama gets them settled first then moves on to our room aka class two.
"Thank you everyone for being seated, but now we need to be quit and focused on the lesson." Mama says as she survives the room. All the children stop talking, though a few are still giggling. She walks over to a cabinet and unlocks it with one of her keys.
She looks back over to us, taking a second to decided which one of us will be her little helper of the day. The outgoing ones look pleadingly at her while the introverted ones try their best to blind in with their chairs. She settles on a redheaded boy in the front row. "James, could you please help me hand the tablets out."
"Yes Mama!" Said boy chirps, so eager to help in any way he could.
Each child is handed a tablet, a styles pen and a pair of headphones. We use these every day to watch the lesson videos and solve problems relating to the lesson. The headphones help keep us from getting distracted.
With each child having what they need and James back in his seat, Mama grabs her own special tablet. It's bigger than ours and acts as a master table being able to control the children's tablets. We can't even turn our tablets on or off.
She activates all the tablets, and pulls up the needed files for today's lessons.
I'm looking down at my own tablet while this is happening. The video takes over the whole screen, but it hasn't started playing yet. The only modern technology here is used for education. When not in use, Mama keeps it under lock and key. Ray might have been able to tinker with these and make them useful, but I can't risk fiddling with them.
"Okay then, the video will play in thirty seconds. Remember if you need help press the white button. I'll check in on you when I can." With that done, she picks up her laptop and leaves to go to class three.
The button she just referred to is on the edge of our desks. It's far enough away to where we can't accidentally hit it but not too far to where we can't reach. There are three buttons of different colors. The white one is if we can't understand something. The children don't normally use it since the videos are made so well that few have trouble following along. The green one is the most used one out of the three. It's for if we need to use the restroom. I've never seen or heard of anyone using the red button. It's for emergencies like if one of us gets hurt.
I thought about using the buttons as part of an escape plan while I was in the infirmary. The idea was to pretend to use the restroom and sneak out while Susan is in the playroom and Mama in the classroom. Problem with that idea is that it was an obvious plan that I'm sure the Farm has thought about and made a failsafe to prevent. Also, it wouldn't give me enough time. If I'm away for an abnormally long time, then Mama will check on me. She doesn't even have to go to the restroom. She can just pull out her tracking watch and see where I'm at.
But then again, the trackers could still work even if they're no longer inside the body.
The lesson wasn't covering anything I didn't already know. Simple multiplying and division.
Though the material wasn't interesting, I was interested in the lady explaining everything.
The videos we watch are recordings of different teachers giving the lesson. Mama says these teachers work for the school system and that they make these recordings specifically for orphans like us.
There is some truth in that story. For one, I know these videos are just for Glory Bell children. The teachers will say things like 'good morning Glory Bell students' before jumping straight into the lesson. And two, I don't remember anything like these video lessons happing in Grace Field.
With how thorough Emma, Ray, and Norman were in the series, I'm sure this would be something discussed about in the manga.
The lie in the story is that these teachers work for a human school system.
My first thought about these teachers after remembering the manga was that they must be a part of the Ratri clan. But then another possibility came to mind.
These teachers could be Sisters.
It made sense. For one, all the teachers are young women. None of them are men. About a year ago I asked the children in different classes if the teachers in their videos are women, and they confirmed it. I then asked Mama about it. She said men rarely go into a teaching profession. That had sounded believable. If I were in a different country, then maybe the social norms dictated men should not teach young children.
But that didn't explain why they're all young. None of the ones I've seen look older than twenty. That had been another unexplained thing I couldn't understand until now.
So yeah, I'm leaning into the idea these teachers are Sisters. But why does it have to be Sisters who make the videos?
That's the question my mind keeps going to as I solve the math problems the video teacher asked me to complete.
This week the teacher is a black lady who can pass as a highschooler. The word lanky comes to mind when she first popped on the screen. Her twin hair puffs look cute and stylish. Of course she wouldn't be wearing the same outfit as Mama and Susan. Instead, she's wearing a white skirt and a baby blue blouse. No jewelry or makeup. The camera cuts off her feet, so I don't know what her shoes look like. It's the same thing all the other video teachers wear. I think the children are supposed to assume that's their teacher uniform.
We have three different subjects, math, English, and science. All of them get taught by the same teacher, but every week the teachers change. Thankfully that's something other children thought to ask about and Mama's answer is always the same.
In her words, "These teachers are also teaching children at a school so they can't devout the time to make these videos for Glory Bell every day. So their school assigns them to create only a week's worth of lessons and then another teacher picks up where they left off."
That answer never made sense to me. Wouldn't that make the lesson plans less efficient if so many teachers worked on them? They would have to be communicating with each other to work out the semester's entire curriculum.
Before I noticed how off it was that the place they record in seemed to be the same room in every video. Though now that small detail makes perfect sense knowing the world I was reborn into. Headquarters might only be big enough to devote one room to recording these lessons.
Even if they are Sisters why have so many make the videos? The Farm could just pick the best teachers and have them make the video lessons for the whole class.
At the end of the math lesson, I still have no answer to why the videos are made like these. There must be some benefit to it all.
I and some other children take off the headphones. Mama will be here in a minute to see if we need anything before starting the English lesson.
"Shirley, did you get all the questions?" Rachel, setting in the desk on my right side, asked. She looks nerves, or maybe worried. We don't get told if our answers are right or wrong since Mama needs to go through them, but we can normally tell if we did well or not.
"I think I got most of them right." I got everyone right, but I wasn't going to brag about it.
Rachel bites her bottom lip, looking down. She isn't the best at math and she asks for help more often than the others. It's no secret that it makes her feel bad if she thinks she's falling behand.
"I don't think I did too well." She admitted.
"Why didn't you hit the white button and ask Mama for help?" If she was struggling through the lesson, then it would have been good to get extra help. As far as I can tell, the work we do in these classes don't affect when we get shipped. It's only the IQ test to worry about. But if we can't improve in the classroom then we aren't likely to improve our test results.
"I don't know." She says, not looking at me. I'm worried she might start crying.
Before I could say something encouraging, Mama comes inside.
"Does anyone need a restroom break before the English lesson?" She asks, smiling and looking around the room. She looks at Rachel a little longer than normal and her smile drops a bit. Not surprising she would notice the little girl being upset.
We all say no to her question.
She looks away from Rachel. I thought she would ask if she was alright, but maybe she doesn't want to embarrass her by drawing the whole class to look her way. Or maybe she doesn't have enough time to do so. There are other classes she needs to visit.
"Okay then I'll start the video. Put your headphones back on." She types something on the tablet before leaving like last time.
Like math, English wasn't anything new to me and I got every question right. If this was at a high school level then I probably would have made mistakes, but this was first grade level stuff.
I glance over at Rachel a few times. She seems to be doing okay now. English was easier for her than math.
Time goes by at a snail's pace.
The teacher is doing a decent job explaining nouns and verbs, but I found it boring all the same. I almost thought answering the questions wrong as a form of protest, but I don't see that working out in my favor.
At the end, Rachel appears to be in higher spirits.
Mama comes back, asks again if we needed to use the restroom. James says yes this time, so Mama waits until he's done before starting the science class. It's about plants, pollination that kind of stuff. I find it a bit more enjoyable than the other two lessons at least.
It also seems the teacher likes it more as well. Her smile is brighter, and she talks about the subject with more enthusiasm. She adds fun facts about different plants and pollinating insects.
In my mind I referred to her as hair puffs since I don't know her name, but now it's changed to science nerd. I didn't know her name because I wasn't paying attention. She just hasn't mentioned it, like all the other teachers in these videos. Not once, have I ever heard any of these women mention their names in my two years of schooling here.
"Alright, that's all we will cover today. Remember to keep studying even outside these lessons." She waves bye to the camera before the screen goes dark.
"Finally, over."
"That was hard."
"I liked the part about bees."
The whole class erupted into chatter. I tune most of the noise out and rest my head on the desk until Mama comes to collect us for lunch.
Rachel won't bother me if she thinks I'm resting. Without me to talk with, she picks the person in front of her instead.
"How well did you think you did James?" She asks the redheaded boy. This picked my interest. James is an average student so I can use his grades as a reference point to judge the others. It makes it easier to predict which child will be sent away next.
"I think I got most of the questions right. Science was the easiest." He answered. I can't agree or disagree with it. All the classes are boringly easy for me.
"Oh, good job." She says after a second of hesitation. Her voice quitter. She then changes the topic to playing tag later and I stop listing.
That wasn't good.
I knew Rachel had trouble with math, but if she is starting to struggle in the other classes as well then her test scores will remain the same. Not enough improvement would mean she will get shipped earlier.
I grand down on my teeth, and take deeper breaths.
I could offer to tutor her.
I could tutor every child here, but someone will always get shipped out. Would it be fair for me to help only certain children and let the others be next on the dinner table?
This isn't the first time I've thought about it. I've known for months that children with low scores get sent away. Just didn't know where they were sent to or what was instore for them. If tutoring the children would have kept them all safe then I would have encouraged everyone to study. Might have even created a study club.
But I knew no matter what someone would be sent away within the month. Grace Field shipped a child once every two months, but here it's monthly. Yet another small detail to add to the growing pial of differences between the farms.
The door's hinges make a squeaky sound as Mama opens it. That must be made that way on purpose. Just like how the stairs creak at the slightest touch. At night when everything is still and quit, these hinges and floorboards might as well be alarm bells.
"Good job everyone. Now put your tablets on my desk and head to the refectory." Mama says as I left up my head from my pretend nap.
All the children happily do as they're told. Mama smiling fondly as the children who's heads barley make it past her knees place the tablets onto the teacher's desk.
I force myself to smile back up at Mama when our eyes meet.
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This time I set at the middle of the table. Sister Susan decided to eat at the young kid's table. She also decided to eat in the middle of that table and happened to have a good spot to occasionally glace at me when she thought I wasn't paying attention.
The food didn't taste too good, though I think it was my nerves making everything taste like ash.
Still somehow managed to eat a good enough amount to keep Mama from being worried.
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"Want to go play pirates?" Frank asked, looking down at me with one of his biggest grins. He was apparently serious about us playing together. I thought he was just being nice earlier, and he would forget about it.
Almost everyone is outside. Only the toddlers are still indoors with Mama. It's a beautiful summer day. A little warmer than what I found comfortable but the wind is strong so that's helping to keep things cool. Me and Frank are near the house, deciding on what we should do together.
All the kids broke off into groups to play different games. Ty and some others started to pretend to be pirates on a treasure hunt near the creek. Sister Susan and a group of girls are having a tea party with dolls near the Bell Tower. I think Margaret organized the game of foursquares using the house's only kickball. And with the wind being strong a few children wanted to fly kites we made in an arts and crafts workshop.
None of these games are what I was wanting to do though.
"Not really." I answered honestly.
Frank seemed to be fine with me turning that suggestion down. His grin never wavering.
"Okay, then what do you want to play?"
"Hide and seek." No one had started playing that game, but it could still be doable with just two players.
If I am going to escape, then I need to start training on stealth. I'm taking a page out of Grace Field escapees' playbook. Emme and them used games to disguise their training, so I need to play games that will strengthen my skills. Playing pirates, throwing tea parties, and flying kites won't help me in the long run.
"But there's only two of us. Wouldn't it be better to join some of the others in their games?" Frank pointed out. He's still smiling, but he started rubbing his neck; a sign he wasn't onboard with my idea but was too nice to say no outright.
"We can make new rules, so it'll be fun with just two of us." I suggested. I grabbed onto Frank's hand and put on my best puppy dog look.
"What kind of new rules?" He asked. At least he's going to hear me out.
"Well, the hider could be able to beat the seeker two different ways. Either they get to the safe spot before being found or they can sneak up on the seeker and get them instead. Oh, and if the seeker sees the hider before they make it to the safe spot then the seeker wins."
This modified version of hide-and-seek is to symbolize what it would be like hiding from demons. If they spot me first, I would be dead but if I see them first then I might be able to ambush them or sneak off. This is just one of many modified games I thought about while I was confided to bed.
Frank would be a great player to train against too. Since he is four years older than me, he has the physical advantage. Every demon out there can outrun and overpower me easily. I need to get experience going up against opponents who outclass me in every category.
"That sounds fun! Okay let's try out your new game. Where should the safe spot be?" He genially sounded exited.
"Um… not sure." I look around. It can't be the house or the bell tower. Too many children run around the buildings. I'm not worried about Mama and Susan learning what game we're playing, but this is stealth training and having noisy children around will make it harder for Frank to find me. So the creek needs to be crossed out for the same reason. Ty and his group will be playing pirates for the rest of our free time.
"How about the diamond field?" Frank suggested. "The pitcher's mound would work as the safe spot. No one is playing kick ball."
Looking over at the empty field, I consider it for a second then realized how perfect it would be for this exercise. The diamond field is in the middle of an open field surrounded by woods on three sides. The house is on an incline so anyone near the house can have a perfect eagle eye view of the field. The bell tower and the creek are on the other side of the house. All the children are playing either around the bell tower, inside the house, or in the creek today, so chances are low that children will be running around the field today.
What made it perfect though was the fact it was in the middle of an open field. In my memories, the Grace Field escapees found the shelter in a dessert with no trees are any other cover to hide behand. If I escape and find that place, then I need to be sure no demand watches me wonder around the barren wasteland or else they'll make a straight beeline to me. The pitcher's mound would make a good practice shelter.
"Okay!" I chirped. With my voice chords still developing, my high pitched voice sounds like a bird at times. "Go in the house and count to twenty. I'll go hide in the woods."
"Silly Shirley. You shouldn't tell me where you're hiding." He ruffled my hair and trotted back inside the house. I turn around and head straight to the tree line.
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POV Change
"Eighteen, nineteen and twenty. Ready or not here I come Shirley."
He called out, though chances of his little sister being near enough to hear were low. He is in the foyer with his hands covering his eyes. It's just him here, the other children either in different parts of the house or outside.
He drops his hands and goes straight through the front door. Although they didn't say hiding in the house was off limits, Frank is sure she wouldn't have hidden in here.
She already said she would be in the woods. Now that could have been a red hearing of sorts. Claiming to hide somewhere but then not actually going there. Shirley is certainly smart enough to come up with that plan, but Frank didn't think that was her intentions.
The woods close to the diamond field would make the most sense.
They ironed out some of the rules of this modified hide and seek.
For one, neither of them could be within fifty meters of the pitcher's mound. Far enough away so the seeker can get there in time to stop the hider from running there. The house is just far enough away that meets this requirement. And sense it's on higher ground, Frank can see the entire field.
If Shirley tries to run for the safe spot at the beginning, then he'll see her and the game ends.
It's an interesting rule that puts the seeker in an advantages position. He could just set on the grass near the house. Shirley couldn't win if he did that, but that doesn't mean she would lose either. She can hide in the tree line and wait for him to move. It would make it a stalemate.
It would also make the game boring, so he doesn't do that.
Instead he jogs towards the tree line around the diamond field and searches for her.
He doesn't go into the woods, just on the edge so he can look over to the pitcher's mound every few seconds.
If Shirley is out here then she'll see what he's doing and try to sneak to the safe spot while his back is turned.
The odds are so heavily stacked in his favor.
He doesn't find much joy from playing like this, but Shirley came up with the game and he didn't want to so no.
After a few minutes of searching from the tree line, he abandons the strategy and goes into the woods making it impossible for him to look at the open field.
He didn't want to win. What he does want is for Shirley to have fun on her first day out of the infirmary. Throwing the game would be a small price to pay.
He stays in the woods for a few more minutes and decided that should be enough time for Shirley to have won.
Sure enough when he makes it back to the field, his little sister is standing on the top of the pitcher's mound.
"Oh how did you get past me Shirley?" He asks while running towards her.
From the distance, he hadn't been close enough to make out her expression but had expected to see a big grin. Instead he sees a pouting face.
"Waits wrong?" He closes the rest of the distance between them and puts his hand on her shoulder.
She looks up at him at first but then lowers her head back down. She fidgets with her hands, a habit she does when she's uncomfortable.
"Why did ya throw the game?"
This took him by surprise.
"What? I didn't do that. What makes you think I let you win?" How did she figure that out?
"Because you should have stayed where you can look at the field, but you left and you were gone long enough to give me plenty of time to make it."
Frank didn't have a response to that.
H-how could a seven year old know to think from his prospective. Their other siblings near her age wouldn't have even thought he would want to lose on purpose.
"Umm, well guess you got me." He rubs the back of his neck.
This wasn't at all what he had in mind playing with Shirley, but this just shows how distant the two are as siblings. Shirley is the quietest and shyest child. She loves to read by herself. If it wasn't for Mama and Susan then Frank is sure Shirley would never leave the library. As a resolute, Shirley doesn't have any close friendships with anyone.
And sense she doesn't spend a whole lot of time playing with others, Frank couldn't have known how smart of a player she could be.
What kind of big brother am I if I didn't see this before. She's the top scorer of class two for crying out loud!
"I'm sorry." He finally says after a moment of awkward silence. "I should have treated you more seriously."
"I'm not mad." She says, looking at her still fidgeting hands. She didn't look upset, but she didn't look happy either.
"Well….um want a rematch?" He asks, and with a smirk adds "I'll beat you this time like you wanted."
That got a little smile out of her at least.
She stops her fidgeting and looks up at him, a glimmer of confidence shining in her eyes.
"Nuh-uh, I'm going to win for real this time."
"Bring it on."
They run back to the house at the starting point and begin a new game.
Notes: So I've skimmed through third Promised Neverland light novel since that was a story about Yuugo and his friends when they were still at Glory Bell. It was a fan translation since there isn't an official English release yet. It didn't give a lot of new information about Glory Bell, but there were a few things so I'll try incorporating them into my version of Glory Bell.
I used the word 'refectory' since that was what they used to describe the dinning area in the light novel.
