Chapter 6
"There."
Ororo looked over at the slightly wistful sound in Joey's voice. "You are done?"
Joey tied off the last piece of twine, and sighed. 'Yeah. I'm done." She stared at the plant for a minute. "I won't be able to use the greenhouse as an excuse for much longer. It's getting colder, and as soon as the last leaves fall I won't be allowed to come out here anymore." She looked up at Ororo. "I won't be able to come see you."
Ororo smiled gently and finished staking out the orchid before she responded. "You could always tell your Nanny you want to come visit us," she said. "I don't see why she couldn't bring you over."
Joey made a face, picked up her orchid pot, and carried it over to the shelf where her other orchids sat. "She'll kill me if I told her," the little girl prophesied.
Ororo sighed. After four months of knowing Joey, and seeing her almost every day, she had come to hate the child's nanny. There were so many things she had told Joey she couldn't do, and many things she had told the child to do and few of them made any sense. Why couldn't Joey get to know the next door neighbors?
Joey opened the greenhouse door, and stuck her head out, listening. After a moment, she closed the door again. Ororo looked at her curiously. 'Are you waiting for something, Joey?"
Joey blushed. "The mailman," she said. "Every year on my birthday Papa sends me a birthday card and money two days before my birthday. Every year. He never missed a year, and he was never late. He wrote me one year and told me why he always sent it early; so I could go buy what I wanted before the big day as he called it, and I could enjoy it on my birthday."
"I didn't know your birthday was coming up," Ororo said. "You will be thirteen, am I correct?"
"Yes," Joey nodded. "I'll finally be a teenager." She grinned. "Papa said last year he'd send me extra money this year because teenage girls needed 'stuff', as he called it. He always sent three hundred dollars to me every year, but when I turned ten he started sending me four hundred. And last year he said for my thirteenth birthday he'd send me five. I'm hoping I can talk Mrs. Seward into taking me shopping, because a lot of my clothes are getting really tight." Ororo nodded. She'd noticed Joey's clothes getting tighter, particularly across her chest and hips. "I ripped out one of my t-shirts yesterday. Mrs. Seward told me to sew it back together, but I told her it was too tight, and I needed new clothes, but she just said she didn't have money to budget for clothes. I was hoping if I have my own money she might take me."
Ororo frowned. "When your father left, he should have given her instructions on how much to spend on clothes and food for you, as well as any other necessities you might need," she said. "What happens when you need feminine products?"
Joey frowned. "What do you mean…oh! That stuff." Ororo nodded. "I'm lucky, I guess," Joey said. "I haven't started all that yet. Maman told me it would happen over the next year or so, but I haven't seen anything happening yet." She looked down at her body. "I'm starting to get wider hips, and my chest is definitely getting bigger, but I think I'm prepared for that. Right before Maman died we went and bought training bras and stuff. She said I'd need it eventually." She sniffed. "Mrs. Seward told me I'm starting to get fat. I told her it's not fat, I'm just growing into a woman. And that soon I'd have to find some friends, so I could have a boyfriend like some of the girls at my school in France did. She almost smacked me. Told me I was still a little girl and not to talk about nasty things like that." She hesitated. "Miss Ororo…"
Ororo heard the change in the girl's voice and turned away from the small bonsai tree she was pruning. "What is it, child? Go ahead, you can ask me anything. I won't get mad."
"Ummm…" The girl was plainly hesitant. "Maman told me she'd wait until I was a little older to talk to me about things, but…well…if I have questions, would you answer them for me? The anatomical texts in the library don't tell me much. And the last time Mrs. Seward caught me looking at them she threw them away."
Ororo was glad her chocolate skin hid her blush. She'd never thought she'd find herself in the position of having to have 'the talk' with anyone. But this poor child had no one. It didn't seem likely that her nanny was going to answer any questions of the sort. "Go ahead and ask," she said gently. "You're old enough to know, since you're asking." She put the bonsai aside and sat down on one of the milk crates that Joey used for chairs. "Here. While we're talking, have something to eat." She opened the picnic basket she'd brought with her and extracted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Joey, and one for herself, then handed a bottle of juice to the girl and reached for her own water.
Joey took a bite of her sandwich and chewed while she thought. Then she took a sip of her juice and plunged in. "Maman said that boys would want to touch me when I got older, that when I started dating they'd want me to kiss them. Am I old enough now to do that?"
Ororo swallowed hard. "No, Joey, I think you should wait until you get older for that," she said. "I didn't have my first kiss until I was almost eighteen."
"Was it fun?"
Ororo closed her eyes for a second, silently praying to the Goddess to help her. "Yes."
"Well…" Joey hesitated, then said, "I know this girl…back in France, I mean…she lived with her mom in a boarding house, and another guy who lived there was touching her and stuff. He'd like, get her to sit on his lap and read her stories, and he'd rub her back and legs and stuff, and she said she wasn't really comfortable with it but she didn't know if it was right or not. She used to sit on her mother's lap all the time and that felt okay, but why didn't it feel okay when she was sitting on Mr. Hunt's…I mean, on the guest's…lap?"
Ororo's amusement disappeared. This sounded like the hysterical explanation Joey had given her a couple months ago when she'd been beaten. Joey had never talked about again, and had steered away from the subject when Ororo tried to ask, but it had stayed on her mind, troubling her. She thought carefully now about what to say. "How old was your friend?" she asked.
"Thirteen, like me," and Ororo knew with certainty that Joey was talking about herself. But if she said that, the girl would stop talking. Ororo wanted to know how far this man had gotten, and where he was now.
"Listen to me, Joey," she said, and her voice was serious. "What that man…did…was very wrong. She was much too young to understand what that meant, and he was sick, mentally, for doing that to her. She was a very wise little girl for feeling that it wasn't right, because it wasn't. It is not right for anyone over the age of eighteen to touch anyone younger than they are. Some teenaged boys and girls do it anyway, because they love each other, and they want to express that love physically, but for anyone under the age of sixteen it's very, very wrong. And if the person doing it is caught, they'll go to jail because the law says they can't do that. Do you understand?"
Joey nodded, not looking at Ororo. Her shoulders, which had been drawn up around her ears, slowly relaxed. Somewhat, but not all the way. "He'd walk into her room at night, when she was supposed to be asleep, and he'd stand there looking at her and rubbing his stomach under his bellybutton," she said, pointing to her own abdomen. "She didn't think that was right either. She was afraid. She never opened her eyes; she pretended she was asleep when he did that."
A cold knot of fear settled in the pit of Ororo's stomach. Whoever this was, if he was doing that…would he stop there, or would he force Joey to do more, to do something else that would hurt her? The thought made her sick. She couldn't let that happen. "Joey," she said, "Did your friend know how to protect herself if he ever tried to touch her while she was in bed at night?"
"No," Joey's voice was small. "She's scared of him. He's…he was…so much bigger than her, and she's afraid he's going to hurt her if she tries to protect herself."
Ororo glanced at her watch quickly, then sighed. "You're going to have to go soon, but Joey, will you meet me at the lake tomorrow?" she said. "It is really important. I want to take you back to the mansion with me. I want to show you how to protect yourself…if anything like that happens to you," she added quickly. "My friend Remy will help me demonstrate. Will you come?"
Joey nodded, looking relieved. Her shoulders relaxed completely. "I'll come," she said. Dusting the crumbs off her lap, she finished off her juice and hugged Ororo before slipping out of the greenhouse.
Ororo re-wrapped her own sandwich, appetite gone. Hunt. The last name was Hunt. She'd have to ask Charles if he knew anyone by that name. If the man was staying in the same house with Joey, he was probably a family friend. Maybe Charles would remember if Joey's father had any friends by that name.
She retraced her steps to the mansion, went in by the back door, and was unpacking the picnic basket when Charles himself came in. He paused in the act of opening the refrigerator to get a bottle of water and then turned to Ororo. "You are disturbed."
Her lips twitched into a smile. "Yes. How could you tell?" Her voice was heavy with irony, and Charles noticed.
"Sit down, Ororo. Please. What is it? Is it Joey?" He'd seen her taking the half-eaten sandwich out of the basket.
Ororo nodded. "We were talking about her birthday coming up, and she was talking about her clothes. They're getting tight. We were talking about her physical development, and she started asking me about boys and kissing. It seemed harmless enough. Then she asked me…well, she said she knew a 'friend' back in France… who was living in the same house as a stranger, and he was doing things and touching her where she wasn't comfortable being touched." Xavier stared at her, horrified, as Ororo spoke quietly. "Joey said…she said this 'friend' of hers would be in bed at night when this stranger, Mr. Hunt, would come into this 'friend's' room and touch himself while he watched her sleeping. The 'friend' was scared, and always pretended that she was sleeping when the stranger came to her room."
"She didn't say it was herself?"
"Joey slipped. She said 'he's so much bigger' and I knew she was not talking about a 'friend', she's talking about herself. I asked her to come here tomorrow; I want to show her how to protect herself. Since she knows Remy, I was planning on asking if he would help me with a little 'demonstration' of some basic self-defense tactics. She is a small child, and I realize whoever this man is will be bigger than herself, but at least she could catch him off guard long enough to run to someone else in the house for help. He will not try anything with anyone else there. That is all I can think of to do, Charles. Unless she comes straight out and asks for help, this is all I can do."
'That's all any of us can do," Xavier said grimly. "I've been trying to call her father. I've left messages with his secretary, but they keep telling me I've just missed him, or that he's in a meeting, or that he's left this country and gone to the office in another country…" he sighed. "I'm not having much luck. See what you can do for Joey." He turned and started to leave the kitchen, and then stopped. "Her birthday is coming up?"
"In two days. She said her father sends her money every year, exactly two days before her birthday, so she can spend it on whatever she likes. She's waiting for the mailman to come today so she can get her birthday money. She says she hopes she can get Mrs. Seward to take her shopping, because she needs new clothes."
"Shouldn't there be an allowance in the household budget for her clothing? I find it odd that Henry would forget something so basic."
"Joey's nanny said that there was no allowance for her clothes."
Xavier shook his head ruefully. "Poor girl. Yet another thing I have to talk to her father about. It doesn't seem like him, somehow. Oh well. Would any new clothes we buy her be noticed?"
Ororo nodded. "Mrs. Seward is extremely strict. But perhaps some basic things, like jeans and plain shirts, could be slipped in if they were the same brand and color as what she is presently wearing. She could change out of them here and wear the new ones in, and her nanny might not notice."
Xavier smiled. "Let me go and hunt out my credit card. It has been a while since I used it; perhaps a little airing wouldn't go amiss…" He smiled as he glided out.
Ororo finished unpacking the picnic basket, finished her water, and was about to head off to Charles' study when the back door opened and Remy came in. "Remy. Just the person I wanted to see," Ororo said. 'I wonder if you would consider doing me a favor."
"Sure, chere," Remy said. "Want Remy to take you shopping? I can do dat."
"How did you know I was planning on going shopping…" Ororo blinked.
"Seen dat look in your eye, chere," Remy said. "You girls always get dat look. An' figured you'd ask me because dere ain't nobody home right now."
Ororo smiled. "In that case, yes, I would welcome your company on my shopping expedition. But I was actually going to ask you something else." She told Remy about what Joey had said. "I want to show her some basic self-defense moves," she said. "She's too small to do any real damage to a larger attacker, but hopefully she can distract him, catch him off guard long enough to get away. However, I need a man to demonstrate moves on."
Remy eyed her. "Is dis goin' to hurt?"
Ororo laughed. "I will not hurt you, Remy. Honestly."
Remy shrugged. "Well, in dat case…lead on."