Disclaimer: I own nothing. Forgive me.
Hello, this is my newest story. Please enjoy and forgive me if this first chapter is too long... oh well. I'll work on my other stories soon, I promise. This idea just popped into my head one day. Enjoy!
~sugarsprite~
~*~
As I exit the white van, I shiver, despite the fact that it's mid-June. The camp is really weird. It's near a lake, there's a small field for games and stuff, but there is no row of wooden cabins, just a large concrete building. My social worker, Dave, gently takes me and my baggage by the shoulders and guides me into the revolving door, escaping the light drizzle that had slightly dampened my luggage and hair.
'They must think I'm made of porcelain,' I think bitterly as Dave leads me to the front desk. I shake his hands off my shoulders, my duffle bag bumping my shins.
An old woman in an ugly cardigan sits at a desk, shuffling papers. I stop and look back at Dave, who takes the hint and introduces me.
"Erm... hello, I'm David Mantosky, this is Marian." I nudge him; he knows I hate that name. "Err... she goes by Mara, Mara Fitzwalter."
The old woman gives me the 'well, aren't you special,' glance. Dave touches my arm in a warning; he knows how much I hate being gazed at like that.
I am fascinated by the horrendousness of this lady's cardigan. It is a vivid magenta with lime green zigzags. There are little white lambs that graze on the zigzags, with bells sewn into the knitted fabric around their necks, and when she moves, the bells tinkle.
The cardigan and the old lady get out of their chair. I can hear her bones creaking and I want to run away. Dave is standing nearby, so I decide not to. She walks the old shuffling elderly walk, tacky little bells tinkling through a white linoleum hallway. I shudder again. This whole camp reminds me of a hospital.
We get into an elevator, and I look at the woman again. I notice that her shoes match her sweater. I wonder where she gets her clothes. The elevator stops, giving my stomach a lurch that always reminds me of roller coasters. The little lighted numbers above the door say we're on the third floor. A bell inside the elevator dings, and the chrome doors open to another landing.
This floor is different than the first. For one, there are actually children here. They all are the ages of four to seven and involved in some sort of game, so they're running and jumping about. The old lady tells them they should be in their rooms, and they stick out their tongues at her and continue playing. I decide I like them. The old lady mutters about how the counselors don't do enough, and how rude kids are these days.
She takes me down a hallway littered with children's toys. She steps on a Barbie by accident, breaking its arm off. I pick it up and put the arm back into place. Dave looks at me strangely, and I tell him I would have hated to find my favorite toy broken. He nods, and then makes me follow cardigan lady into the room I will sleep in for the next few months.
The room is simply furnished. There is a desk in a corner, a television on top of a dresser, and two beds in the centre of the room. There is a door leading off to a bathroom on the left as we enter. A boy sits cross-legged on one of the beds. He is deeply involved in reading an old looking book, and he doesn't even look up when we come in.
"Hello Robin," the elderly lady says, "This is Marian..."
"Mara," I interrupt.
The lady plows on, ignoring my comment, "She will be your roommate for a while. Make her feel at home, alright?"
"Mm-hmm..." Robin answers, not looking up.
Dave has some paperwork to go over with The Fashion-Senseless One. I am left alone with Robin.
He puts down his book and looks at me. "Why are you standing in the doorway?" he asks.
"I don't know," I reply, and sit on the unoccupied bed, dumping my bag beside it. After a pause, "What are you reading?" I ask.
He shows me the cover of his book. "The Adventures of Robin Hood." He says. I notice a faded illustration of a man in green cocking an arrow on a large bow. "Is it any good?" I ask curiously.
"Wonderful," he says happily, "Have you read it?"
"No. I've never even heard of it."
He looks horrified, "Never heard of Robin Hood?!" he asks in disbelief. "You don't know what you're missing!" he hands me the book. "Read it," he orders, "I've already read it twenty seven times already..." he pauses to think, "No... that'll take too long, I have the DVD."
"Really?" I ask.
"Yep." He goes to the chest of drawers and takes out a yellow DVD case from underneath a few shirts. On the front, it has a picture of an attractive man laughing. Underneath him is a smaller picture of a beautiful woman smiling meekly.
"Why do you hide it?" I ask, curiously.
"It's so one of the kids, Guy, doesn't take it. Lots of my stuff mysteriously makes its way to his room, so I take precautions with my favorites."
He slips the DVD into the player on the TV. It hums for a while, and then a lively march plays as we start the movie. Robin sings along.
"Dum daaaa dadada da daa daaaaa, dum daaaa dadada da daaa." He sings, and then remembers me. He laughs and begins to sing again. As the march changes to a slower song, he stops, and we both laugh.
The door opens, and Dave comes to tell me goodbye. Robin hits the pause button. "Well Mara, I'm glad you made a friend." Dave says. I can tell he is amazed that I have. I'm not a very social person. "I'm going home now, but I'll come up to see how you're doing on the weekends, okay?"
Suddenly, I don't want Dave to go. I go up to him, and he puts his arms around me. "I'll miss you," he whispers in my hair. "Mara, don't hesitate to call me at home if there's a problem, okay?" he breaks the embrace and holds me at arms length. "See you on Sunday."
I nod, and I hug him one more time. "Bye." I say sadly. He walks out of the room. I go to the window, and wait until I see his van go back onto the highway
"Is he your dad?" Robin asks, turning the movie back on.
"No, my social worker."
"Oh." We watch in silence. The Adventures of Robin Hood is set in medieval times and is about this knight who becomes an outlaw to fight tyranny and this weird prince who wants to be king. He also falls in love with this haughty rich woman called Marian who is against him at first. It's a beautiful movie, and I feel myself falling in love with the story of Robin Hood.
"When was this made?" I ask, looking at the vivid green, reds, and blues filling the screen.
"1938," he says, "This was one of the first movies in color. Technicolor is a great thing."
"Indeed," I say, laughing, but I want to get back to the story, as Robin and Marian are kissing.
We're just finishing the movie when the bell for dinner rings. "Damn it," growls Robin. "I wanted to show you some of the extras. Oh well, you'll probably get the whole welcome speech thing tonight, and we'll find out why we haven't done anything at all today."
He gets up slowly and walks to the door. "Ladies first," he says with a sweeping bow. I giggle and walk out of the room to the elevator.
As we enter the dining hall, I notice a burly man standing at the doorway. He could loose a few pounds, is balding, and wears cowboy boots. I can see dislike on Robin's face when he sees at whom I am looking.
We get in line for food. The line goes relatively quickly, and soon Robin and I are getting cheeseburgers dumped on our little plastic trays. As I go to get a drink, I overhear Robin tuning down the quarter-pounder the cafeteria woman she has put on his tray. He gets salad instead.
We sit down at a table that reminds me of elementary school. Robin engages me in conversation about the movie we have been watching when we are joined by a skinny African-American boy and a really tall girl with bright pink spiky hair.
"Will! Joan! I missed you guys!" Robin exclaims with a grin on his face. "This is Mara, my roommate." He says, referring to me. "How have you been?"
"Fine, what about you?" says pink-haired Joan, "We've missed you since last summer."
"I've missed you too. Are you guys roommates again?" Robin asks, taking a bite of lettuce with his plastic fork.
"Yup, they did it alphabetically again..." Will answers, grinning. Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by a loud voice that boomed through the dining hall.
"Welcome to Camp Sherwood!" the owner of the voice is the overweight man in cowboy boots I had noticed before. He speaks with a distinct southern twang. "Here, disadvantaged kids from all the fifty states meet to have a good time!"
Disadvantaged? Well, I know this camp was for kids with problems, but this guy is tactless. We come here not to be reminded that we are disadvantaged. In fact, this whole place is tactless. It's far too much like a hospital.
"My name is Sheriff Geoffrey, but y'all can just call me Sheriff! I'm here to make sure that you're all just havin' the time of your lives!"
Robin laughs into his salad. He bows his head down so no one but us can hear and whispers to us, "Yeah, we're just havin' the time of our lives!" he mimics. "Just a-sittin' in our rooms all afternoon doin' nothin'!" We all giggle silently.
The Sheriff continues, oblivious to the fact that Robin is mocking him. "Your days'll go like this, in the mornin' you'll have a swimmin' lesson in the lake. Then you get to do an elective, like art, sports, or canoein', then, y'all will have lunch. Then, you can go to your rooms for free time and or counselin', then dinner, then campfire, then bed!"
"Oh joy!" Robin says sarcastically.
"Now, since it's raining, we can't have campfire tonight, so y'all can have more free time. But you can sure as hell bet we're gonna have it tomorrow! So as soon as y'all finish your supper, you can go back to your rooms!" the Sheriff sits down and attacks his cheeseburger.
When we finish our dinner, we go back up in the elevator with Joan and Will.
"So, why are you in this hell-hole?" Joan asks me.
"Honestly, Joan." Will says. "That comment was almost as tactless as when the sheriff called us 'disadvantaged'."
Joan goes as about as pink as her hair. "Well, you know I didn't mean it like that..." the elevator dings and we step off onto the landing.
I sigh. "I don't mind. I'm here for a lot of reasons, really. My parents divorced when I was seven, and neither one could afford to keep me. My mom ended up with me in the end, and she re-married a bastard..."I stop and suddenly realize I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Robin looks at me with understanding and changes the subject for me. "Hey Joan, did you bring the posters you had last year?"
"Yeah, you and Mara want to help decorate our room?"
"Sure." I say, glad not to have to talk about it anymore.
We walk into a room near Robin's and mine. It has the exact same furniture, but that's about all that's the same about our rooms. Will's and Joan's room is like a war zone on one half, and absolutely pristine on the other. Joan digs about under the mess for a while, and then unearths a black sports bag. "Aha! Success!"
Will rolls his eyes. "Joan, you know girls are generally cleaner than boys."
"Well, that proves you shouldn't pay attention to stereotypes." Joan digs in her bag for a moment. "Here they are!" she exclaims holding up a bunch of rolled up posters and tacks.
"Thanks," Robin says and takes a few. He gives me a 'Nightmare before Christmas' poster and four tacks and gets to work putting his 'Nirvana' one up on her wall.
"You like 'The Nightmare before Christmas'?" I ask tacking it above her bed, "I love that movie!"
"Really? Me too!" she starts to sing in a strange, creaky voice, "Making Christmas, Making Christmas, MAKING CHRISTMAS!!!!"
Robin laughs, "That's not bad. You should audition for 'weird creature number five'."
"She's already a weird creature!" pipes in Will.
We all laugh. I'm surprised. When we all are in the same boat, it's not too hard to make friends.
Joan comes up to me. "I'm sorry if I offended you or anything... I just wanted to know why you're here. I mean... no offence or anything... but you seem really normal. A nice normal, not the boring normal or anything."
"No," I say, flattered by her apology, "I understand."
She grins, "Well, I'm glad you do. Hey, you want to watch 'A Nightmare Before Christmas' tomorrow at free time?"
"Yeah, that would be great!" I say. We finish the rest of the posters in a good mood, with jokes and fake insults going in between Will and Joan.
Robin coughs, and then says. "I'm going back to our room, I'm REALLY tired. You want to come, Mara?" He looks at Will and Joan in the eye. I notice a strange feeling going between them. But before I can ask what they're up to Robin walks out of the room and back to ours.
Robin goes to the dresser and removes a laptop computer from underneath a few pairs of pants.
"Wow!" I say. Most kids here, including me, have never used a laptop before, being too poor to use one.
"It's an old version. I got it from my mother two years ago, after she died."
"I'm sorry." I say, nervously.
"It's okay. She was really sick. It was her time to go." Robin sighs unhappily. "It was her who got me into computers."
"Cool."
"It's not as advanced as some of the other ones out today, but it works." He looks at his computer with a tinge of pride. I smile. He smiles back at me. "You're really nice, Mara." he says, blushing.
"Thanks. You are too." I feel my cheeks warm. I am suddenly aware how handsome Robin is. He has sandy hair, and green eyes that I feel can look into my soul. I wonder how I never noticed it before. He gazes at me in a strange way, and it makes me feel good to have him look at me.
A knock at our door interrupts my musing. "Bedtime." The muffled voice of a counselor tells us. Robin looks away, embarrassed.
Dutifully, I switch off the light. Robin takes the remote to the television and switches it on to the News.
"It's ten fifty-five" the attractive female anchor says in a perky voice. "And we have just received information about the latest escapade of the notorious hacker..."
I grab my pajamas and go into the adjoining bathroom. I brush my teeth and slip into my sleepwear, then return into the room I share with Robin.
"...the weather for tomorrow will be partly cloudy, a high of 90 degrees..." Robin switches off the News, smiling. He grabs his pajamas and slips into the bathroom. I slide into bed and snuggle into the sheets. I hear Robin re- enter from the bathroom, but by then I'm almost asleep.
~Mara sat in her bedroom in the moonlight, listening to her mother cry. Steve had come home drunk again, and had taken out his issues with finding work out on her mother. Mara hugged her knees, hating Steve. She hated her father too, for not wanting her. Steve was yelling for her mother to make him something to eat, and she heard her mother rise from her bed. The stairs creaked and she heard her mother's soft voice murmur something, then Steve's loud drunken yell. Mara took down her stuffed elephant that she had had since birth from the shelf.
"Rosie," she said to her toy elephant, "you don't like Steve either, do you."
In the light it seemed as if Rosie was nodding.
"Don't worry, Rosie, I'll protect you." Mara told her best friend and hugged her close to her. She took the metal key inside Rosie and twisted it, and she listened to the tinkling chimes of the music box secreted inside the stuffed animal. That music, though she didn't know the name of the song, had always calmed her. When her mother and father had been together they had always winded the music box inside Rosie right before she went to sleep. Mara crawled into her bed and fell asleep.~
Hello, this is my newest story. Please enjoy and forgive me if this first chapter is too long... oh well. I'll work on my other stories soon, I promise. This idea just popped into my head one day. Enjoy!
~sugarsprite~
~*~
As I exit the white van, I shiver, despite the fact that it's mid-June. The camp is really weird. It's near a lake, there's a small field for games and stuff, but there is no row of wooden cabins, just a large concrete building. My social worker, Dave, gently takes me and my baggage by the shoulders and guides me into the revolving door, escaping the light drizzle that had slightly dampened my luggage and hair.
'They must think I'm made of porcelain,' I think bitterly as Dave leads me to the front desk. I shake his hands off my shoulders, my duffle bag bumping my shins.
An old woman in an ugly cardigan sits at a desk, shuffling papers. I stop and look back at Dave, who takes the hint and introduces me.
"Erm... hello, I'm David Mantosky, this is Marian." I nudge him; he knows I hate that name. "Err... she goes by Mara, Mara Fitzwalter."
The old woman gives me the 'well, aren't you special,' glance. Dave touches my arm in a warning; he knows how much I hate being gazed at like that.
I am fascinated by the horrendousness of this lady's cardigan. It is a vivid magenta with lime green zigzags. There are little white lambs that graze on the zigzags, with bells sewn into the knitted fabric around their necks, and when she moves, the bells tinkle.
The cardigan and the old lady get out of their chair. I can hear her bones creaking and I want to run away. Dave is standing nearby, so I decide not to. She walks the old shuffling elderly walk, tacky little bells tinkling through a white linoleum hallway. I shudder again. This whole camp reminds me of a hospital.
We get into an elevator, and I look at the woman again. I notice that her shoes match her sweater. I wonder where she gets her clothes. The elevator stops, giving my stomach a lurch that always reminds me of roller coasters. The little lighted numbers above the door say we're on the third floor. A bell inside the elevator dings, and the chrome doors open to another landing.
This floor is different than the first. For one, there are actually children here. They all are the ages of four to seven and involved in some sort of game, so they're running and jumping about. The old lady tells them they should be in their rooms, and they stick out their tongues at her and continue playing. I decide I like them. The old lady mutters about how the counselors don't do enough, and how rude kids are these days.
She takes me down a hallway littered with children's toys. She steps on a Barbie by accident, breaking its arm off. I pick it up and put the arm back into place. Dave looks at me strangely, and I tell him I would have hated to find my favorite toy broken. He nods, and then makes me follow cardigan lady into the room I will sleep in for the next few months.
The room is simply furnished. There is a desk in a corner, a television on top of a dresser, and two beds in the centre of the room. There is a door leading off to a bathroom on the left as we enter. A boy sits cross-legged on one of the beds. He is deeply involved in reading an old looking book, and he doesn't even look up when we come in.
"Hello Robin," the elderly lady says, "This is Marian..."
"Mara," I interrupt.
The lady plows on, ignoring my comment, "She will be your roommate for a while. Make her feel at home, alright?"
"Mm-hmm..." Robin answers, not looking up.
Dave has some paperwork to go over with The Fashion-Senseless One. I am left alone with Robin.
He puts down his book and looks at me. "Why are you standing in the doorway?" he asks.
"I don't know," I reply, and sit on the unoccupied bed, dumping my bag beside it. After a pause, "What are you reading?" I ask.
He shows me the cover of his book. "The Adventures of Robin Hood." He says. I notice a faded illustration of a man in green cocking an arrow on a large bow. "Is it any good?" I ask curiously.
"Wonderful," he says happily, "Have you read it?"
"No. I've never even heard of it."
He looks horrified, "Never heard of Robin Hood?!" he asks in disbelief. "You don't know what you're missing!" he hands me the book. "Read it," he orders, "I've already read it twenty seven times already..." he pauses to think, "No... that'll take too long, I have the DVD."
"Really?" I ask.
"Yep." He goes to the chest of drawers and takes out a yellow DVD case from underneath a few shirts. On the front, it has a picture of an attractive man laughing. Underneath him is a smaller picture of a beautiful woman smiling meekly.
"Why do you hide it?" I ask, curiously.
"It's so one of the kids, Guy, doesn't take it. Lots of my stuff mysteriously makes its way to his room, so I take precautions with my favorites."
He slips the DVD into the player on the TV. It hums for a while, and then a lively march plays as we start the movie. Robin sings along.
"Dum daaaa dadada da daa daaaaa, dum daaaa dadada da daaa." He sings, and then remembers me. He laughs and begins to sing again. As the march changes to a slower song, he stops, and we both laugh.
The door opens, and Dave comes to tell me goodbye. Robin hits the pause button. "Well Mara, I'm glad you made a friend." Dave says. I can tell he is amazed that I have. I'm not a very social person. "I'm going home now, but I'll come up to see how you're doing on the weekends, okay?"
Suddenly, I don't want Dave to go. I go up to him, and he puts his arms around me. "I'll miss you," he whispers in my hair. "Mara, don't hesitate to call me at home if there's a problem, okay?" he breaks the embrace and holds me at arms length. "See you on Sunday."
I nod, and I hug him one more time. "Bye." I say sadly. He walks out of the room. I go to the window, and wait until I see his van go back onto the highway
"Is he your dad?" Robin asks, turning the movie back on.
"No, my social worker."
"Oh." We watch in silence. The Adventures of Robin Hood is set in medieval times and is about this knight who becomes an outlaw to fight tyranny and this weird prince who wants to be king. He also falls in love with this haughty rich woman called Marian who is against him at first. It's a beautiful movie, and I feel myself falling in love with the story of Robin Hood.
"When was this made?" I ask, looking at the vivid green, reds, and blues filling the screen.
"1938," he says, "This was one of the first movies in color. Technicolor is a great thing."
"Indeed," I say, laughing, but I want to get back to the story, as Robin and Marian are kissing.
We're just finishing the movie when the bell for dinner rings. "Damn it," growls Robin. "I wanted to show you some of the extras. Oh well, you'll probably get the whole welcome speech thing tonight, and we'll find out why we haven't done anything at all today."
He gets up slowly and walks to the door. "Ladies first," he says with a sweeping bow. I giggle and walk out of the room to the elevator.
As we enter the dining hall, I notice a burly man standing at the doorway. He could loose a few pounds, is balding, and wears cowboy boots. I can see dislike on Robin's face when he sees at whom I am looking.
We get in line for food. The line goes relatively quickly, and soon Robin and I are getting cheeseburgers dumped on our little plastic trays. As I go to get a drink, I overhear Robin tuning down the quarter-pounder the cafeteria woman she has put on his tray. He gets salad instead.
We sit down at a table that reminds me of elementary school. Robin engages me in conversation about the movie we have been watching when we are joined by a skinny African-American boy and a really tall girl with bright pink spiky hair.
"Will! Joan! I missed you guys!" Robin exclaims with a grin on his face. "This is Mara, my roommate." He says, referring to me. "How have you been?"
"Fine, what about you?" says pink-haired Joan, "We've missed you since last summer."
"I've missed you too. Are you guys roommates again?" Robin asks, taking a bite of lettuce with his plastic fork.
"Yup, they did it alphabetically again..." Will answers, grinning. Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by a loud voice that boomed through the dining hall.
"Welcome to Camp Sherwood!" the owner of the voice is the overweight man in cowboy boots I had noticed before. He speaks with a distinct southern twang. "Here, disadvantaged kids from all the fifty states meet to have a good time!"
Disadvantaged? Well, I know this camp was for kids with problems, but this guy is tactless. We come here not to be reminded that we are disadvantaged. In fact, this whole place is tactless. It's far too much like a hospital.
"My name is Sheriff Geoffrey, but y'all can just call me Sheriff! I'm here to make sure that you're all just havin' the time of your lives!"
Robin laughs into his salad. He bows his head down so no one but us can hear and whispers to us, "Yeah, we're just havin' the time of our lives!" he mimics. "Just a-sittin' in our rooms all afternoon doin' nothin'!" We all giggle silently.
The Sheriff continues, oblivious to the fact that Robin is mocking him. "Your days'll go like this, in the mornin' you'll have a swimmin' lesson in the lake. Then you get to do an elective, like art, sports, or canoein', then, y'all will have lunch. Then, you can go to your rooms for free time and or counselin', then dinner, then campfire, then bed!"
"Oh joy!" Robin says sarcastically.
"Now, since it's raining, we can't have campfire tonight, so y'all can have more free time. But you can sure as hell bet we're gonna have it tomorrow! So as soon as y'all finish your supper, you can go back to your rooms!" the Sheriff sits down and attacks his cheeseburger.
When we finish our dinner, we go back up in the elevator with Joan and Will.
"So, why are you in this hell-hole?" Joan asks me.
"Honestly, Joan." Will says. "That comment was almost as tactless as when the sheriff called us 'disadvantaged'."
Joan goes as about as pink as her hair. "Well, you know I didn't mean it like that..." the elevator dings and we step off onto the landing.
I sigh. "I don't mind. I'm here for a lot of reasons, really. My parents divorced when I was seven, and neither one could afford to keep me. My mom ended up with me in the end, and she re-married a bastard..."I stop and suddenly realize I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Robin looks at me with understanding and changes the subject for me. "Hey Joan, did you bring the posters you had last year?"
"Yeah, you and Mara want to help decorate our room?"
"Sure." I say, glad not to have to talk about it anymore.
We walk into a room near Robin's and mine. It has the exact same furniture, but that's about all that's the same about our rooms. Will's and Joan's room is like a war zone on one half, and absolutely pristine on the other. Joan digs about under the mess for a while, and then unearths a black sports bag. "Aha! Success!"
Will rolls his eyes. "Joan, you know girls are generally cleaner than boys."
"Well, that proves you shouldn't pay attention to stereotypes." Joan digs in her bag for a moment. "Here they are!" she exclaims holding up a bunch of rolled up posters and tacks.
"Thanks," Robin says and takes a few. He gives me a 'Nightmare before Christmas' poster and four tacks and gets to work putting his 'Nirvana' one up on her wall.
"You like 'The Nightmare before Christmas'?" I ask tacking it above her bed, "I love that movie!"
"Really? Me too!" she starts to sing in a strange, creaky voice, "Making Christmas, Making Christmas, MAKING CHRISTMAS!!!!"
Robin laughs, "That's not bad. You should audition for 'weird creature number five'."
"She's already a weird creature!" pipes in Will.
We all laugh. I'm surprised. When we all are in the same boat, it's not too hard to make friends.
Joan comes up to me. "I'm sorry if I offended you or anything... I just wanted to know why you're here. I mean... no offence or anything... but you seem really normal. A nice normal, not the boring normal or anything."
"No," I say, flattered by her apology, "I understand."
She grins, "Well, I'm glad you do. Hey, you want to watch 'A Nightmare Before Christmas' tomorrow at free time?"
"Yeah, that would be great!" I say. We finish the rest of the posters in a good mood, with jokes and fake insults going in between Will and Joan.
Robin coughs, and then says. "I'm going back to our room, I'm REALLY tired. You want to come, Mara?" He looks at Will and Joan in the eye. I notice a strange feeling going between them. But before I can ask what they're up to Robin walks out of the room and back to ours.
Robin goes to the dresser and removes a laptop computer from underneath a few pairs of pants.
"Wow!" I say. Most kids here, including me, have never used a laptop before, being too poor to use one.
"It's an old version. I got it from my mother two years ago, after she died."
"I'm sorry." I say, nervously.
"It's okay. She was really sick. It was her time to go." Robin sighs unhappily. "It was her who got me into computers."
"Cool."
"It's not as advanced as some of the other ones out today, but it works." He looks at his computer with a tinge of pride. I smile. He smiles back at me. "You're really nice, Mara." he says, blushing.
"Thanks. You are too." I feel my cheeks warm. I am suddenly aware how handsome Robin is. He has sandy hair, and green eyes that I feel can look into my soul. I wonder how I never noticed it before. He gazes at me in a strange way, and it makes me feel good to have him look at me.
A knock at our door interrupts my musing. "Bedtime." The muffled voice of a counselor tells us. Robin looks away, embarrassed.
Dutifully, I switch off the light. Robin takes the remote to the television and switches it on to the News.
"It's ten fifty-five" the attractive female anchor says in a perky voice. "And we have just received information about the latest escapade of the notorious hacker..."
I grab my pajamas and go into the adjoining bathroom. I brush my teeth and slip into my sleepwear, then return into the room I share with Robin.
"...the weather for tomorrow will be partly cloudy, a high of 90 degrees..." Robin switches off the News, smiling. He grabs his pajamas and slips into the bathroom. I slide into bed and snuggle into the sheets. I hear Robin re- enter from the bathroom, but by then I'm almost asleep.
~Mara sat in her bedroom in the moonlight, listening to her mother cry. Steve had come home drunk again, and had taken out his issues with finding work out on her mother. Mara hugged her knees, hating Steve. She hated her father too, for not wanting her. Steve was yelling for her mother to make him something to eat, and she heard her mother rise from her bed. The stairs creaked and she heard her mother's soft voice murmur something, then Steve's loud drunken yell. Mara took down her stuffed elephant that she had had since birth from the shelf.
"Rosie," she said to her toy elephant, "you don't like Steve either, do you."
In the light it seemed as if Rosie was nodding.
"Don't worry, Rosie, I'll protect you." Mara told her best friend and hugged her close to her. She took the metal key inside Rosie and twisted it, and she listened to the tinkling chimes of the music box secreted inside the stuffed animal. That music, though she didn't know the name of the song, had always calmed her. When her mother and father had been together they had always winded the music box inside Rosie right before she went to sleep. Mara crawled into her bed and fell asleep.~