Stella sighed as she shuffled through the lunch line and grimaced as she saw that lunch was liver and onions. She consoled herself with the thought of the Hershey's bar she had hidden under the thin mat that was supposed to be her mattress. She quickly ducked out of the line of orphaned teenage girls and headed back to her room to read. She had borrowed a Greek novel from the public library, and she was intent on improving her grammar and vocabulary in the language. As she climbed onto her top bunk bed, she saw the envelope bearing the charity schools' logo and her name resting on her lame excuse for a pillow. She grinned as she pulled out the letter from the head nun: "Congratulations, Stella! You have been chosen to receive a full scholarship to the Forensic Science Academy of America. Good work and may God bless you forever," it said.
Stella was ecstatic. Ever since she had witnessed her parents' brutal murder when she was five, she had dreamed of becoming one of the strange men and women who finally caught the psychopathic man who had killed her beloved Mommy and Dad. Her mother was a Greek beauty descended from Helen of Troy herself, while her father was a handsome Italian. Both of her parents loved Stella with no boundaries. They took her to the Greek Orthodox Church every Sunday, and taught her bits and pieces of Greek and Italian. Sadly, Mr. Bonasera was a closet drug addict, and his addiction led to his and his wife's murders. For that reason, Stella chose to learn more about the Greek culture, rather than Italian.
She had been turned over to the Catholic orphanage, which always needed money. The nuns were astounded to discover that although Stella belonged in kindergarten, she could read and do math at the 4th grade level. Consequently, she had completed the entire school program by the time she was 14. Now she sat on her flimsy straw mat, savoring her Hershey's bar and finding new depth in her Greek novel.
Stella couldn't wait to get out of the orphanage. The lights were always dim. In summer, the inhabitants sweated and panted, while in the winter they shivered and huddled together. The orphanage had 50 more girls than it could hold, and the charitable nuns had their hands fullbetween constantly crying babies and teens stressing about boys and fashion. The only bright spots were her classes and her few friends. Unfortunately, Stella's roommate was not her friend. Her name was Ashleigh, and she was tall and blond with perfect features and intensely blue eyes. She was also dumber than a stump, and she was constantly asking Stella for help. To make things worse, she was one of those superficial, preppy, "popular" types that could have had an entire high school falling over themselves for her, had her mother not abandoned her at birth. Stella looked forward to May, when the orphanage would transfer her custody to the Forensic Science Academy of America. She already knew that she would be valedictorian when she graduated- she would love to see the looks on the faces of all the 17- and 18-year-olds when her name was announced. For a moment, she dreamed of the faces of proud parents and friends, and she pictured her mom and dad sitting in the front row, beaming the way they had when she recited her prayers perfectly, before she remembered that her parents were dead.