Raven
Ms. Kinders wasn't joking about cleanup; she reminds me when I head downstairs for breakfast. The other kids get threatened with scrubbing toilets or bathroom floors all the time for things like sneaking out, using the phone without permission etc., but I'd never been one of the kids in trouble before. Hopefully Mrs. Huntington won't get angry with me. If I'm really lucky no one will tell her.
It's Christmas eve today and the other kids are so excited it's hard to shield. Garfield comes to sit at my table like usual and this morning Richard joins him. His eyes are puffy like he might have cried himself to sleep, but he seems in better spirits.
"Ms. Kinders said we're gonna have to clean up all the party decorations." Garfield says before taking a big bite of his toast.
"Better than toilets or shoveling the walkway again." Richard says. After the words are out of his mouth, he looks at me for some reason, like he said something he shouldn't have and then he and Garfield share a look. I don't know what that was about, but I take a big bite of toast because I'd rather get cleanup duty finished early and head upstairs away from everyone else. Their feelings, are too hard to deal with. The boys stop talking and eat quickly too. We all finish at about the same time and dump our plates. There are decorations in here, but we'll have to wait until the other kids leave. Richard heads to the living room and we follow behind him. He starts with the streamers on the wall. Garfield starts gathering balloons. I get the vacuum and start cleaning the confetti and glitter from the rug. By the time we're done breakfast is over and we repeat the process in the dining room.
"So, what do you think Santa's going to bring you guys this year?" Garfield asks after he steps off a chair, holding a green balloon. It's a slightly darker shade than his face.
"I know what he's bringing you," Richard says.
"What?" Garfield smiles.
"Coal." Richard says in a serious voice, but he turns around and gives Garfield a smile, clearly joking. "Making your friends shovel snow and cleanup because of you? That's all you deserve."
"I didn't make you do anything," Garfield gives us a cheeky grin. "What about you Rae?" Rae? This boy is lucky I'm not on speaking terms with him. I shake my head. "Nothing? You won't even get coal?" I shake my head.
"I predict... Richard is going to get a tablet from the Christmas miracle tree, Raven is going to get some books or an e-reader with a gift card and I'll get..." he stops talking and makes that face again, before sprinting out of the dining room.
"Just when I think he's done..." Richard follows him out without a word. Great... so I have to finish by myself? We were almost done, so it doesn't take long, but I do finish by myself. There's no point in waiting for them when I don't know why they left or when they'll come back. Maybe he felt sick or needed to go to the bathroom.
When I'm done, I go to the library, but they're not there. I skip lunch to avoid having to be close to the other kids. Their excitement will only grow as tomorrow morning comes closer. Garfield and Richard come up after. Garfield puts a sandwich folded up in a napkin in front of me. He's feeling nervous. I raise an eyebrow.
"Sorry about this morning..." he says. I look at the sandwich. "You were mad right? That's why you skipped lunch?" I shake my head. That had nothing to do with it.
"So, you're not mad?" Richard asks. I shake my head. Sure, them leaving had been annoying, but they'd nearly finished their parts.
"Then why'd you skip?" Garfield asks. Neither of them sits down. I look away for a second, but then sigh, because now is as good a time as any to ask.
"Why did you help me?" I look at Richard first and then Garfield. They're surprised because they probably weren't expecting me to speak, but they get over it pretty quickly.
"What are you talking about?" Garfield asks. I lift my sleeve up. I hadn't been able to heal them completely yet, so my arms are still bandaged. It was a lot of damage.
"Oh, I wasn't sure you knew. You were kind of out of it," Richard says. "Why didn't you go to the hospital? Mrs. Huntington should have called an ambulance. I thought you might die." He still didn't answer my question.
"Why?" I repeat. Richard shrugs.
"What was I supposed to do? Just leave you there?" he asks. He could have left me there. He had no reason to help me just because he saw me. I can think of lots of people here who wouldn't have helped. "You would have died."
"So?" I raise an eyebrow.
"So, when you see someone who needs help, you're supposed to help them." He says this like it's a fact, when I know that it's not. Lots of time here people need help and no one helps them. A kid gets picked on by someone else and lots of people see, but no one does anything. Even in class we learned about history, there were lots of times when certain people were attacked and their neighbors could have helped them, but they didn't. She needed help and no one helped her. On earth people don't seem to care about others, so why did he help me? I want to ask again, but I don't think he'll have a different answer or if he does, he won't tell me.
"Thank-you..." I mumble, but I at least make eye contact.
"It's not a big deal," Richard says. I look at Garfield next.
"Thank-you." I tell him.
"Why are you thanking me?" He asks in a tone that suggests he's confused, but he's not. He's getting nervous again.
"You were there too," I raise my eyebrow and tilt my head slightly. I'm sure he was there. Even if I was remembering it wrong Mrs. Huntington had told me. I was supposed to thank them a while ago, and ask them to keep their mouths shut, but since I hadn't heard any gossip, I'd decided not to say anything.
"You knew?" He gapes. Richard looks between us and frowns.
"Mrs. Huntington told me. Was I not supposed to know?" I ask. He feels relieved. It might be best not to mention seeing the green dog. He clearly doesn't want to talk about it and I don't want to talk about that day much more either.
"Oh, no... that's okay," he says. "But can I ask what happened?" Maybe I should ask him about the dog... It would probably make him go away again and then I wouldn't have to answer.
"Yeah, what were you doing out there anyway?" Richard asks. Their eyes bore into me and I want to get up and pull the same exit move Garfield's been using, but I don't.
"I have nightmares," I mumble.
"We know," Richard says. "Everyone does. It's normal." he adds when I don't say anything.
"I thought I could stop sleeping," I explain, or at least I think I'm explaining, but they're still confused.
"You have to sleep. Everyone does," Garfield says. "But what does that have to do with being outside?"
"The cold, it should have kept me awake, but I was too tired... So, I scratched my arms, but that didn't work either." I don't even know if they can hear me, because I don't really want to tell them this, but I feel like I have to. They didn't have to help me and they definitely didn't have to keep it a secret. The other girls would have had a field day if they had found out.
"Are you okay now?" Garfield asks. I nod, because so far the spell had been working. He wasn't in my dreams anymore. I barley dreamed at all.
"Why do you want to be friends?" Richard looks at him too, as he should. I know this is all Garfield's doing and Richard is just going along with it for some reason.
"What do you mean?" Garfield asks, but neither of us says anything. He knows we'll wait for an answer. "Everyone needs friends. Even people like you guys who think you don't."
"..." I've never had friends before and without his help, I probably would have died, so maybe he's right.
"You're both nice and I think we have more in common than you think," Garfield goes on. "We all have nightmares."
"Everyone here has nightmares," Richard scoffs. Garfield rolls his eyes and ignores him.
"Yeah, but not everyone here has woken the whole house up screaming." Garfield says, which shuts him up. So, they had done that too? Before I came here?
"Our families weren't normal families like the other kids' families," Garfield says.
"How do you know that?" I tense, because what does he know about me and my family?
"Richard is famous and I was just guessing... You're weird. You don't like the same stuff as the other girls and you do things other kids don't do, like read really hard books you don't play outside, with video games or toys." Garfield says. I'm relieved he doesn't know about him or her. But I still don't like what he says. Had I stood out that much from everyone else? Even after trying so hard to be invisible? May Mrs. Huntington was right, maybe I'm not doing a good job. I need to be more careful.
"None of that means we have to be friends." Richard points out.
"I didn't say we had to be, just that I wanted to. IF you don't... I guess..." Garfield frowns.
"...Fine." I should think more before I answer, but I don't. One thing that will make me more like the other kids is having friends. They also aren't really that bad. Garfield's jokes aren't funny, but he was pleasant and easy to be around. Despite all the sour things that came with living here and being around the other kids, he was usually pretty optimistic. Richard pretended to be hard and cold, but he was nice too. He didn't have to help me and I can tell he's been being nice to Garfield and helping him whenever he runs away to disappear. Maybe it'll be okay to be their friends. Maybe it'll even be good. If it's not I'll just start ignoring them again.
"No take backs! You heard her!" Garfield jumps out of his chair and pumps his fist in the air and then looks at Richard, eyes sparkling. Richard sighs, but nods. "The three musketeers have been born!"
"That name is already taken, find a new one for our group." Richard says.
"That can come later. So, since I saved your life and all, do you think we can play a board game today?" Richard rolls his eyes, but gives a half smile. "Please?"
"Only if it's Monopoly," Richard says.
"That's boring," Garfield says.
"Take it or leave it." Richard says.
"Why do you get to pick? Let Raven pick." Garfield says. "Or me!" They fight over what game to play, as if I had agreed. We end up playing one called "Life." I try to take the instructions, but Garfield says they're boring and I won't want to play if I read them, so they explain the rules to me until they realize they don't know how everything works and then we all end up reading them. I don't want to go downstairs for dinner, so they say they'll bring me back something, but they only bring back cookies.
In the morning I don't bother going downstairs with the other kids. Their emotions are even more intense than the day before. After breakfast is presents. There will be both great disappointment and great joy. I don't exist, so I still don't get anything, which is fine. Just like last year, what I want are things no one can buy. The nightmares to stop forever, for her to come take me home and for me not to be anything to him. Santa can't bring those things. They're not things you can put on a wish list for someone to buy.
Richard and Garfield come up shortly after breakfast. They're both happy. Richard has a white box under his arms the size of his head, but flatter. Garfield has a bunch of smaller boxes with bright colors on them and words like "crazy space farm" and "space racing" written on them.
"Why didn't you come downstairs?" Garfield asks. "Didn't you want your present?"
"Did you get everything you wanted?" I ask ignoring his question.
"Yes! Look at all these games. I don't even know which one I'm going to play first!" he pulls out his handheld game thing from his pocket and starts opening all the boxes, even though he can only play one at a time. Richard sits down and starts opening his box too. It's a computer.
"Do you not celebrate Christmas?" Richard asks.
"You could say that." I don't know how to explain why I don't get a present, without telling them I don't belong here.
"You can still get presents though." he says. "No one cares what you believe. This is the only time of year you can get whatever you want. You should take advantage." I shrug and watch them open their gifts. Garfield starts playing right away. He's fun to watch because he moves around in his chair as if by moving his whole body, he'll move whatever little character is in his game, when he really only needs to move his hands.
Richard gets his computer setup after an hour and instead of doing whatever it is he usually does alone, he puts on some fun holiday cartoon videos. Garfield stops playing his game and we watch them together until lunch. Friends... That's another thing that no one can buy me. Even though whatever this is, has just started, I know it's the best Christmas present I could have ever received.