Chapter 2: Little Orphan Avril
A week had passed since the accident. A funeral was held for James and Elinor at one of New York's cemeteries. All the friends and coworkers of theirs, including James' boss, had gathered to pay their respects and bid them farewell as two caskets holding their bodies were buried underground.
Avril was wearing a little black dress and standing over the graves of her beloved parents. She was lucky to survive that car accident. While James and Elinor died on impact, she was lucky enough to only receive a slash to the chest from a window shard and cuts to the face and arms from broken glass and a broken nose. But that didn't hurt worse compared to losing her two best friends in the world, her beloved parents.
When she woke up in the hospital after the accident, the doctors told her that her parents couldn't be with her anymore. I was difficult for them to tell it to a four-year-old, but they knew she still had to know what happened to them. They told her she was lucky to be alive, but she didn't care. She just wanted her parents with her, to tell her everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't, and it was all because of her and that stupid candy apple she ate.
Kneeling down on their graves, she cried as she put both her hands on her parents' gravestone, which they shared together as they were buried underground, the couple together even in death. They had the words engraved on them, James Ackerman and Elinor Ackerman, Loving Couple and Beloved Parents, RIP.
Avril sobbed as tears fell from her eyes, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I let this happen. If I didn't have that yucky apple..." She couldn't finish her words and cried harder. Her mother's co-workers came over and rubbed her back gently to comfort her as they placed bouquets of flowers on their graves.
"Avril's happy life disappeared right before her eyes, and she not only lost her beloved parents, but her two best friends in the world." Phil narrated. "After the funeral, Avril was almost sent to live in an orphanage since she had no living relatives, James being an only child whose father died during his college years and Elinor's parents died in a boating accident shortly before Avril was born. But the social workers taking care of her found a relative of her mother's; Elinor's stepsister Vanessa, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts with her husband Nick Sykes. Avril never heard of her before, but she was also still too sad to be happy she still had family. Before long, she was taken down there to move in with her and her husband Nick. But what Avril didn't know was that her troubles were just beginning, and she was about to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire."
A few days have passed since the funeral.
After hours of riding the train from her New York City home, Avril made it to the city of Boston with the social worker who was escorting her to the home of her aunt Vanessa. Avril had never heard of her mother having a sister, since she never heard her talking about her or inviting her over for Christmas. But what she wondered was what her aunt was like, and her husband too. The house she and her parents lived in had to be sold, while she was only allowed to bring some things with her like a big suitcase full of clothes, some books, and her stuffed polar bear, and a photo of her parents together while the rest of her family's things had to be put in storage or given away or sold to some other people while the rest of her stuff from her bedroom was being delivered to her aunt's house.
When they reached the train station, they went to the main hall and took a taxi to their next destination where Avril's new home was going to be.
Several minutes later, they arrived in a suburban neighborhood just outside the city. They had the cab driver stop at a one-story house where a woman who appeared to be in her late 30s was waiting in the driveway. She was tall and slim with black hair tied up in a bun and her hair was curled, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones, and pale skin and she wore a magenta shirt, blue jeans, and black shoes and green socks.
The social worker got out of the car first and introduced herself to the woman for a little bit before coming back to the taxi and going over to Avril's side of the cab. She opened it and said to Avril, "Come on, sweetie. Let's go meet your aunt."
Avril nodded before getting out of the cab and the social worker grabbed her suitcase from the trunk. She slowly approached the woman, holding her bear closer to her, while the social worker came over to them with Avril's suitcase. The social worker said to her, "Avril, this is your aunt, Vanessa Sykes. She'll be taking care of you, and she agreed to help you cope with your trauma."
The little girl looked up to her and said softly with a sad smile, "Hello, Auntie Vanessa."
Vanessa gave the little girl a smile and responded, "Hello, sweetheart. I'm very excited to get to know my little sister's daughter." She looked at the social worker and said as she shook her hand, "Thank you for escorting her to me. My husband and I will take very good care of her. We'll love her as much as my sister and her husband did."
After bidding her farewell, the social worker went back to the cab and took off, leaving Avril with her aunt alone. Once the cab was out of their range, Vanessa looked around before grabbing the suitcase and taking Avril's hand and taking her to the inside of the house.
"As soon as Avril was alone with her relatives, Vanessa's true colors were revealed faster that you can say 'Houston, we have a problem!'. And her husband Nick was just as awful as her." Phil narrated. "Even though she and Nick lived in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, they were far from the nicest people. Vanessa worked in real estate, and she may have made pretty sweet deals on houses, but she was actually ripping off most of her clients. Many of the houses she sold were as rotten as a high school locker room, that the clients' renovating bills would cost more than the houses themselves; how Vanessa managed to get away with that all those years was beyond even me! Nick, on the other hand was an unemployed slob who enjoyed the life of luxury he and Vanessa made from their ill-gotten money."
For the next little while, Avril's life had turned from a bad dream to a nightmare!
On her first day in their house, Vanessa set up her bed in the basement instead of converting one of the guest rooms into a room just for her. So Avril spent the first night sleeping on the old mattress that Vanessa and Nick were about to throw away, with only one flat pillow and a thin blanket to sleep with. When Avril pleaded not to let her sleep down there, especially since it was dark, Nick came over to her and grabbed her by the arm before dragging her downstairs and yelling at her to be grateful they even let her stay.
Nick was around the same age as Vanessa, and he was barrel chested and round at the stomach, and he reeked of alcohol. His hair was auburn and messy and he looked like he barely shaved, and his brown eyes looked baggy from alcohol consumption. He wore a short-sleeved button shirt, grey sweatpants, and brown shoes.
Avril cried herself to sleep that night in the dark basement, the window too high for her to open so she was forced to sleep in the dark, even without a nightlight. No bedtime story, no goodnight kisses, not even a 'sweet dreams'.
Once her stuff arrived at the house the next day, Vanessa told the people delivering it that they had the wrong address, and she gave them a different address and told them it was the real one, but it turned out to be a local thrift store and they left her stuff there. Now, Avril had none of her toys to play with or any of her books to read to herself to sleep.
Worst of all, when Vanessa saw her stuffed bear in Avril's arms to get comfort from it, she grabbed it from the girl and said, "Just to get your mind off of what happened to your parents, we'll be needing to get rid of it."
"No! Give him back! Daddy gave him to me! I need him!" Avril cried as she tried to reach for it. But Vanessa lifted her foot up to the little girl's stomach and kicked her away, making her land on her back. The pain from what was left of the cut on her chest stung a little.
Vanessa came over to her and put her foot on her arm to keep her from getting up, not even caring if she was hurting the little girl as she held the polar bear in her hand. She sneered, "Daddy's not here anymore, you stupid brat! And neither is Mommy! You live under my roof now." With both hands, she pulled the bear until tearing was heard. Then with a yank, the bear was torn in half and fluff flew everywhere.
"NO!" Avril screamed with tears in her eyes as she watched her aunt tear the bear up piece by piece. Once she was done, she took her foot off of Avril and the little girl got up and sobbed at the sight of her beloved stuffed polar bear, her most special treasure from her father, torn apart and done right in front of her. Vanessa rolled her eyes and scoffed, "Oh, that is such an ugly noise. Stop it right now."
But Avril couldn't stop sobbing.
"I SAID STOP IT!" Vanessa snapped at her. When she heard her aunt's voice snap, Avril cried harder. Seeing what she did wasn't working, Vanessa called out, "Nick, get in here!"
Nick, who had just woken up from a drunken nap, and grumbled, "What's the brat crying about now?" He looked down at the floor and all the stuffing and cloth by Avril's feet.
"All that over a stupid toy?" Nick scoffed. He looked at Avril with a glare, "And you woke me up from my nap over that?" Avril didn't look up fast enough when Nick raised his hand high.
Jonah put down his glass of soda pop after taking a big sip to wash down the last potato skin he ate. He shook his head in disgust, "I can't believe that those people would treat a little girl like that, especially after she just lost her parents."
"I hear ya, babe!" Phil agreed. While waiting for the waitress to return with refills and to take their main order, he asked him, "Got any kids yourself?"
Jonah nodded. "One teenage daughter. She'll be sixteen this fall when she goes back to school in a couple months."
"Almost sixteen, huh? One of my players is eighteen, and he started playing when he was around your daughter's age. A real prodigy, that one, and he's the little brother of one of the best goalies in the league. I was lucky to get permission from the league officials to have a teenager be part of the team."
"But maybe stick to the part where Avril meets the Mighty Ducks?" Jonah interrupted him.
"Oh, right, right. Anyways, since living with her relatives, Avril's life went from bad to worse." Phil got back to his story as they waited for their waitress to return.
"The next few years have been miserable for Avril." Phil narrated. "Instead of helping her cope with the loss of her beloved parents, Vanessa and Nick treated her like she was nothing, only using her to keep their house clean while Vanessa worked and Nick hung out with friends outside the house, and they did pretty bad things to her like insulting her, beating her for a simple mistake or something that wasn't even her fault, and always telling her that she would never amount to anything much, even always telling her that her parents' deaths was all her fault. Her life was like a prison, and by the time she was close to her seventh birthday, she was already reduced to being a broken and sad little girl."
Three miserable years had passed since Avril moved in with her relatives.
Since moving in with them, Vanessa and Nick treated her like a slave than a member of their family, forcing her to clean their house even though she was still too little to do certain things, like vacuuming, dusting the shelves using only a stool to reach them (she hurt herself after she fell off of it one time while trying to get a cobweb on the corner of the ceiling). Throughout their house, there were only pictures of the Sykeses over the years, but none of them had any of Avril as proof that a child had lived with them. They even didn't allow her to attend preschool like her parents said she would, and she never even went to elementary school the last couple years
They refused to let her play outside in the backyard or the front yard, since the couple didn't want anyone to know there was a child living with them or their business they have with her. After catching her sneaking out into the backyard just to feel the grass on her feet about a year ago, Nick had beaten Avril and they threatened to kill her if she ever went outside again. Whenever she made a mistake like breaking a plate after drying it or leaving behind some cleaning supplies while making extra trips to put them away or missing a spot while cleaning the house, or if she tried to say something in protest or ask them for something like some food which she rarely got, Vanessa would yell at her or lock her in the basement without anything to eat. Other times, Nick would beat her by hitting her or slapping her, whether he was very drunk from having too much beer or just frustrated with his favorite sports team losing or if Avril didn't do as she was told. She was lucky to get through at least one day without anything but just an insult from them.
Both of them didn't even call Avril by her name either. They always called her 'the stupid brat' or 'that miserable little maggot', or any other hurtful names. They also always reminded her of the day her parents died, and that what happened to them was all her fault. They also told her that no matter what, she would never amount to anything other than being a worthless little nothing. She still remembered her name after all these years since she was born in the month of April, and her name was the French variant of the name of the month, especially as shown on the calendars her relatives have kept the last couple years. She kept the month names after tearing them off the old calendars before Vanessa would throw them out.
Her birthdays and Christmases were just as miserable since she only got one lousy gift from each of those days; last Christmas, she was given only a pair of boys' jeans and a used hairbrush for her sixth birthday.
Right now, it was only a few days before the day she was supposed to celebrate her seventh birthday. But she was far from excited about it, especially since she knew how the last two she celebrated had turned out.
She sat on her bed, the old mattress that she slept on since arriving that only had a thin blanket to keep herself warm with. Wearing nothing but the boys' jeans, which have gotten torn the last few months from tripping and getting them caught on sharp things and an old white t-shirt she only had for clothes, she also wiped the dried blood from her nose. Earlier today, Nick had beaten her in a drunken rage; she was punched in the face, which gave her the bloody nose and a black eye that started forming, grabbed hard at the wrist and elbow when she tried to run, and he threw her down hard before kicking her in the stomach. She hoped her ribs weren't broken.
After the beating, Nick locked her in the basement, and she retreated to her 'bed', curled herself into a fetal position and cried in her knees. She couldn't cry in front of her relatives since they hated hearing her sobs and hated seeing her tears, and this would result in her getting a slap to the face if they caught her doing any of those. They also told her to not make any 'annoying sounds' like crying, and Vanessa said to her all the time, "Little girls should be seen when with adults, not heard!" After Vanessa told her this hundreds of times, she stopped talking when they were around. Sometimes, at night, she would quietly utter a word or two to remember when she used to be allowed to talk, at least quiet enough.
She took out the picture of her parents that she managed to keep with them all these years. She was careful to keep that hidden after what Vanessa did to her stuffed polar bear three years ago. Looking at the picture of her beloved parents, she could feel tears forming in her eyes seeing their faces and smiling. Their deaths were only about three years ago, the anniversary of their deaths being only two months away. Avril cried to herself, still blaming herself for what happened to them during that dreaded crash. She slipped it back into her pants pocket, which also held a small tissue that held some of her baby teeth, which started falling out of her mouth since last summer, and wiped her tears away from her eyes. Her tangled hair also soaked in some of her tears when locks of it touched her face as she hid her face in her knees.
She didn't know how long she was down there, but didn't care anyway since the windows were covered and shut tight to keep her from being seen from the outside of the basement. But hours later, she heard the door lock open and the door opened, she heard footsteps coming downstairs. She looked up, seeing her 'loving' aunt looking down at her.
Vanessa sneered, seeing her face, "Are you crying again, brat?"
Avril shook her head, lying, hoping she would buy it to avoid getting a slap from her or any harsh words. Lucky for her, Vanessa didn't seem to notice, especially since she was also listening to her 'rule' not to speak with adults around.
The woman said to her, "Good, because I'm in too much of a good mood to teach you a lesson for the hundredth time. I just so happened to have sold my best house today, and your uncle and I are going out to celebrate my achievement with dinner and a movie. You'll need to stay home and behave. We'll probably bring home leftovers for you to enjoy, or not since we don't plan to come home until tomorrow morning." She walked back up the stairs, but looked back down at Avril again.
She sneered, "Don't forget, you'll still have some cleaning up tomorrow, including our sheets and laundry. I expect that to be done tomorrow night- not the day after tomorrow or in a few days- or we'll have to give you punish you a little more for your laziness." She closed the door behind her, and a click was heard.
Several minutes later, Avril heard a car engine revving, and she could hear the car's engines sounds fading. Now finally alone, Avril finally let go of her tears after burying her face in her knees. She cried herself to sleep minutes later.
"Avril's life was so miserable," Phil narrated. "She had given up on life and on herself. But there was still that small spark of hope that someday, somehow, somebody would take her away from this life. But she knew it would never happen. Then, on that one fateful night, knowing it was only a matter of time before she could either be starved or worked or beaten to the point of being unable to fix it, or worse, she did what she never had the guts to do since living with her relatives."
Hours later, Avril had to make her escape. After hearing those words from Vanessa and earning that nasty beating from Nick, she knew it was a matter of time before something else could happen. And something inside her gave her the spark of motivation to do something she should have done since the beginning; run away.
Despite knowing the dangers of the outside world, and all the strangers who might cause her more harm than her own relatives, she knew this night was her only chance of freedom. After managing to catch some glimpses of the T.V. in the living room without either relative knowing it, she knew she could hide out in the big city far away from here; no one, not even her own relatives would find her. She'd probably have to go back to New York City, since it was big enough for her to get lost in, or even Philadelphia. Either one would work, as long as she was far away from her awful relatives.
Grabbing whatever was in the basement and wasn't nailed to the floor, like a chair and the toolbox, she climbed onto it to the window, moved the curtains away from it, and started unlocking it. Once that was done, she removed the screen covering, and her way out was there in front of her. The spring air was chilly, but she didn't care. She was finally going to be free.
She crawled through the window, grateful that she was skinny enough to crawl through and also felt relieved that she had enough strength to lift herself up and climb through it. When she felt her hands and feet touching the crisp green grass, cold from the April night wind, she trembled a little at the feeling.
All she had on her was the picture of her parents in her pants pocket and just the old clothes on her back, and she knew it wasn't enough for her to leave and survive on the streets herself. But she knew this was now or never. Looking around the street the house was on, she saw there was no one outside their houses, probably sound asleep or out of town or having the night out. Before long, she was running down the streets, with nothing on her feet but a pair of old socks until she reached the gas station at the end of the street. She saw an old pick-up truck parked in near the fuel pumps, and she climbed into it, hoping nobody saw her.
Finding a space between some crates, she hid in the small space, glad she was slim enough after a long time of being underfed. A few minutes later, she heard the truck's engine roaring before it moved, and she watched as the way she took from her relatives' home grew farther and farther away as the truck moved.
Avril was finally free!
"Finally, Avril was on her way to freedom," Phil narrated. "Despite her fears of being found by her relatives and brought back to them, she continued her way from one city to the next. She hitched a ride on buses, trucks, trains, anything that would take her to the next town over. Sometimes she had to do it on foot to hopefully keep anyone following her off her trail, through forests, farmlands, all that jazz."
For several days, Avril spent the rest of her days on the road or through the cities she went through. It was tiring and she was hungry, eating only out of trash cans or dumpsters to keep her from starving to death, and she slept on the cold concrete ground of the cities she walked through or in places that kept her dry when it rained. When she had the chance, she snuck onto buses heading to different parts of the States, making sure she checked the maps that she learned how to read during her quest for freedom. Sometimes she would hop onto trains leading to the next state, then after arriving at one destination, she would hop off and continue on foot, hoping it would still keep her relatives off her trail.
It was tiring for her, but she was glad to leave that old life behind her. On the road, she slept during the day and continued on foot at night. Sometimes she would steal food from farms to keep herself from getting hungry, or eat out of trash cans of houses or gas stations she would pass by.
"Finally, after two months of being on the road, she finally made it here," Phil narrated. "In beautiful Anaheim, California."
After several weeks of walking, Avril was growing tired and her feet were sore from so much walking. Her feet would have had blisters and cuts if it weren't for the shoes she stole from a lost and found at a bus station in Pittsburg after sneaking onto a bus in Philadelphia to there, and she kept herself warm with the green sweater she stole from another lost and found in a town in Minnesota.
The woods she was walking through looked pretty scary at night, but not half as scary as being locked in a cold and dark basement. It was a dark and cloudy night, and she hoped it wouldn't rain, but so far, it was only clouds in the sky. A warm breeze blew through the night, blowing her tangled blonde hair into her face. Her bruises and black eye had faded away, erasing the evidence of her being a punching bag and no one would notice her.
After walking several more minutes through the forest, she made it out of it and found herself in a clearing. The dirt road made it easier for her to walk over after moving through fallen branches, uprooted tree roots, deep puddles that reached to her ankles and made her shoes filthy, and walking up rocky ditches. Looking over the horizon, she found herself on the outskirts of a big city.
Tall buildings, bright lights, loud sounds. Everything a city could need. It wasn't like New York City or even Los Angeles, but it'll have to do for her.
Hoping she could finally find a good place to finally rest after a long journey, she continued walking towards the city, walking past a large sign that said, Welcome to Anaheim, Home of the Mighty Ducks. But Avril barely paid attention to the sign and continued on her way.
After an hour of walking around the streets of downtown, Avril found shelter in an alley, even finding a large box from a recently bought refrigerator for her to sleep in. After climbing into the dumpster for something to eat, she could only find some old veggies that were limp and soft, but she was too hungry to care about that and ate them.
After eating her first 'meal' in a while, she sat on the cold hard ground and looked up at the sky. The clouds were parting little by little, the light from the full moon glowing through them, and the stars shined dimly. She noticed two of them were shining brightly
As she looked at them, tears began to fill Avril's eyes. Since moving in with her relatives, she would sometimes look up at the sky and pretend her parents were two shining stars watching over her.
It was already June, and close to the third anniversary of their deaths. The day they died because of her.
She thought to herself as her tears started falling from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, 'Mommy, Daddy, I miss you so much. I wish you were here, to hold me, tell me everything will be okay. It's my fault you're both gone. I'm sorry.'
She cried herself to sleep that night in the cardboard box.
Mighty Ducks belongs to Disney, and I own Avril, Detective Robinson, and Vanessa and Nick.