October 12, 2009

Éponine had been putting the finishing touches on the Biology project she shared with Cosette in the living room, as they worked there was a knock at the door. Éponine turned to the door, instead of Toussaint opening it Mr. Fauchlevent opened it himself, standing there was a woman with close cropped hair and a briefcase in her hand. "Hello, I'm Estelle Matrin with Child Protective Services, I belive you called us the other day... Mr Fauchlevent?" she looked at a sheet of paper in her hands and back to Mr. Fauchlevent.

"Yes I did," Mr. Fauchlevent let Estelle into the house.

"This is about gaining custody of the Thenardier children?" Estelle continued with her questions, "are all three of them here right now?"

Éponine completely stopped her work and focused on the conversation that Mr. Fauchlevent was having with with the woman from Child Protective Services

"Do you have a room so I could speak to them one at a time?" Estelle asked, Mr. Fauchlevent pointed to his study.

"Who would you like to talk with first?" Mr. Fauchelvent asked.

"The oldest, Éponine? You said she has a black eye?" Estelle looked at her paper again, "yes, I'll speak with her first.

Mr. Fauchelvent walked over to the two girls, "Éponine? This woman would like to speak to you."

Éponine stood up and walked over to the woman, she followed her into Mr. Fauchelvent's study, they both sat down and looked at each other.

"Hello Éponine, my name is Estelle, Mr. Fauchlevent called us to see if we could help you," Estelle explained with a friendly smile.

Éponine did nothing of the sort to introduce herself to this strange woman, instead she waited to see what the woman had to say about the matter.

"Alright, what can you tell me about that black eye of yours? Where did you get it?" Estelle asked.

Éponine put her hand to her eye without even thinking about it, part of her wanted to lie, but she knew Mr. Fauchlevent wanted these people to help her and her siblings so lying was a bad choice. "My father... he hit me," she answered quietly.

"Alright," Estelle started taking notes, "is this the first time he has hit you?"

Éponine shook her head, "no."

"When did this begin?" Estelle asked.

"I was in 6th grade, that's when it started, it didn't start getting bad until 7th and 8th grade," Éponine explained while she watched Estelle take her notes.

"Alright, is this the worst it's ever been?" Estelle looked at Éponine.

Éponine took in a deep breath, "n-no..."

Estelle put her pen down briefly, "so why has this never been brought up with Child Services before."

Éponine didn't want to look at Estelle directly, "I've always been able to hide it," she explained.

Estelle picked up her pen again and made a few more notes, "I see, why did you hide it?"

"I-I didn't want my friends to worry about me," she still didn't dare look at Estelle who pursed her lips as she continued to write more notes.

A few hours later Estelle had finished questioning the Thenardier children thoroughly, after that she pulled Mr. Fauchlevent into the study to speak with him.

"They are all showing signs of abuse, the younger two seem to have suffered more from neglect and emotional and verbal abuse, the older seems to have suffered the same and physical abuse." she explained to Mr. Fauchlevent, "it seems that when ever her father or anyone else tried to hit the other two she would step in and stop it, getting beaten in the process."

"I see," Mr. Fauchlevent replied nodding his head, "so what is to be done."

"We will look into the matter some more with the parents," Estelle explained, "then since it is very unlikely that it will be proven they have not been abused put into foster care."

Éponine had been sitting next to Cosette while they stood near the door eavesdropping on the conversation, she gripped at her friends hand in fear.

"Instead of being put into the system, is there anyway they could remain here with us?" Mr. Fauchlevent asked, "I would be willing to be the guardian of those children."

Estelle sighed, "you are not on our records as part of our system in the New York area, it's unlikely that any of my superiors would let you do something like that."

"Please," Mr. Fauchlevent asked.

"I'll see what I can do," Estelle replied, she then clicked her briefcase shut, immediately Éponine and Cosette backed away from the door and returned to what they were doing.

Estelle bid them all a good evening and left the house, they could hear her car backing down the driveway and into the street. Once they heard that noise then tense feeling that hung in the air immediately began to dissipate.

"I hope they don't put you in foster care," Cosette replied sounding worried.

Éponine agreed, she had heard plenty of horror stories about the system, it was another one of the reasons that she tried to never speak about the abuse to anyone that she knew. "Maybe we should distract our selves," she suggested.

"Pizza and a movie?" Azelma cut in.

At the mention of pizza Gavroche looked over at them, "you're going to order pizza? Can I get in on this?" he asked.

Éponine laughed and gave her younger brother a hug, he desperately tried to escape her grasp, "no more hugs!" he complained.

Éponine smiled at him, "you can join us if you really don't mind watching a chick-flick."

Gavroche wrinkled his nose, "a chick-flick? Yuck!"

The three girls laughed, "oh come on let him watch," Azelma sighed, "I know he likes Princess Bride!"

"Princess Bride?" Gavroche asked excitedly, "that's not a chick-flick!" he then pretended to brandish a sword. "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" He ran at Éponine and started tickling her.

"No! Gav stop!" she pleaded all the while laughing, she did everything in her power to avoid being tickled but was failing.

"Who will join me on my conquest?" Gavroche declared as he tickled Éponine's weakest point, the back of her neck.

"Gav, please! That's not fair!" she complained as Azelma and Cosette joined in their tickle fight.

It didn't take long before they were all sprawled out on the floor feeling exhausted, Éponine clutched at her stomach which ached from all the laughing she had done. She slowly sat up and turned to Gavroche who was trying to catch his breath, "wanna call it a truce?" she held out her hand to him.

Gavroche huffed but he shook her hand, "alright, a truce... So can we still watch the movie?"