-8-
Mike had never expected to feel connected to the girl with the weird '0-11' tattoo, but the longer she was in his house, the more fascinated he was with her; he didn't get it, he felt a weird connection with El (and boy, he was glad he'd come up with that nickname for her since it was less clumsy than calling her 'Eleven' all the time.
And…the longer she was nearby, and the more she was here in his home - he knew she couldn't stay here hidden indefinitely; there was always the chance she would bump into either Mum or Holly, or Nancy or Dad, by accident, and what if Holly cried in the night and she was disturbed and made a noise, or went to his baby sister? There were too many possibilities, but Mike hoped by that point she would have gradually gotten there. Mike had heard tales of feral kids living like animals, or reared by animals so those Rudyard Kipling tales of Mowgli being reared by wolves had some logic to them.
El was different; she'd arrived wearing only a shirt and her hair was a buzz cut close to the scalp; maybe Dustin and Lucas had a point about her coming from a hospital, but Mike couldn't see it. He didn't know of any hospital that would tattoo an identification number into a young girl's wrist, and she had clearly not had much in the way of human contact.
Dustin and Lucas were both scared and nervous around her, but Mike had seen how scared she was. She had been terrified in the forest, lost and confused, and he had seen the way she curiously examined everything around her…almost as if wherever she had been living had none of these things.
What kind of life had she led?
She could speak, but she had problems understanding different words and her phrasing was simplistic, but the good news was he had patiently managed to teach her a few words and phrases. Mike didn't really care about school by this point, while Will was gone and nobody had the slightest idea where he was and what happened to him, Mike was more interested in his mystery guest.
One thing he'd learnt about her was she had a childish delight in reclining chairs. Seeing her smile made his heart dance, and she had laughed and smiled in delight before his mother and Holly came home…and he discovered she was claustrophobic.
Great going, he should have thought of that. She must have been kept inside cramped spaces all her life, and he'd gone and reminded her of it.