Jessie looks like Anavaeh Wallace, Vulcan looks like the dog Monkey in Gossip Girl.

The wiki say Jody is nine at the moment she comes into the dumping ground, and her birthday is July 12th. Anyway. This chapter doesn't mention the exact date. But it would be set a couple of years before she came into care and her birthday has been moved.

Jody Jackson

Jody Jackson was in school, in Pottiswood, England. It was time for lunch break and she was hiding from the rest of the world, In the small, except for herself empty space- hidden underneath the slide by the side of the playground.

Jody always thought this was her room, her alone space and somewhere no bullies could see her. Somewhere she could do what she wanted without anyone seeing or caring for it, just like she right now built a birthday cake in the sand, and to it six small sticks that, with a child's imagination looked like candles.

Yesterday at this time Jody had been five years old, but now she was six…

"Happy birthday to me…" She sang, almost all quietly to herself, for there was no one else she knew that would sing to her. "…Happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Jody." She didn't finish the esong. Only forced away the lump in her throat and, with her sleeve wiped tears from her eyes.

Had everyone really forgotten?

Jody had a seventeen year old brother Kingsley, and a sixteen year old brother named Luke. Luke wasn't half as bad as Kingsley could be sometimes, but he- as well as everyone else were afraid of Kingsley, and didn't do anything when Jody had asked about if she would get anything for her birthday and Kingsley slapped her- hard.

Jody just wanted to know if anyone had remembered…

In front of her, Jody was baking a small sand cake. Putting six, small sticks into it like candles. They wouldn't stand like she had wanted them to though. Jody must have known her birthday cake and its candles were failures just like everything else had been today.

Suddenly another girl came crawling down into the room under the slide. Jody wanted to shout at the new girl to get out and away- far away. But she barely even looked up and only continued trying to make the six sticks stand into the cake she was making.

"Hi." The girl suddenly said, Jody still had barely looked up and didn't see thee girl's big smile. "I'm Jessie Kempler. You're Jody Jackson, right?" Jody hesitated. Then barely nodded- still without looking up. "What are you making?"

A birthday cake.

Jody hesitated, then decided not to answer to Jessie Kempler. Instead she looked up and then stood.

"GET OUT." Jody screamed at the top of her lungs. Almost getting all red in the face. "GET OUT OF HERE. THIS IS MY ROOM."

It didn't hit Jody Jackson how wrong she was. That everything in this school yard belonged to all of the students and teachers.

And it didn't matter how much she was acting like her oldest brother. Or how much she must be scaring the other girl with the way she yelled.

Despite that, Jessie didn't look afraid. She only leaned her head to the side and watched as Jody kept building. And it didn't seem to matter for her that Jody hadn't answered yet. And it didn't look like she wanted to either.

"I wanted to say that our names are almost the same, but yours is nicer. Is Jody your full name or is it short for something? Like Jodelle? Some people think my name is actually Jessica, but it's not Jessie is my full name. Now come on, answer me. What are you making? It's looking like a birthday cake. Is it your birthday? How old are you? I'm six and three quarters of a year. I have a brother named Jack, he's only two days and just came out of the hospital for the first time in his life. I also have an older brother named John. Now, sorry. I didn't give you time to answer. Dad always tells me I talk too much and never give anyone else time to answer questions I asked. Now, what are you making? It's looking like a birthday cake with six candles."

Jody had looked up silently at the dark-blonde girl as she spoke. She wanted to think Jessie was only annoying to her, wanted to yell more. But it was like a little voice inside of Jody's head told her not to and kept her from it.

She was just about to answer about what she was making when they heard the school bell ringing and it was time to go inside for their next class. Jody waited for a bit, she didn't want to get stuck in a rush of people that were going inside at the same time.

"Can we meet here in the lunch break too?"

Jody didn't answer, she only told herself she didn't want to be friends with anyone. And when she ran towards the school's doors she did her best to forget about the girl she had just met.

Which wasn't very hard when she saw Miller Benson and his gang standing in between hers and the doors.

Jody would never have admitted it- but she was as afraid of Miller as she was of Kingsley. And she tried to look away from him when she had to understand that he wasn't going to move. Either way, when she tried to run past him without looking at him. She also couldn't have seen how he stretched out his leg so she'd stumble on his foot.

Not seeing until it was too late, Jody flew over the asphalt, scraping her hands and knees- her- already holy jeans were ripped and falling, she also scraped her chin. While Miller and his buddies high-fived and laughed together Jody laid completely still, without moving or looking up.

"Jody…" Jody suddenly heard a voice she recognized as Jessie's. "…Are you dead? Jody please. Tell me if you're dead…. MISS MAURA? MISS MAURA? I think Jody might be dead."

Just as the girls' miss Maura came running, hearing Jessie's yells. Jody looked up and tried to crawl onto her feet.

"No…" As if she had to, Miss Maura held Jody down. "Stay there Jody. Just lay still."

Jody ignored what Maura said, or tried to say. Or what Jessie said, slowly she got up.

"Come here." Miss Maura still kept a hand on Jody's shoulder as Jody stood. "Can you walk?"

Jody could walk, and she didn't say it out loud but these scrapes didn't hurt half as bad as some things Kingsley had caused.

"Come here. Jessie- go to your class. Jody, you'll have to go to the nurse's office and get those wound cleaned up if nothing else, so they don't become infected."

Jody wouldn't have admitted that neither. But she was forcing away the tears behind her eyes and swallowing a lump in her throat- even small scrapes like these always burnt so badly.

No way was she showing herself weak though…

"Come here." The nurse wasn't there for the day. So Miss Maura lifted Jody up on thee stretcher herself. "I'm going to roll up your slacks now, just so I can reach and get those wounds clean. Now, it's going to sting a bit- quite a lot actually. But that just means it's killing the bacteria in the wound."

Jody barely even listened, and she didn't make a single move while Miss Maura did her job. Miss Maura didn't say anything neither except for explaining what she was about to do. Instead she was thinking about how Jody was so incredibly light when she lifted her up. Surely, Maura's own son had weighed at least twice as much at Jody's age.

"Can I just go to class now?"

If Jody hadn't said anything Miss Maura had probably been only staring right ahead of her, without even seeing what she had in front of her. Except for that one girl who was so short, and as light as someone half her age…..

"You go!"

During the lunch break later in the day, Jody hadn't brought anything to eat with her. So instead of going towards the tables in the yard, Jody ran back towards the slide and crawled into the room underneath it.

"I hate that Miller-boy!"

Jody hadn't expected anyone to come, just like it usually was. Therefore- while she, just like before sat and built a birthday cake in the sand, Jessie came crawling in too and Jody was, if nothing else- surprised.

"I saw that he tripped you? Do your knees and hands and chin hurt a lot?" Jody answered as little as she had before and kept building in the sand. "How did you get here so fast? I barely had the time to eat. Don't you want to go outside? Someone's having a football game. And closer to the school house there's someone playing basketball… Do you really want to just sit here? It's okay. I'll help you stand up to Miller and Alex and their gang if they mess with you again."

Then at last, Jody looked up. And she looked over the small, blonde-haired and blue-eyed girl that wasn't much bigger than herself, she imagined what could happen if they ever got in a fight with Miller.

"I don't want to." Jody shook her head at last. Then looked down on the "cake" again. And slowly wrote her name in the sand on it.

"You're making that birthday cake again? And you wrote your name on it… is that today? Is it your birthday?"

Jody hesitated about whether she should answer or not, then- if ever so little she nodded.

"Well, happy birthday! Did you get a real cake? Or are you having one after school today? Are you having a celebration. Can I come? I can get you a present. Did you have any presents this morning before school? Some clothes, a stuffed animal or maybe some books? Do you like reading? I love reading now I'm learning how. Can you read well? I still need to practice some but my big brother John helps me some."

Jessie spoke and spoke and spoke. Asking ten more questions before giving Jody a chance to answer a single one.

Then came the questions Jody hated the very most.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters? What are their names? I think Jody's a really pretty name so maybe your sibling or siblings do too. If you have any."

Jody didn't want to answer a single one of Jessie's questions. She didn't want to answer that she hadn't gotten any gifts or a real cake. She didn't want to answer that she thought her name was stupid and she'd much rather her name was something cool like Skye or Brooke. She didn't want to answer that she'd barely ever had a stuffed animal or a book, or that she wasn't any good at reading since she never got the chance to practice at home after school.

Luke was good at reading. He could have helped her.

But Jody knew very well the one question she wanted to answer the very least.

"What do your parents do? Do you live with them or are they divorced? Where are you going?"

In the middle of where Jessie Kempler was asking a million questions, Jody crawled out from the little room under the slide of their school's playground. Quickly, before Jessie had had the time to come out and look for her. Jody ran away and hid behind a big, old oak that was on the school yard.

Being all alone in the world was so much better than how it had treated Jody up to this point. And something in her head was telling her that Jessie was just pretending to be nice so she could trick Jody later…

Happy freaking birthday Jody Jackson

A couple of hours later Jody was walking through the blocks in between the school and her home. She hadn't spoken more to Jessie and it didn't seem as if anyone had cared it was her birthday. Now- maybe it would be like Jessie thought? Would Jody get a cake? Or a stuffed animal? Maybe some clothes since the jeans she was wearing had holes in them?

But Jody knew that that was all too much to hope for, she especially knew it when she came inside her house and found her brothers and mother in the hallway about to leave.

"Jody- darling!" Her mother said just as she came inside. "Happy birthday!... Now… what's that?" She kneeled to see the new holes by her knees. "What did you do? Do you think I'm made of money? I can't go and buy you new clothes every time you break something."

"It was an accident." Jody tried to say, while the family's poodle- mutt came trotting over to her and seemed to want to be on her side. "It was that Mill…"

"Don't even try it… Well, it's a good thing I haven't planned for a birthday celebration for you. Because the money for that will have to go to some new pants for you…"

"Are you going out?"

"Yes." Denise answered Jody's question. "We're going out. And we'll be back late so don't stay up."

Jody hadn't learnt to see on the clock what time it was. She just knew that there still was quite a few hours left until nighttime. And until midnight passed so it wouldn't be her birthday yet. Sure, her brothers and mother would be back at the flat before she went to bed. At least they could bring her a muffin or another small cake for her birthday.

When they left Jody heard the door being locked, and there wasn't any way for her to unlock the door from her and she knew that.

Just like she knew she didn't know when they would come back. When she laid underneath the kitchen table, Vulcan lying right by it like a guard dog. Like she knew that she didn't know whether her family members would even be back, or who would come with them

Some of Kingsley's friends weren't nice…

Actually none of them were nice. But there were some that would come into Jody's room at night, Or the kitchen, or outside or wherever she was.

She could hear them breathing…

Then she could sense them coming closer.

She had started hiding and sleeping underneath the Christmas table. And kept telling herself that no one could see her there.

Or that Vulcan- the world's hungriest, laziest mutt would protect her.

But tonight, this night was her birthday. Maybe there could be someone in the whole world that was nice to her.

But then, as she came closer and closer to midnight- that she knew because of a church bell's ringing near. She knew her birthday was almost over and there would be no one to be nice to her this year neither.

And this year she had hoped for so much. She just couldn't help it…

But there she laid.

What wouldn't she have given to be back on the playground by school? To be able to make herself a birthday cake, a dinner that was something tastier than Vulcan's dog food and time with Jessie Kempler, Jody didn't want to. But maybe there was some wish inside of her wishing she could be a friend.

What wouldn't she have given to be outside of this, one room…

Just anywhere where people cared for her.

Anywhere at all.

Random fact (I have a few ones for this one)

This one was from the beginning a oneshot based on the song don't laugh at me by Mark Wills, I wrote about 1 000 words, saved it and then didn't write more until today (July 21, 2023).

Jessie was from the beginning Jacey, but x snow-pony x has taught me some about differences in between British and American names. And I decided to change it some.

Vulcan looks like the dog Monkey in Gossip Girl. He's some kind of Poodle-mutt. (someone said they had a dog that looked like him. A mix in between poodle, husky and something else I can't remember now.