A Dark Night - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The boys were always so mean to me but it was nothing compared to what they would do to this younger boy.  He didn’t like to play with the football or run around in the mud with the rest of them.  He preferred to sit in the library of the orphanage and read what books to which we did have access.  I would often sneak through the halls to grab a midnight snack and catch a glimpse of him reading the books with a flashlight.

One evening, I caught him sitting in a circle of books, a curious stare beginning to grow across my face.  “Whatcha doing?” I questioned, my fingers curled around the edge of the door.  We were both about eight or nine at this age.  My nosiness was something familiar to my demeanor.  I always wanted to know what was going on, and this was perhaps the only time I could catch him without everyone behind me to quiz him as well.

“Reading,” he replied, his eyes never lifting from the book he stared into.  I raised an eyebrow and huffed, putting my hands on my hips.  No sooner had I been displeased with his answer did I rush in upon him.

“Reading what?!” I grunted, attempting to snatch the book from his hands.  He was quicker, however, and spun away before I even got close to the spine of the book.

“Whatever I can.  This book is about war and history…”  He chuckled for a minute.  “Are you going to beat on me like the rest of them?”  He looked up from his book, and I think it was perhaps the only time that I ever saw his face without it being shoved in a book or beat on by the other boys.  His eyes were a gentle green almost the color of the grass in the yard.  His hair, long enough just to hide his ears, was a shaggy caramel with slight bits of dirt tucked into it.

“Why would I do that?” I questioned, plopping down nearby him in his circle of books.

“Why wouldn’t you?  You could be just like the rest of them.”  I somewhat resented that statement and glared at him once again.

“I am not!” I shouted, and he soon jumped at me to try to quiet me.

“Shh!!” he whispered.  “We’re not supposed to be in here at night.  You don’t want to get us in trouble do you?”

“What’s wrong with a little trouble?”

“Well, it gets you in trouble!”

“Well, maybe you need a little trouble now and then,” I giggled, playing with the elastic of my dingy pajama pants.  As orphans, we weren’t given the best of facilities, and I honestly didn’t care.  This boy was making due with what he could, just as I was.  “What’s yer name?”

“Vileb.  You?”

“Kirsta.  Why don’t you play with the rest of us in the yard?  You always stay inside when we’re having recess…”

“I don’t like being around the other boys, they beat on me so much…” Vileb stated, his lids lowering over his eyes and it almost looked as if he was to cry.

“You just gotta rough them up a little,” I replied, giggling as I put a fist deep into my palm to demonstrate.

Vileb glanced at me and then muttered, “But I’m not strong enough to do so.”

“Well, then I’ll be your bodyguard!  I always wanted to protect someone!”  I snatched up his hand shortly and stood in front of him.  “Make way for the smarty-pants Vileb!”  I giggled and pretended to push people away from my new friend.

Friend; that was something that I wasn’t accustomed to.  I did, as much as I could, try to be there for everyone always.  However, I never did grow close to one of the kids at the orphanage.  No one seemed to click with me over the years I had been there than I did in the few minutes with the boy who liked to read too much.  “Smarty-pants, hunh?” he chuckled, then tried to tackle me.

Unfortunately, it was directly into a pile of his books that made more racket than the both of us combined.  We soon heard the swift shuffle of feet from the headmistress’s room and we turned to hide amongst the piles of toppled books.  “Who’s in here?!” she shouted, shining her flashlight upon the muddle of old and filthy books.  We tried to hold back our giggles and peeked through one of the bookcases.  Luckily she didn’t see us.  But, that wasn’t any help.  “I’m going to give you to the count of three, or we’ll go and check to see who isn’t in their beds.  One…”

Oh great, we were busted one way or another.  Vileb slouched his shoulders and hung his head, ready to give up, but I wasn’t one to do so.  I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him against the wall.  We were going to sneak out and around the headmistress.  “Two…”  I pointed to the small space between her and the doorway.  She had come in further to try to find whomever it was lurking in these shadows.  I grinned and nodded to him.  He nodded back.

We ran quickly and almost knocked her over.  She spun around not able to discern the small shadows darting past her.  “Get back here you little hooligans!”  I heard her shout but I wasn’t about to get caught.  As we made it back to the safety of the orphans’ quarters, we quickly jumped into our respective beds and pretended to be asleep.  We heard the scuffing of the headmistress’s feet come to the door and swing it open.

Coincidentally for us, a few of the other children were startled and awoken by the noise that she pointed at them first.  “You and you!  Why are you awake?!”  They whimpered and tried to explain it was because she just slammed the door, but she was not listening.  “To my office, now!!”  The two boys slowly slid out of bed and followed the point of her finger out the door.  When she slammed the door a second time, most of the other children woke up as well.

“What happened?”  “What’s going on?”  “Where’s Jim and Berg?”  “The headmistress is really pissed…”  Within all the shouts and confusion, Vileb and I just exchanged glances across the room.   I giggled for a moment, recognizing the names that the other children had mentioned.  Jim and Berg were the two bullies who often picked on Vileb whenever we were having dinner, sitting down in class, almost anything to be honest.

The next day, the boys knew exactly what had happened.  Vileb had come outside during recess because I finally coaxed him out of the library.  He actually was very agile for a bookworm.  While we were on the monkey bar globe, Jim and Berg came over and pushed Vileb off the bars onto the ground below.  Vileb coughed for a moment, and stood up to stare at them.  They began to push him back and forth between the two of them.  “It’s your fault! ‘Cause of you, we got a beatin’ for being in the library at night!  We know it was you!”

I glared at them and hopped from between the bars to only get pushed by Berg.  “What are you doing, Kirsta?  Let us give him what’s coming to him.”

“No!” I shouted, pushing Jim off of Vileb and standing between them.  “You have to get through me!”

“Haha!  Look, she’s protecting him.  Ooo, is he your boyfriend now?  Ooo!  Look everyone, Kirsta’s got a boyfriend!”  The taunts from the boys called all the rest of the orphans around us.  I glared and punched Jim in the face, my fists balled so tightly my knuckles began to lighten.  Jim fell to the ground, and Berg hopped up to face me.  “He is your boyfriend!”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.  “And if you don’t leave him alone, I’ll beat you all up!”

“Just try it,” Berg said.  That was all the reason I needed.  I swung out and caught him straight in the jaw.  He was taken aback and soon I was pummeling his face.  He began to cry and scream before Jim hopped up and tried to peel me off of him.  Vileb sat there laughing the whole time.

“You think it’s funny freak?!” Jim shouted and dove after Vileb.  Vileb quickly sidestepped, tripped Jim, and then stood on his back.

“It is funny, actually,” Vileb said, laughing.  I could barely see it my eyes now streaming with tears as I punched Berg more and more.  The crowd of children caused the headmistress to run over and snatch me up by the collar of my shirt, fairly similar to a small puppy grabbed by the scruff of their neck.

I remembered later that evening, after being disciplined by the headmistress, I could smell smoke filling our room.  Vileb came to me and shook my side.  “Kirsta, wake up, the building’s on fire!”

Sadly enough, he was right.  A fire had started on the back of the building where the orphans’ quarters was.  We had gone to the library as it was our routine from now on, since the boys would try to beat up Vileb in the middle of the night.  It wasn’t too hard for us to pry open one of the windows and sneak out.

We soon saw fire trucks trying to put the blaze out but it was far too much for them.  Men in weird tuxedo-like suits were taking to the headmistress and the children who escaped.  After each one was spoken to, he or she was put on a weird black bus.  The men didn’t get on that bus, but shortly after it departed it went up in a grand explosion.  I didn’t like the looks of it and after a convincing glance from Vileb, neither did he.  We ran into the wood just a short distance from the orphanage, and never looked back.