The Orphanage Rose

Chapter 6

Miss Moreau looks at me with a slightly startled face. Then she recovers herself and rises from her chair. Her shadow limps over me.

I’ve never felt so small before.

‘’If you want them so bad, you’ll have to work for it.’’ She whispers with her face dangerously close.

Oh no.

‘’I can’t wait too long,  we need them now.’’ I watch my feet while I mentally prepare myself for the landlady’s shouting.

Suddenly she pushes something in my hand. I didn’t expect it so I tumble over. I slowly open my hands and see a vial filled with antibiotics. I feel Miss Moreau’s gaze still upon me.

‘’Pay it back later.’’ She snaps.

I get up and stumble out of the room. I run fast through the hallway. I reach a safe distance and sit against the wall. I feel like crying but there’s no time.

‘’I need to get these to Sara,’’ I whisper to myself.

I almost smash the door through the wall when I arrive at Sara’s room. Cecile is pacing around the room, Anna and Dena sit on the ground, Raya sits on the bed and on the bed lays Sara.

It looks like she’s sleeping.

I rush over to the bed and gently shake her shoulder. She slowly opens her eyes.

Gasps echo through the room.

Sara’s wound got worse. The infection grew bigger in the time I was away.

‘’I-is it that bad?’’ Sara asks.

I nod.

Anna begins to cry and I hear Cecile rush over to her to comfort her.

A while later we all stand in the hallway. Sara is asleep again.

‘’Will she get better soon?’’ Dena asks.

‘’I… I don’t know,’’ Cecile sighs, ‘’I certainly hope so.’’

‘’Who did this to her anyway?’’ Anna seems terrified of the thought of someone robbing someone else’s eye. And I can’t blame her to be honest.

‘’That doesn’t matter now, all we have to worry about at the moment is your sister’s health.’’ Cecile spats. The look in her eyes reveals how angry she is, but at the same time sad too. Me? I’m mostly anxious. Anxious about what will happen to Sara, anxious about our future, I mean we can’t stay here forever can we?

I wake up from my little daydream as Raya calls my name. ‘’…so we must agree with her right Edeline?’’ I lift my head which I head tilt down for some reason. ‘’Agree with who, and with what?’’ I know that sounded stupid but what else could I say. If I just bluntly agreed with them I could’ve agreed with throwing seven goats off the building or something.

‘’Agree with Cecile, agree with punishing Becky.’’

‘’What?! We can’t go get revenge like that, what would you do?’’

‘’We will hurt her like she did with Sara.’’

This side of Cecile scares me, she seemed like a rather optimistic person to me. I glance at Raya but she avoids my gaze. Anna and Dena haven’t heard it since they’re playing at the other side of the hallway.

‘’I do not insist on hurting anyone, we are not animals. Revenge is not a way to express your anger, and you might regret it later.’’

Why doesn’t Raya care?

What’s gotten into them to make them willing to harm someone else?

I’m about to say something else as the infamous whistle sounds again, dinner.

‘’You’re not going to do anything to Becky.’’ I hiss to Cecile when we walk down the staircase.

‘’So you’re choosing her side now are you?’’

‘’No I’m not, I just don’t want to get in violent situations.’’

‘’Then don’t get involved, you are not able to stop me this time.’’

I can’t do anything about it.

Cecile has made up her mind.