Colliding

Chapter Two: Odette

Odette's Point of View:

Brown is so not my color. I thought as I looked down at the three times too big fur coat.

I was walking down the dark sidewalk in two inches of snow with my bare feet, I shivered.

Looking around at the worn out part of London, with the dark buildings looming over me looking like they might collapse at any given moment, I walked quicker.

Damn. Why is it so cold?

Squinting in the dim glow of the old street lights, I saw a spark. Fire.

Tightening the coat around my already too-skinny body, I rose on my tip toes and quickly scrambled to the fire.

Around the fire were two men, with graying hair, two women who looked in their late fifties, and one little boy who looked about five.

The four adults huddled around the fire as one of the women snuggled the little boy closer to her.

I sighed. They needed that fire. I couldn't ask to join.

Walking closer I tapped the boy's shoulder. I took off my too-old comfort gloves and gave them to the boy with the stone cold hands.

First my shoes, then my socks, then this.

I gave the boy a grin as he grinned back at me.

"Mommy! Mommy! Look at what this lady gave me! Mommy, look!" The mother looked at me with worried eyes.

"Are you sure, miss? These seem very warm, we could never-" Waving her off, I just laughed.

"Meh. They didn't match my coat anyway." The women smiled at me softly, and gestured to the fire.

"Would you like to join us?" Looking at the warm fire, then turned my head to the side, with miles and miles of snow, and grinned at the woman.

"I'd love to."

~~~

I woke up to the sun coming up.

"I see we meet again, Sunny." I smiled at the beautiful site of the sunrise before me as I got up quietly from the alley in which the people from the fire slept.

Not wanting to burden them, I began walking away. Towards the sun.

Where it will lead me. Only time will tell.

~~~

At around noon, I was walking around Covent Garden to see which street performer I would perform with that day. It's a hobby, you see. I would help them and join their acts. I especially love doing the stunts.

I smiled wistfully at the acts I used to be in.

Before I knew it, a man had seized my arms and pulling me to his car.

"Odette Fieldman. So we meet again." Sneered the man from Social Services.

"Andrew." Andrew was the man who took me to foster care when my grandma died when I was fifteen.

My mother had died in child birth, and my father, whom my mother met in Brazil, doesn't know of my existence so I've lived with my Nana Jane for most of my life.

When she died almost three years ago, I was taken to a foster home. But the morning I was supposed to go, I was long gone. Away from the small town of Framlingham, England and to the unfamiliar streets of London.

Nana Jane had always told me stories of her adventures in Neverland. Everyone thought she was crazy but I believed her. My great-grandmother Wendy had also met Peter Pan.

I never understood why they came back. Why not be a child forever? Not that life back here is any good.

My fantasies are the thin line helping me hold onto this life. Without them, I would be long gone.

~~~

"Sit here." Andrew commanded me as if I were a puppy.

I was in his living room as he went to his office to call his partner to pick me up since it was his day off.

After about two hours, Andrew's partner, Vanessa, came to pick me up. She wasn't rude, she just thought I was five.

"Oh! Look at you, Odette! Oh my, have you grown!" She shuffled her feet to me on Andrew's couch. She pinched my cheeks as I have her a blank look.

"C'mon, let's go from that meanie Andrew!" She said grinning, as she held my hand and pulled me out the front door. Stuffing me in the back of her car we quickly drove to an unfamiliar building.

"Odette, you will stay in Mrs. Poggs' apartment tonight, so we can take you to a new home tomorrow! Isn't that exciting?!" I looked at her with a small smile. At least she was trying.

Vanessa pulled me into the building, into the elevator and to the front door of a middle aged lady, who was really quite chubby.

Vanessa discussed some things with Mrs. Poggs and talked to me. But I wasn't listening. I just cared about the fact that I might not be free by tommorow.

~~~

Looking out the window of the small room I shared with three seven year olds, I wished on a shooting star to be a child as I saw a shadow pass by.

Startled, I jumped off the window sill I was sitting on and looked out. A boy wearing green tights and had bright ginger hair, waved at me. He was floating and holding a little girl in a green dress.

Peter and Tink.

Grinning, I opened the window. I knew he was real. I knew it.

"Care for a fly?" Asked Peter Pan as he put his hand out.

"Why thank you, kind sir." I pretended to courtesy in a dress as I grabbed the fourteen-year-old looking boy's hand. I stood on the edge of the window as he Peter grabbed Tinkerbell and shook her over me.

I smiled as I took in the feeling of the pixie dust hitting my skin.

"Do you know the way?"

"Yes. Second star to the right, and then straight on till morning."