folklore

- 4 -

"well, well, look what we found." The menacing voice of a girl snarled.

"if it isn't Rosemary," Another girl's voice spoke in a artificial high-pitched voice.

Harley kept her eyes glued onto the book she was reading and sunk against the wall. "leave me alone."

"hiding away from chores, are we?"

"I've already finished mine." She looked up to see four girls- who were also orphans- hovering over her with devious smiles on their faces.

A brown haired girl who stood in the middle of them suddenly snatched her book right out of her hands, taking Harley by surprise.

"Libby, give it back!" Harley shot up and reached her hand out for the book, but the brunette swung her hand up, suspending the book in the air.

"well, that's not a polite way of asking, is it ladies?" The three other girls giggled behind while Harley turned red with rage.

A blonde one spoke. "I guess we'll just have to make her learn." With the book still in her hands, the brown haired girl lead the way out of the room with the other three following her. Before Harley could make it out, they closed the door and locked it from the outside.

"let me out!" Harley yelled, pounding on the door with a closed fist. "hey!"

She turned around and pressed her back onto the door as she watched the walls slowly close in on her. Her breathing became heavy and she started to feel dizzy, looking around the room that became smaller and smaller with each passing second.

Once again, she began to pound onto the door. "let me out! Libby, let me out!" She heard the girls on the other side of the door, their deafening laughs ringing in her ears. "I can't-" She took a deep breath with everything she could. "please!"

Harley shot up, grey eyes wide and cold sweat on her forehead. Her chest heavily rose up and down as she looked around the cold aired, wide spaced room. Her heart started to beat more slowly again and she laid back down on her pillow.

She figured that she couldn't run away from the orphanage so easily.

✧༝┉˚*❋ ❋*˚┉༝✧

Turns out that with Harley's vivid imaginations, she was a natural at making up fake headlines and convincing people to buy a newspaper from her. Some may say she was almost as good as Lilly- who was her selling partner for that day. Harley watched as an older man spat nasty words at Lilly, who simply rolled her eyes and walked away.

"you're just going to let him talk to you like that?" Harley asked as she marched towards Lilly, motioning to the man. There was a particular word said to Lilly; one that Harley didn't know too much about, but she had heard kids at the orphanage call other kids that word.

"Harley it's okay." Lilly pressed her lips into a thin line. "believe it or not, I get that all the time."

"don't you do anything about it?"

"I used ta, but now it ain't matter what I do. Look Harley, bein' a girl in dese times is hard." She then lifted a finger and poked her own cheek. "bein' a black girl makes it even harder. The reason why it seems like I's so good at sellin' is 'cause I has ta choose my customers. Sure I don't do anythin' 'bout nasty people, but the things they say still hurts."