Safe and Sound

8

Ashley walked down the paved street towards number six Crescent Drive, pulling on her black and red striped school tie around her neck to loosen it. It had been a long day. She'd been awake since 6am and it was currently nearing 8pm, Ashley was ready for bed. Three boys, between the ages of eight and eleven, kicked a red football between them on the patch of green belt between two houses across the road. The house Ashley was staying in was a yellow and red brick, three bedroom house, the only one of its kind on the street. The rest had been built out of orange and red bricks and were either two or four bedroomed houses. This had confused Ashley when she first arrived on the street three months ago, why was this house different? She never asked this question out loud though, she had bigger, more important things on her mind. Her future was the biggest thing on her mind. Ashley was good in school, top in almost all of her classes, except art. It wasn't that she wasn't good at art, it was that her teacher, Mrs Campbell, a scrawny grey haired woman in her sixties, told her she was too serious and had to find the joy within an image. But Ashley found that hard when there was barely anything in her own life to smile about.

At sixteen, Ashley's plans for her future were big. She studied hard when she wasn't working shifts at the local supermarket to raise money for college. She planned to travel to America and study there. Her grades were good enough to get into an American college, straight A's. Despite her disruptive home life, Ashley worked hard and poured herself into school, taking up as many extra curricular activities as she could to spend as little time as she could at home. She tutored every day before school in the school library and on Tuesday Ashley played netball and Thursdays played badminton in the school gym hall before her shift at the supermarket. On Mondays and Wednesdays, Ashley threw herself into extra French and Spanish lessons and her Friday afternoons were spent in the music classroom working on a piano concerto or practising the guitar. During school holidays, Ashley took up as many shifts in the supermarket as she could, all with the aim of raising enough money for four years at American college. After that, well Ashley wasn't sure what could come next, but she'd figure that out when the time came.

Ashley approached the house. She stopped outside on the pavement and took in the yellow and red brick building. Her home, foster home. This was her ninth foster home in seven years through no fault of her own. Her previous homes had returned her and her brother, Archie, to the system like they were returning clothes to the store that didn't fit or a gift they didn't like, when they planned to move or discovered that they were having a child of their own. Before this, Ashley and her brother spent the first nine years of their lives in a group home, being told they might have to be separated, that it was easier to find homes for one child rather than two. The twins had refused to be separated and kicked up a fuss whenever this was mentioned. The twins were close, the only constant in each other's lives.

Ashley knew her brother would not survive a foster home on his own. He was tall, lanky, with red curls on top of his head and soft blue eyes. Sensitive and secretive, Archie never liked being away from his sister. He said it was a twin thing but Ashley knew better. He was co-dependent. Archie was timid and wouldn't say 'boo' to a baby, so Ashley had taken it upon herself to protect her brother when he let her in, he wasn't always good at that. He was good with kids though and volunteered at the children's club in the local church. It was one of the few things that brought him joy.

Archie struggled to make friends his own age. He had one best friend besides his sister. Her name was Corryn. She was short, blonde and a little peculiar. Corryn and Archie had spent every break and lunchtime huddled together in the cafeteria discussing Pokémon and other things Ashley didn't understand, resulting in them being bullied by their classmates. Ashley would step in to defend her brother and his friend. She knew the bullying went deeper than Archie told her but she never pushed him into telling her. Archie and Corryn had been close until Corryn had been whisked away by her family when her parents got new jobs in London. They'd lost touch and Archie had fallen into the deep hole of loneliness, withdrawing from everyone. He barely left the house except for school. Ashley was worried about him.