Rise and Fall

She's Moving Out!

Chapter 14: She’s Moving Out!

Day 106 without my family/Day 100 on the Octopod

Wow! I can’t believe I’ve been here one hundred days! Like I said a hundred days after the fire, in some ways, it feels like longer, but in other ways, it doesn’t feel like that long at all.

I mentioned it to Shellington this morning. He said he couldn’t believe it either and that he’s proud of me for how far I’ve come in those hundred days.

“You were very scared when you first came here”, he reminded me. “Now, you’re helping me on my research missions. Maybe one day, you’ll be an Octonaut too.”

(He’s said that before and I really like that idea.)

“I’m still scared”, I pointed out. “Of the Captain.”

“Maybe”, Shellington replied, “but I think with just a little more time, you could

“Oh”, Angel mumbled, clearly disappointed.

Shellington glanced up from his test tubes. “What’s wrong?”

Angel held up the leather bound journal her teacher had given her on her last day of school before she left, one of the few items she’d managed to rescue from the fire. “My book is full.”

“You filled in every page?” Shellington questioned, coming round to the other side of the workbench to join the girl.

The ten-year-old flicked through the book to show him every single page covered in her atrocious handwriting. “Yep.”

“Jumping jellyfish! You have been busy!” the otter exclaimed.

“Yeah, I’ve used up a lot more pages since I started writing about Cordelia.”

Shellington smiled. Angel had told him about the book in the library and how she was finishing the story. She’d even asked for his help a couple of times (with questions like, “What kinds of creatures live in the Arctic Ocean?”, or, “What do crabs eat?”) However, she wouldn’t let anybody read it until it was done. “How is that going?”

“Okay, but I’m still not sure how it’s gonna end. And now, I can’t finish it.” She held up the full journal again.

“Of course you can. You just need another notebook.”

“But I don’t have another notebook.” He knew that; she hardly had anything. Her house had burned down a hundred and six days ago. He knew that too.

“No problem.” Shellington opened a drawer and rummaged through it. “I have plenty.”

“Well, if they’re yours, I don’t want to-“

“Don’t worry”, Shellington cut her off. “I won’t miss one.”

“But don’t you need them for your research?” Angel wondered.

“I have more than I need. I get so many, some of them sit empty for years”, the scientist explained. “In fact… Have two: one as a journal and one for your story.” He pulled out two notebooks, one with a dark green cover and one with a purple cover, and handed them to the ten-year-old. “Here you go.”

“Wow!” Angel stared at them, deeply touched. “Thanks, Shellington.”

She was still at the stage where any new possession made her emotional. All she owned were her backpack; her blanket; her stim toys; one pair of day clothes; one pair of pyjamas; a toothbrush; the sticker from Peso (stuck into her journal); her now-full journal and the new notebooks from Shellington. (She was currently reading the book she’d found by the same author as Cordelia, but that didn’t count. She was just borrowing that.)