Rag Doll

Prologue

(Songfic. Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons, Rag Doll, go look them up :) Though I'm not setting up the scene quite within their decade)

Harper stared out the window of the van that had seen better days, really. It didn't exactly scream "be wary of us" at a glance, but then...the sixteen year old often felt maybe it should. That...anyone who really knew what to look at and, most importantly, how to look, would see through it (would see through them) at a glance.

And that would be a good thing. Maybe.

She didn't know all in all.

The van had stopped because the driver, her sister, Heidi, had stopped. At the top of the rise to this new town and on the road that lay deserted at this time of night. No one was following them. No one had been following them for quite a ways yet. Heidi knew it. The older of the twins, Helga, knew it. Harper knew it. Still, Heidi passed a hand along a face that looked drained and weary. A deep, bone weary tiredness sat in her blue-gray eyes.

"Take the left of the fork", Helga pointed along the road that seemed to go around the outside of the town instead of straight through. Even if straight through would look less suspicious and like they were trying to avoid notice. Still, this was a new town and the two older girls wanted to get a feel of it before they entered, bold as brass, 'down Mainstreet'.

Harper shifted from the back seat to peer forward and from the windshield at the town. It just looked quiet. A fact that seemed to make Helga and Heidi skeptical (she could tell by the frown and squint they studied the town with) and her...hopeful? No, Harper had learned long ago not to get too attached to any town they drifted through. The van was the three's home; it was just a matter of time before her sisters angered the locals or stole from them and then they would be on the run again.

Still. It was better than Foster families if they were caught and she was put through the system...wasn't it?

Well, whatever was better for her aside, Harper loved her sisters and could never just 'turn them in' like that.

Heidi took the left, and road around the town, and she and Helga scanned the buildings from the back, as it were. "Settersburg Inn! There!", Helga spotted and pointed. Neither of the young women were surprised to find the town had so generically labeled a hotel, and probably the only one. They of course had to enter the town and check themselves in to stay there, they weren't avoiding that, just the neighbor gossip by letting everyone see them too soon. They both knew how small towns worked, being through enough of them.

Exiting the road, Heidi pulled the van up and into the parking lot. "Ok, look presentable and pitiful both when we go to check in", Helga briefed her two younger sisters (one by just a few minutes). They couldn't act too presentable with the assortment of simple shirts and jeans they wore, Harper's jeans even more humble for being hand-me-down from Helga and Heidi. It was even actually patch worked and had some holes patched over! They hadn't found a good assortment of stores to steal high end dresses from lately, though high end dresses weren't Helga and Heidi's style really.

Harper of course didn't like or approve of her sisters' stealing, but maybe they could find some better stuff before she made a try at the local High School, if they stayed that long, the girl thought as she got out with her sisters and followed them inside for all three to work their charms over the desk clerk and let them stay.