Home Sweet Home (One Big Crazy Family - Book 1)

Chapter Four

Nikki

Okay, if you're wondering why are we in a complete stranger's house at 4 o'clock in the morning unannounced, uninvited and probably unwelcomed. It's kinda a long story, so let me start from the beginning.

The seven of us; Eva, Raven, Amber, Emma, Dawn, Boe and I lived in the "Jones's family orphanage," practically most (or in a few cases all) of our lives. To most people it's just a temporary fixated home, but to all of us it's the closest thing to home we've ever had in a long time.

We were adopted by many families, maybe way more than any kid should, but see, we're not like other "Normal" kids. We can do things and have things that most people can't do in real life. The problem was that those same things we can do and have had caused us some major problems with the families we lived with. So it was the best interest of them and their family's safety they gave us back to the orphanage, and that never sat well with Madam Jones, the new owner of the building for the past 4 years now.

None of this is the reason why we're here. See, 4 years ago we were perfectly fine at the orphanage, the first owner of the orphanage Tamera Jones, was the nicest lady there. Hell maybe the second nicest lady in the world next to Dawn; she was a beautiful, dutiful, kind and loving young lady that loved the orphanage and treated every child in it like her own. Everyone from housekeeping to children with even the worse problems were happy and life was good whenever she was around. She even knew about our inhumanly backgrounds and she wasn't afraid of us, she only loved and treated us like every other kid. Which we've never had in any person in our lives, so it was great to be treated normal by somebody for once.

But that all changed the week when her older sister came along. Her older sister, Agatha Jones was the exact opposite of Tamera; mean, cruel, nasty, and flat out ugly on the inside of her core and she absolutely hated children. We still don't understand why she became the owner of the place if she hatted us.

One day, Agatha and Tamera had a big fight about the orphanage and how this place should really be run and later that day Tamera never came down for dinner, but Agatha did.

"Ms. Jones won't be joining you for dinner, she may be gone for a while," she explained in her booming voice that we would grow accustomed to.

"When she will be back?" Kimmy asked.

"It'll be a while till she will return." Agatha said, a bit of annoyance in her tone.

"Yes but do you know when?" Kimmy asked again. She was only five at the time, but she was beginning to get into that questioning faze where she will keep asking you something until you give her a simple direct answer.

Agatha's face had turned into this bright red shade and she looked like she was about to explode,, "I don't know when she'll be back you little brat," she said angrily, "and if you ask me again I will march over there and give you a reason to ask so many stupid questions."

In that instant Kim kept quiet; she even looked like she was close to tears, but Agatha showed no signs of even a little bit of sorrow let alone like she was close to an apology.

"Anyway," Agatha went on "I will be in charge around here until her return, and things are going to be a little different from here on out."

And ever since then, Madam Jones (as she was called) was in charge of the orphanage and Tamera never came back, we were all starting to get really worried about her; it wasn't like her to just leave without saying a single word and never come back, she loved us too much to leave like that.

Eventually, the orphanage started to change drastically like the transition from heave to hell. Our clothes that were colorful and our choices, were now like white dresses you would find in a trash can; torn, really dirty and smelled like dog piss. We gotten 1,000 times more chores then before which not only worked us to the point of death, but if one tiny mistake was made we had to do it again. She fed us less food which in effect, killed off all of the younger kids from mal nourishment. She didn't even care, she just buried them out in the field and went back to her life as if nothing ever happened and every time somebody did anything she didn't like (which was everything) the punishment was savvier; you either get locked in a closet for hours without making a single sound or more hours would be added, get a really bad beating, any removal body parts; like Eva got her vocal cords removed two and a half years ago, that's why she can't talk, or even worse, death and yes all of these things have happened more than once before.

This was only part of the reason why we left, but here's the main reason why.

One day, Eva was opening the cleaning closet to put away a broom, when a human corpse fell out on her. Her voice was gone so she couldn't scream. Which is a blessing in despise if you really think about it in these kinds of conditions. So instead; she sat there on the floor stunned for a few minutes, slowly got up, put the broom away and ran back to our room to tell us what she saw. The really hard part with someone that can't speak and that doesn't know sing language is that you can never understand any of their hand signals to even get an idea of what they're saying. So the best she could do was point out the door rapidly, but we couldn't understand what the hell she was trying to get at, and i think the looks on our faces made that clear.

Finally fed up with not being understood, she took my arm and dragged me there with the others following right behind, and she showed us the dead body which was still on the floor, by the closet.

We didn't scream; Madam Jones was asleep in her bedroom just down the hall, and if we screamed . . . it would not be pretty for none of us, but I'm sure our gasps were good enough for the surprise, shock and fear we all felt. Eva pointed to me, then to the body, and she gave me this look as if I was the answer to all of this.

"You want me to look at it or something?" I asked. She nodded like her head was about to fall off, so I looked at the body and this is my observation; it looks like the person was a girl, and that she had died a few years ago, and judging by the marks around her neck she looked like she was strangled by a thick piece of rope. But there was something else about her that seemed familiar. Then I stepped in for a closer look, and then it hit me; it was Tamera.

We were able to stay here with Agatha's rules for us, even when the years gotten more worse than the last, but when we saw Tamera's dead body, we knew that we had to get the hell out of here before we all ended up like her.

So for weeks we planned our escape very carefully; we watched Madam Jones's comings and goings, watched when she went to sleep and when she woke up. Then came the day of our great escape, all seven of us climbed out of our bed room window, and ran off in the pouring rain.

And well here we are in a stranger's house at four in the morning, hiding until things dive down. Because as far as we know, in one hour and thirty minutes, Madam Jones is about to get the surprise that will send her through the roof. . .and we'll all be dead if she found us, so we need to just lay low for a while and not do anything to get sent back there.

That can't be hard, right?