Broken Crayons Still Colour

Chapter 5

~Emma's POV~

I was so excited for the rest of the day and I knew I was going to enjoy my time with Mark. That was until I realised last period was Computing.

Computing was one of the lessons where I had my 'father' as the teacher. I hate it. A fatherly figure should love and care for the child they are looking after, but Master Henderson, he couldn't give a damn about me. I'm pretty sure that if I died, he would be happy. The only reason I live with him is he used to be the owner of the orphanage I lived in. When he decided that he wanted to become a teacher, he sold the building, and all the children that lived there were either adopted or were moved to another orphanage about 50 miles south. The orphanage that the majority of us went to, said they couldn't take any more in, so Master Henderson had to make sure everyone else was adopted because there were no other options. Everyone got adopted except for me. I was interviewed by over 40 families, and not one of them chose me. The only thing Master Henderson could do is adopt me himself. And that's what he did.

And yes, I do have to call him Master, or Master Henderson. Even though I had lived in that orphanage for 8 years of my life, when I started living in his house, he went over all of the rules and even added a few more. I hated the orphanage. The children were all really friendly and I had lots of friends, and the staff were really nice too. But it was Master Henderson that I hated.

I was completely innocent when I went to live in the orphanage which was perfect for Master Henderson. He took a liking to me, which was the worst thing that could have happened. Most of the children in the orphanage were either children that weren't very good in school, got into fights and ended up getting sent home from school almost every day, or children that were abused by their former parents in some way. Me, I was told by my teachers that I was the ideal student. I always did my homework, got good grades and never had a detention at school, and my past foster parents were great too. There was nothing bad about me or my life. It was perfect.

That was until Master Henderson entered my life. He used to say that nobody's life was perfect and that you needed to have something wrong, to realise the happiness in your life. His way of 'fixing' the fact that my life was pretty much perfect, was punishing me for being good. Punishing me for doing things right, punishing me for doing things well. Whenever I was above average in a subject, he would beat me for it. I started getting lower and lower in my classes, doing worse every day until I got to the point where I would be surprised if I got any higher than quarter marks in a test. I stopped trying to focus in class and didn't try very hard when doing homework.

So many of my teachers were worried about me because I used to be their perfect student, but I would just say "I'm fine." I hated saying that because they knew that I wasn't fine. You see, there isn't much point in telling anyone about how Master Henderson abuses me because where I live, it's completely legal to abuse adopted children. I guess it's something to do with authority or something like that, but I'm not that sure.

As soon as I got into Computing Master Henderson started taunting me, like he always does. He quietly whispered to me, "I'm going to do something to you when we get home, and you know exactly what I'm going to do." His face was stern and it scared me. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I have always been really good at writing, and in RE even though I hadn't been paying attention in class, I worded it well which meant I got the highest score in the class. He was going to beat me... I wasn't even scared of him beating me, as I was used it to it by now. It was the fact that I would have another thing to hide from Mark and all of my teachers. That's the thing that scares me the most. I know that at some point, people are going to start wondering about my scars that I have all over my arms and most of my body. Master Henderson avoids my face and neck the majority of the time when he beats me, to make sure that nobody notices.

Master Henderson started teaching and I was trying to concentrate as hard as possible, but it is hard to make sure your mind doesn't wander when you know what's going to happen in a few hours time. There are two lessons that Master Henderson wants me to do really well in, which were the lessons that he teaches; Computing and PSHCE. Master Henderson never actually gives us any tasks to do. He just talks for an hour, and we have to take it in and learn from that. About 40 minutes into the lesson he stopped talking because his computer stopped working. He went to call the technician to try and fix it. I was sitting there when he came over to me and said, "Emma. Come with me." He had the same expression as always which scared me. I did what I was told and followed him. He took me outside the classroom and said, "I'm going to be working late today. I'll probably be in school until about 7pm, so go to my office at 7. Okay?"
"Yes Master..."
"Get back to class now. I'll be back once I call the technician." I nod my head and head back into class.

Mark sat next to me in Computing today, which was probably the worst thing he could have done. He is great, and even though I barely know him, I can call him a friend, but Master Henderson had banned me from speaking when I enter his classroom. When I sat back in my seat, Mark asked me, "Why did Henderson want you?" I didn't want to tell him that I lived with Master Henderson so instead, I just told him,
"He wanted m...me to help hand out the homework sheets that he has for us when he gets b...back into class." I knew that he would have told me to hand out the homework anyway, so it was the easiest thing to say.
"Oh, okay." Was all Mark said and then he went back to talking to his friend, Ethan who was sitting on the other side of him. Surprisingly, the last 20 minutes went past quite quickly and soon enough, it was the end of class.
"Everyone, your homework is due this time next week. Class dismissed."