SOCIETY DIDN'T SAVE THE KIDS

PART II

PART II | DOLLY ROSANNE BLOODWORTH THE FIRST

Dolly Rosanne Bloodworth the First was eight years old and motherless when she joined after-school club; a girl who had lost a home and was so in need of another.

Before this moment in time however, the young girl had been picked up from school by her mum. Her mum who she so strikingly resembled. Both the girl and the woman crafted out of midnight black hair, mahogany skin, and a gap in-between their front teeth. Both the girl and the woman dead. One on the inside, the other on the out.

Dolly had found her mother, in the middle of their living room, drowned in a pool of her own blood - two weekends ago. Red cascading out her wrists like a waterfall. Both their lives ruined in that moment.

After that, after she had found the woman she loved with all her heart soaked in a well of crimson and suicide, Dolly had been left in the care of her father and step-mum.

Dolly's dad was a mediocre parent at best, but it was her step-mum who she loathed so completely that rather than be picked up from school by her on time, she opted to wait at after-school club, until her father finished work and was able to pick her up.

So now, trying her best not to attract the attention of the only other pupil in the classroom - a now eight-year-old Nina Huang, or Nutty Nina as everyone liked to call her - Dolly walked quietly into the room and said, in a small voice, to the same student teacher who was always here after hours; 'Is this after-school club?'

Miss. Masood, older but still young, smiled. 'Yeah. Yeah, it is.'

'Where should I sit?' Dolly whispered, as she tugged at the buttons of the tweed coat she wore, not meeting the eyes of the teacher.

'Anywhere you wish.'

With a curt nod, Dolly made her way across the room to the seat farthest from Nutty Nina - the nearest to Miss. Masood.

Once seated, she reached into her jacket pocket for a crinkled and torn photograph and placed it on the desk before her. The photograph was of her and her mother in their garden, smiling. An occasion, the eight-year-old could not recall in its entirety, only the feeling of it. Contrived happiness captured for film. Meant to be looked upon fondly.

In a way, it had achieved its goal. Dolly did look upon this photograph with an acheful nostalgia despite the superficiality of it all - though more so because she missed her mother rather than the moment captured in the photo.

'Is that your mum?' Nutty Nina asked, after sneaking up behind Dolly.

'Go away, Nina,' Dolly said, her voice too old for a child her age. She reached to put the picture in her pocket -

'Let me see,' Nina said, then snatched the picture out of Dolly's hand; examining it as if to decipher a code within the photograph.

'Give it back!' Dolly yelled, an anger suppressed deep within her, unravelling.

'I'm just trying to see something,' argued Nina - her arm outstretched, the picture out of Dolly's reach.

'No, you nutcase! Give it back!' Dolly screamed, before she lunged at Nina, knocking the both of them and her chair to the ground.

Their display not unlike, two weekends ago, when Dolly tried to awake her dead mother: her knees either side of her torso; her veins filled with anguish and untethered rage; the body beneath her splayed against the floor, helpless.

'I HATE YOU!' Dolly screamed - perhaps at Nina, perhaps at her mother, she didn't know anymore. All she knew was that she was a whirlwind of violent chaos, hungry for some sort of release.

It was Dolly who threw the first punch - unlike what would be told in the future. And the second. And the third. Her arms flailed, uncoordinated, child-like - but still brutal enough that Nina let go of the photo. This her surrender of sorts.

Still, Dolly only stopped was because of Miss. Masood's intervention. Her attempt to pull one girl from the other, rewarded with a punch in the face - an injury that would result in her no longer being in charge of after school club.

Dolly screamed and fought and cried, the photo curled in her fist, as Miss. Masood dragged her away. Nina a collapsed wreckage on the floor, short of breath - all the while. The two girls ruined, whilst only one bled.

Then, as if a practical joke from a cruel universe, Nina's father walked in - the smell of vodka thick on his skin.

He didn't even spare his bruised and gashed daughter a second glance when he said, 'Get off the floor, Nina. It's time to go.'

And Nina did as she was told. Smoothed down her skirt, and cleaned the blood from her split lip before she ran after her dad - Miss. Masood and Dolly watching in paralysed awe, overwhelmed by a sadness that filled them both.

Miss. Masood because of how broken these girls were; Dolly's because, in her eyes, even Nutty Nina had someone close to her who was alive - even if they didn't deserve to be.