Just a Girl

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

 Winnie knocked softly on Ms. Orangleo’s door. Nobody answered, so she knocked on the door again. The door creaked open this time, slightly. Winnie was unsure what to do, but decided just to walk in. She walked in a little and saw Ms. Orangleo on the balcony, with her feet slung over the railing, looking down on the scenery. Winnie had no intentions on scaring her, for it would be fatal if she fell, seeing that the castle is so tall. So Winnie just stood there, watching Mary stare off into the distance, and watching people learn how to ride horses.

 Mary slung her feet back over the balcony and sighed. Once she was off the balcony, she turned, not even noticing Winnie. She had on her “love-bird” eyes, like she really was missing something as she had come off of the railing.

 “Um… Hi…” Winnie said her voice fading.

 “OH! Hi, Winnie! Sorry, I…um…didn’t see you standing there?” she said, but it sounding more like a question. Winnie smiled. “So what can I do for you?” she asked.

 “Well, you wanted to know what I heard, and, well I figured that I should tell you.” Winnie said.

 “Oh, yes, yes of course!” Mary seemed like she just hit the ground on her fall back to reality.

 “Yes, that’s what we had talked about… Don’t you remember?”

 “Yes. Of course I do, but I guess you could say…I’m distracted.” Winnie took it like a grain of salt, and explained to Mary about Liz, and how she had stuck up for her.

 “That is a lot, especially for her, but I guess it’s good to get it all out…” Mary’s voice faded out in shock.

 “But, I mean, I underestimated her so badly. I underestimated her and my own parents! I feel so terrible!” Winnie was surprised that she was admitting this.

 “Well, it is a surprising thing, but I was always told that we were to always expect the greatest in someone, for you can never set the standard of a person too high.” Winnie nodded her head in agreement. It did make sense, but Mary was surely right when she said that it was shocking. There was a silence between them, and Winnie knew that something was up. Something she had interrupted or something that was not being said.

 “Mary, can I ask you something?” Winnie said, nonchalantly, breaking the silence.

 “Of course you can,” Mary replied, without showing a trace of knowledge to what Winnie was going to be asking.

 “What were you doing looking over the balcony?”

 “Well,” Mary paused, seeming unsure on what to say, “Well,” she repeated, “I’m not sure if you remember what I had told you when you spent the night that one day, but I left my family to come here with the king. And I had been young of course,”

 “You still are young,” Winnie reminded her with a smile.

 “This is true. So I guess you could say that I was younger, and well of course things were run different, and done different. The systems on how things worked and everything was so different than it is now, but anyways, there was a big well not ‘war’ but an event where a lot of people and knights were needed to help. So the king sent out one of his butlers to go get all of the boys in the kingdom. He brought them all back and began to train them. I was, at the time, I believe the only girl, or well the only older one, despite the queen that knew a little bit on caring for things. So he had me tend to all the knights if they fell off their horse or if they had a bad wound or aliment. So I cared for them, but one day…” she said, her voice trailing off. Winnie nodded her on as if to tell her to continue. “Well, one day, it was, I think to be about a week into the whole training session, that one of the boys, er, knights or knights to be I guess, had gotten a huge gash along his upper arm and down a little into his chest. He had brown, shaggy hair, and the cutest smile. So I had to wrap him up and care for him so that he wouldn’t lose too much blood. But the first time we met, he was very quick to go back out to the horses and train more, although I thought it was all to show off. He ended up breaking some ribs being thrown off of his horse, so I had to care for him, and we spent some time together. He wasn’t arrogant and rude, but nice and actually cared about me. But that couple of weeks were the best. So after about a week of being with me, he asked me out. I was so happy to have been asked by him, because I liked him so much.”