Fly

Foreword And Prologue

FOREWORD

Hello, everyone! This is a story that I made up all by myself. As you normally would do with a fiction story...

This story actually came to me in a dream. I went to sleep around midnight and slept until 6, when I got up to go do my paper round. And when I got home, I went back to bed and the dream picked up where it left off. 

I loved the dream! It was so fun. 

In the dream, I was Idrissa. But, in the dream, none of the characters had names so I've just made them up. 

I hope you enjoy the first bit which follows this shortly...

But I would like to take this chance to say thank you to the few who read my books. I've got nearly 400 reading one book and 45 (bit disappointing guys :-( ) reading the other one. 

I'm hoping this'll be a big hit. I know I'm not the best of writers and I don't put enough effort into my writing but I'm glad I've got a few people who think my stuff is worth reading. :-)

Thank you guys and girls! I LOVE you all!!!

-Monkee xxxxx

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Prologue

New Year's Eve, 1999 AD, around 11•30 PM (GMT)

Mary groaned. Contractions. She wailed and cried.

The midwife patted her back. 'It'll be over soon.' She smiled.

This did not assure Mary. She rubbed her hands over her humongous stomach. Triplets, she'd been told, possibly, quadrupelets. 

The midwife smiled again, even though her heart was breaking. She hadn't cried.

The midwife had had a baby boy a little over two weeks ago. But he was a sickly thing from the start. She had loved him so very much.

He hadn't been out of hospital and had died earlier that day. She and her husband had named him Earl. 

She'd been too sad to cry. She just couldn't. 

Mary screamed. 

The midwife's attention went back to Mary. 

'There's something coming out!' She wailed. 

The midwife had a look. 

'It's a head! I need you to push. When I say... NOW!' 

Mary pushed. The head was out.

'And breathe. In... and out... That's it, Mary... I'll need you to push... NOW!'

Mary pushed again. The body was nearly out. She pushed once more.

The baby was out. 

The midwife patted the baby's back. The baby cried. 

A girl. She looked so pretty. She was covered in goo but my God awwwww!

The midwife wrapped the baby in a towel and put her in a cot.

Mary was crying silently, looking at her wailing baby in the cot.

'Can I lie down?' She asked the midwife breathlessly.

'Course you can. Come on.' The midwife helped Mary onto her bed, a waterproof sheet laid there ready.  

The poor thing, the midwife thought, she's barely out of her teens and triplets! Gracious me!

Mary was barely out of her teens. She was 24. She'd got married nearly two years ago to the man she loved most in the world, Lucas Yorke. 

Lucas and Mary had met at a ball, hosted by the royal family. 

Their parents both had connections with the royals and they were introduced to each other. 

Their love was like a fairy tale. 

They danced for most of the night, and when Mary was home, she couldn't sleep for her brain was overworking, thinking of darling Lucas. 

When Lucas was home he couldn't sleep either. 

So they arranged to meet again, two days later. 

They fell head-over-heels in love. And they were married six months later. 

Lucas had wanted children. But Mary wasn't so keen. She was scared and didn't think she was quite ready for it. 

But, because of her love for Lucas, she said yes.

When she had found out she was pregnant, she was ecstatic, knowing Lucas would practically jump for joy.

But now she was terrified. It was painful. And although she had been warned that it would be painful, she still hadn't expected anything like this.

She wailed again. 

'There's another coming, Mary. Be strong!' The midwife encouraged her. 'Now, when I say... NOW.'

Mary pushed. Things were getting gradually hazier. After the second girl came out, everything was just a mixture of pain, "NOW!" and baby cries.

The midwife was astonished that the poor girl had had triplets on a first birth! 

The grandfather clock in the hallway, gonged. It was twelve. Twelve in the morning, on the first of January, in the year 2000. 

The last baby came out on the final stroke of twelve.

But rather than one baby, there were two babies, wrapped in each other's embrace. 

It looked magical. Unheard of. 

In all her years of midwifery, Sam had never seen this. 

She pulled them apart and they started crying.

One was a boy, the other a girl. 

A boy. 

Boy. 

He looked exactly like Earl.

Earl.

Sam glaced at Mary, lying in a doze-like state of exhaustion on the bed. 

Sam Gloss wasn't in her right mind but who would be after they'd lost a child?

A plan fabricated in her head.

She wrapped the three girls and put them in Mary arms, laying them carefully.

She stole out of the building with the baby boy in her arms. 

She went straight home.

Her husband wasn't keen on her plan.

'You MUST take him back, now! SAM!' He bellowed.

'NO!' She screamed to Benjamin, tears falling down her cheeks. 'I need him. I need Earl...' Her knees bent and then she was kneeling on the floor, trying to wipe away her tears with one arm and holding the baby with the other. 

'But what good will come out of it?' Benjamin asked, putting an arm around his distressed wife.

'We'll have a son!' She sobbed. 'We could access the Yorke fortune... Dear?'

'You're right. We could! We could be rich!'

The devious couple were happy. 

The boy was called Earl. 

And the other Earl was buried at the back of the garden, in a shoebox.