Costal Adventure

04 | Jemima

    "What do you think of all this? This place, the Changing, everything?" Cara asked.

    "I feel like, from all the stories I've heard, that this place somehow knows the right people take. Like they don't take kids who love their life, who love their family, who don't want to be suddenly uprooted from their lives. They take the runaways, the dreamers, the ones losing hope, the forgotten, and the invisibles. The ones who want change, who want a new life, the ones who aren't gonna cry themselves to sleep every single night for their parents. Like, yes, there may be the old few who will cry at night for their old lives, but the school sees something in them for them to be here, so I accept that, and I accept them, and everyone else. I may have trust issues, but I'll give everyone a chance, rather than shutting them out." Jemima gave Cara another of her slight smiles.

    "Okay." Cara was silent for a while. They both were, thinking about their new world. "I agree. In a way, all of us here are similar in one way or another. Some may hate me, and some may love me, but that's up to them, and I'll treat them they way I think they deserve, and, and, I won't let anyone else influence what I think of a person, at least not negatively. Unless, well, unless they are some really bad boyfriend that I can't see, then I give you permission to slap some sense into me," she added at the end with smile.

    Jemima leaned back on her green pillows. Thinking back over what she'd learnt about the girls as they'd unpacked, she knew what she'd said before was true, or at least, as close to the truth of this place as she might get. How they got the information they'd need to know, is another whole ball game. She thought back to the other girls. Alaska had been a runaway, at least, back when she'd been Gabi Fitzpatrick. She'd started taking drugs, smoking, and had fallen into one of Sydney's baddest gangs. Cara had been invisible to her family since her older brother ran away from home and never seen again. That had been five years ago when he'd disappeared, and since then she'd been bullied unbelievably harshly since she had no older brother to protect her. Alexis had had a strong rebellious streak that she'd had to suppress, because she was that goody goody girl, the school prefect, straight A's, politician for a father, and an important journalist for a mother. Having to always have the perfect daughter front on, especially when her younger sister had gone way off the rail, and her parents always in the paper. She'd been growing sick of it, and had been starting to lean off the rails herself. These were just three stories. And here, Jemima thought, there was a whole school full stories like these. Jemima thought of her own story. She'd been a dreamer starting to lose hope. Jemima rolled over to face Cara.

    "I-" she paused. Cara was fast asleep. She continued, albeit softly, "will. I will." Quietly, she uncurled herself from the bed, and hopped down to the floor, where she pulled the boxes back out. She took out all the accessories for the laptops and phones, and popped them in one of her desk drawers. Then she picked out a phone for herself, placing it on the bed beside her laptop  that she'd put there earlier. Then she pulled the keys from the laptop box and crawled under the bed after checking Cara was really asleep. She wasn't being deceitful, she told herself, just careful. She didn't really know anyone well enough, except maybe Lucas, but he'd made it clear he didn't want anything to do with her. Or, at least, Kara Whitman. Not Jemima. She shook away those evil thoughts, and went back to the job she was doing. Packing the laptops and phones into two of the safes, she had a look into the other three. The first two were empty, for the future when she need places to hide things. The third one, just as she'd ordered, was full of cash. Whenever they got a weekend to go out, she was finding a bank and putting at least half in. She was going to need it some day, when she left this place. The rest would be for outings and sharing with her closest friends, whom, at the moment, looked to be Alaska, Cara and Alexis. Not that she minded.

    Jemima quickly but quietly crawled out from underneath, pocketing the keys. She took the two boxes and stepped out onto the balcony. Alaska had found, when setting up the balcony, that everyone had been piling the boxes out of the windows, letting them fall out the window. She tossed the two boxes over the ledge watching them fall to the ground with little more than a soft bang. She looked about the balcony. Alaska had done a good job. A wrought iron rail wrapped around the balcony floor in cool designs, and little fruit trees lining the far side of the balcony, and a few bushes under the windows, along the wall. Lemons, strawberries, oranges, cherry blossoms, orchids, blueberries, apples, most already flourishing. A stone bench sat along the left wall, and then there was the wrought iron table with lovely sworls hanging of the edge situated in the middle. Three chairs of similar style surrounded the coffee table, and decked with pink, green and sea blue outdoor cushions. It was a pretty and welcoming place. She looked forward to reading out here, and even doing her work.