ASTRUM

Chapter 03

The dining room was a war zone. I'm not talking about the shiny marble tabletop right in the middle of the room that was overflowing with bowls of grapes, tubs of spaghetti and chocolate cake cut in to shapes that didn't even exist. Or the mismatched chairs and billowing white curtains stirring up a storm all around the room. Or even the chaotic lights hanging precariously from the whitewashed ceiling, fluorescent mixed with starlight. 

I'm talking about the twenty odd kids of all ages, ranging from three year olds to gangly teenagers older than me. They were seated around the table talking loudly, pointing at each other with their forks and laughing raucously. An occasional piece of sausage went flying across the room. 

"Ah, Mary-Kate!" a voice boomed right across the room, making me jump. Alice sat at the head of the table, her black hair tied up in a bun and a bright smile alight on her face. There was a chocolate icing stain on her collar and a little girl with bright red curls squirming on her lap. She had to bang the glass of orange juice in her hand on the table to get everyone's attention. "Welcome to dinner! Carrie, thanks for showing her the way." 

The whole table fell silent and twenty five multicolored eyes directed their gazes at me. 

I felt a shiver of discomfort run down my spine. Everyone looked right at home, sitting around the table. How was I supposed to fit in here? 

Carrie didn't seem to notice the attention. 

"You're welcome, Miss Alice." She said. Then her bright, amber eyes fell on the food. "Ooh, it's spaghetti night! My favourite," she added to me like there wasn't a whole bunch of people watching us. "Seriously, if my dad and a bowl of spaghetti were dangling off a cliff and I could only save one, I would TOTALLY go for the spaghetti. But, like, my dad's already dead so--oops. I said the d-word, didn't I? Just so you know, MK, Miss Alice has this one rule we're not allowed to say the d-word at the dining table because blah blah blah. Also, you're not allowed to maim, chop, kill or stab anyone here either. Choking is fine as long as you do it properly, like in training. Here, let me demonstrate--" she reached for my throat, but Alice interrupted with a laugh that sounded more like a cough in disguise. 

"Carrie, it's still her first day. How about we leave the murder demonstrations for later? And sit down, Mary Kate. Don't worry, the chairs don't bite. Usually." 

I sat down gingerly on the empty seat in front of me. The boy sitting next to me, a scrawny kid who looked about ten with golden-hued skin and satiny black hair, grinned at me with a face full of spaghetti. 

"I'm Cy," he said, holding his hand out formally. He was wearing an oversized black STAR WARS: ROGUE ONE t-shirt that hung loosely off his thin frame. 

The rest of the table seemed to have gotten over staring at me and turned back to their food. Carrie trotted nimbly to the other side of the table and sat down next to a trio of brown-skinned, dark-haired girls who had their heads close to each other and were whispering madly. They offered me friendly smiles before going back to their conversation, which seemed to be crazily hilarious since one of them couldn't stop laughing as she talked.  

"I'm Mary Kate," I told Cy, shaking his hand. Strangely, his palm was calloused and rough and there were bruises on his knuckles like he'd punched something too hard. Not something you'd expect on a ten-year-old. 

He nodded solemnly. "My gramma's name was Mary. She had cats."

I looked at the kid without knowing how to react to the information he just gave me. 

"Did you just imply she was a grandma, Cy?"  Carrie asked.

He shrugged, "I liked my grandma. She was a crazy lady but still...."

A blond haired boy sitting next to Cy looked up from his dinner, and stared at Cy. " Cy, you never had a grandma" he said.

Cy straightened himself. "Tim, why do you have to ruin a child's imagination? Someday you're going to truly break my heart. I might even start to cry" he said and wiped a fake tear.

"I didn't mean it like that" Tim said, looking panicked.  Both Cy and Carrie started to laugh.

"Timothy, you're such a sweet heart. You know how he likes to joke" Carrie said and Timothy started to blush all over. 

But before he could say anything, a woman entered through the doors. She was dressed like one of the workers, in a plain blue laced dress. She bustled hurriedly towards Alice.

The sound around her silenced as soon as the maid started to talk to Alice. "Mam, I asked Ethan to join for dinner at your request,  but.." she stopped noticing the silence but continued anyways. "Mam, he threatened to crush my face into a pineapple pudding if I didn't leave immediately". 

Alice suddenly looked tired but the expression went away as quickly as it came. I wasn't sure if anyone else noticed it either. "Marinda did you ask Ethan if we should bring him dinner to his room?"

"Out of respect mam, I was too scared to", she said.

"I get it, it's okay Marinda. I will go and speak to him after dinner" she said and motioned to Marinda to come closer and whispered something to her ear.

Cy took this as an opportunity to steal my chicken and start eating it like I imagined a viking would have very long ago.

"Cy, who's Ethan?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.

His expression turned serious at the mention of the name. I looked at Carrie and the look on her face matched  Cy's.

"Mary Kate, I say this with your best interest at heart, Ethan isn't a person you would go and mess around with. He has quite a reputation and if you want to stay out of trouble here, I wouldn't go around asking about him," Carrie said.

"That bad, huh?" I asked.

Cy nodded. "It's not like me and Carrie are afraid of him. In fact we like him, but we like to keep our distance."