Clouds River Valley

Chapter 3: The Door

Leo came to the orphanage not too much earlier than Mia, only about 2 or 3 years at most. He still remembered when he first met Sophia when he got here. It was a morning, he stood by of the door of the classroom while looking at the kids sitting there and trying not to show afraid on his face. Mr. Richard introduced him to the whole class and told him to find a seat to sit down. Leo noticed a girl, a pretty girl, had been staring and smiling at him since he showed up, especially when Richard was introducing him, which made him a little bit embarrassed. Yes, that was Sophia. As soon as Richard asked him to sit down, Sophia waved at him and showed him a seat next to her, Leo went over and sat on that seat. Sophia had been Leo's only friend for quite a long period since then, she told him all kinds of stories she heard, she even mentioned about her parents who still lived in South America.

Leo could still remember very little about the time before he came to Clouds River. It was when he was four or five years old, he couldn't remember why but he was walking on a strange road in dark, he could still fell the worry and scare even many years later. He also remembered he was carried from one car to another, stayed from one house to another, unfortunately what he remembered in these houses was only constant fight, yelling and endless fear, nobody could give him a home among all of these families he stayed with. Regarding his parents, he almost had no memories, it seemed like they were just disappeared in the world to him. That was also why, at the moment Leo stepped in Clouds River Orphanage, he hoped this could be his last home.

Sophia would ask Leo sometime that if he could still remember what his parents looked alike, Leo said he couldn't remember much, the only thing he could never forget was one night after dinner, his parents asked him if he wanted to have some ice cream, and that was also the only memory that made him feel warm before he came to Clouds River. He told Sophia, what interesting was, the only warm memory he had was related to cold ice-cream.

At the moment Leo saw Mia, he felt there was something special about this girl, no, not because she was an Asian, she was not the first Asian ever came to River Clouds that Leo met (she only stayed for a couple of months and was adopted soon). The special thing about Mia was the way she looked at everyone, he could see that she had no afraid or fear, this was something he could see from everyone's eyes, even Carl, but not from Mia's, even when she was facing Carl that day.

Nobody knew where Carl and Albert went, it wasn't until lunch time that Carl showed up in front of the back door of the dining room. He lost one shoe and had mud all over his clothe, it almost seemed like he was beaten by someone even though there was no wound could be found. Everyone was surprised to see it and curious about who could do this to Carl. Albert still didn't show up, the teachers asked Carl if he knew where Albert was, Carl just insisted that he didn't know. Until dinner time, Albert finally shoed up by the dinning room with Richard standing behind him. As soon as he showed up, the whole dining room was quiet in a sudden.

"Albert, go apologize to Carl now." Richard looked at him, Albert also looked into Richard's eyes.

If it was not someone held Mia's shoulders, she would stand up immediately after she heard this. It was Leo, who sat next to her, while Sophia sat on the other hand of her.

"What are you doing?" Mia looked at Leo with anger, "Albert helped us and he shouldn't apologize to Carl!"

Thank God Mia didn't say that loud, Leo thought.

"Mia, think about it, Richard didn't know how Carl is, Albert must have told Richard something else so he could protect us, if you tell everyone what actually happened, what he did for us would be wasted."

"Leo was right," Sophia also spoke," you can also see Carl must have suffered a lot too, it seems like Albert won the fight." Sophia had stopped crying soon after Carl ran after Albert and left the room, Leo and Mia also seemed they have forgotten to continue asking Mia what happened to her.