Framed

Two - Crushed Hopes and Crushed Hairclips

I knew a lot about boarding schools; I had read a bit about them on Wikipedia and watched all of the Harry Potter movies. They had houses with dorms, common rooms, study rooms, kitchens (for snacks or something), storage facilities, several girls’ and boys’ bathrooms, dorm parents, and even more than that. I was hoping we would be given that much pamperage, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. It had to at least be somewhat similar to an actual house though, right?

I snapped out of my thoughts when the loudspeaker announced that we had arrived at my destination. When I got up, the snoring old hobo behind me mumbled, “I’ll always love you, baby.” For one terrifying moment, I thought he was talking to me, and I almost screamed, but when he gave the loudest snore yet, I realized (to my utter relief) that he was still asleep.

Slowly and carefully, and taking care to ignore the sleeping man’s strange comments, I climbed out of the train and sat down to wait at the nearest bus stop. When a bus finally arrived, it was completely empty (and gross), so the driver, who was going off work after one last bus stop, began to drive me straight towards my destination the moment I sat down. I found my way to the back where I discreetly pulled a pocketknife out of one of my bags and, after glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, etched into the window:

KD was here.

Satisfied, I put the knife back into my bag. I’d left my mark. Up against the shadowy evening light outside, the words looked creepy and mysterious. Like something out of a horror movie? Hell yeah.

When I stumbled out of the bus, I still wasn’t quite where I was supposed to be yet. I had to walk a quarter of a mile, lazily dragging my two heavy, overstuffed bags of luggage along.

My point is, it was a really long day of travel.

So, on the last portion of my really long day of travel, I walked through the tall, dark black gates and past two extremely intimidating security guards who grunted at me and let me by them, looking at me as if I were a rotten, well-known criminal who deserved a slow, painful death in a medieval torture chamber but instead got a free pass to Disneyland and a vacation for two to Paris in the fall. Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little, but still.

I hurried down the long path that led to the four-story-tall mansion-like school. A cracked stone path was cut cleanly through a bright green lawn which had a few occasional dry patches. The entire front of the school was surrounded by nothing but those sharp, unfriendly-looking, raven black gates, probably to keep out all the mobs of invisible people that are desperate to get in. At the end of it all there was a stairway with around twenty grimy stone steps, each of them about two thirds the size of a regular stair in, say, my house.

The building itself was painted a cream color and had white windowpanes with the paint peeling off. A few of the windows were broken; I figured they were just recently shattered due to the fact that they weren’t fixed yet and it was halfway through the semester. The flat roof was covered with gray shingles, and a white gutter was a decent ways around it. The heavy double-doors with metal frames surrounding the darkened glass I couldn’t see through were large and a bit intimidating.

I stomped up the steps and tried to look into the doors’ windows but saw nothing other than my reflection, which consisted of tousled brown hair and a worn out expression. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and pinned the stray hairs with one of those hair clips with teeth, then scrutinized my appearance. I thought I might have a chance at making a good impression on the authorities, if they actually cared.

It was around then that I noticed the reflection of another security guard standing only about a yard away. He was standing there, staring at me. I quickly looked away from the window, blushing, and mumbled, “Hi.”