Amora Mania

Chapter 3 - Stuck

Amora leaped up out of bed with her traditionally contagious smile warped on. Today was a Sunday and she'd be helping out at the local orphanage- called Simone's kids.
Her roles changed every other week, and mostly consisted of either tutoring, counselling or simply playing with the children there. The children ranged from as young as a year old to seventeen years old.

Although the official title of the center was 'orphanage' it was actually a home to more than just children without parents. It was a home to children with abusive families, children who had no families, and children who had runaway from their homes.

It was a home to those with no home. To kids like Amora whose families had separated and hadn't glanced back once at their children.

Even though Amora and the few other workers at Simone's loved the children, some people hated the centre. They referred to all of the children as drug dealers, or criminals and as a result the children suffered a lot of verbal and mental abuse from people like those.

In fact, there had been a rumour going around that someone, a very high profile and dangerous someone had their eyes on the center and were going to demolish it to make way for a casino.

Amora cursed the thought of the centre being taken away from the children, but blushed and covered her mouth once she realised she had said 'shît' under her breath. Mumbling a sorry to her God, Amora left her apartment with an unmissable spring in her step at her joy of seeing the children.

The walk from Amora's flat to the children's centre wasn't a long one, but the only thing which had Amora tensed was the uneasy feeling of someone watching her. There was no one on the street- but yet she still felt eyes on her. Brushing off the anxious feelings, Amora ran through the next few streets to get to the centre faster.

Walking in she was grabbed into a hug by one of the toddlers- Josie. She hadn't even seen the little chubby cheeked tot run into her whilst she was lost in tremendous thoughts of her own.

"Josie! How have you been my little munchkin!" Amora squealed, singlehandedly squishing both cheeks of the tot, knowing she'd probably not get a fathomable answer from the little tot who hadn't yet the ability to form actual sentences.

"Blaehg balefh blag!" An excited Josie squealed in return, clapping her hands and saliva trailing down her chubby chin.

"Josie! Where are you little bunny?" The worried voice of a frail, middle aged woman by the name of Simone resonated throughout the cracked and plaster blistering walls of the shabby center.

"It's alright Simone, she's with me", replied a smiling Amora, balancing Josie onto her left hip so that she could half side hug Simone who smelt of elderflower.

Simone relaxed into Amora's hug and patted her head of luscious honey waves. Simone was in her mid 30s but could easily pass off as someone in her late 40s which probably had something to do with all the worries she faced running the children's centre singlehandedly.

"Thank you for coming sweetie," Simone chimed, grateful for the volunteering Amora regularly carried out. Without Amora, the place would be worser than it already was.

"Oh but you look ever so pale, aunt?" Simone was like a motherly figure to Amora and had offered to let her call her mom.
But Amora denied doing so because she didn't want such a happy person to be referred by the names of one of the people who had wronged Amora. So she settled for second best; aunt. Noticing Simone's pale face, Amora pressed the back of her hand against Simone's wrinkled forehead and noticed that she had a fever.