A/N
THis is a first novella that I've started on this site! HOPE YOU LIKE!
I looked out the window of the orphanage I was currently stationed at. This is my fifth one this year. The others kicked me out because of my explosive behavior.
A knock came from outside my door and I stiffened. It was a soft tap on the old wood, but the creak the wood made was audible. The knock came from the orphanage counselor, the lady that owned the place. She vowed to the people that brought me here, ‘this is here home now, or until a family comes to get her. I will not send her off again.’ To say I was stunned was an understatement.
“Kennelly, can I come in?” Her gentle voice only calmed my nerves enough for me to answer in a short response.
“Sure.” I didn’t mean for it to come out so bitter, but I wasn’t in the mood for speaking.
The door knob turned and slowly opened revealing a petite woman with grey hair. Ms. Hanna was fifty five, from what I was told by the people who dumped me in this piece of garbage. AS she opened the door that sounds from the other children here floated in the room. I haven’t laughed in whole year, or since my parents died in that plane crash.
Ms. Hanna quickly, but quietly closes the door and comes to sit by me. She didn’t speak, or even make a sound really, just stared out at the window like me.
I took a long side glance at her. Her pale blue eyes glistened as she looked out at the busy streets of New York below, five stories below. Her skin wasn’t the least bit wrinkled. If I wasn’t for her grey hair, you would think of her as a young twenty year old, not almost sixty. She wears no make-up and almost never has a frown on her face. If there was, I would go away just as quickly as it came. She looks at us kids as if they were her own children.
She finally spoke after five minutes of bearable silence.
“You’ve been here what two months now?” She questioned, trying to get me to speak.
I just nodded not making eye contact. I just simply did what I was doing before she came in here. I had nothing against Ms. Hanna, but I’m not a people person, and get very agitated when I feel people are getting to personal.
“Do you mind if I call you Kenna? It would be easier for me to pronounce. Don’t get me wrong I love your name Kennelly, but my mind is getting old.
I thought. I have never been called anything but Kennelly. To be honest, it is a mouthful, but my parents never had a problem with it. When people said my name, my mind would quickly drift off to a mental image of my parent. Smiling and singing, “Happy Birthday Kennelly…”
I quickly straightened my hunched back and replied quickly, “Yes, go right ahead.”
Ms. Hanna looked shocked at my sentence. It in fact was the longest one I have ever spoken really since my parents died. My responses would either be a yes or no, or head nod or shake.
“Okay Kenna, I know you probably won’t want to talk to me but a simple head nod or shake will be okay. I just want to get to know you.” She spoke soft and low, speaking very carefully.
She was indeed a kind woman, but I don’t know if I can trust anyone. My parents told me to trust them that they would come back from Africa just fine. No injures, no illnesses. No anything. They didn’t keep their promise.
The trip down memory lane started to bring tears to my eyes but I quickly shut down, stopping the traitorous tears in their wake.
“Did you have any brothers or sister, younger?”
I shook my head no.
“Did you ever go to a public school?”
I shook my head again.
I was always home-schooled because my family moved around a lot, we didn’t stay in a house long enough for me to attend any school for that matter. The question about siblings really got to me. Wouldn’t she know already that I didn’t have any siblings? I mean, I did come with papers, just like a dog or cat. I think it would verify if I did or didn’t.
“Um, did you ever learn to ride a bike?” She said tenderly, not making eye contact as I looked at her from the side, just stared out the window like before, like me.
I thought, I did learn to ride a bike. I was taught by my grandpa when I was five. My parents were horror struck when they found out my grandpa got me one. They didn’t believe children should have them.
“They are a waist of money and take to much time out of the short life of children.” My mother had grumbled towards her father when he asked what was wrong with her.
I almost smiled as I remembered my grandfather falling when I took off on my bike and he had his hand on my seat, causing him to stumble forward. He got up just fine, but I was constantly apologizing in a grown-up manner.
I let my face go blank again as I nodded to her.
I turned to look at her as she kept looking out the window, “This is the last one that I’m going to ask and then you can join us downstairs for dinner.”
I still looked at her half expectantly when it came, “They wouldn’t give a cause of death of the parent Kenna, you do not have to answer this at all but do you mind telling me how they died?”
This time she turned to look at me. This was the first time I had made eye contact with someone this year.
Old age showed perfectly in her grey eyes. I couldn’t help but feel alittle guilty for the way I treated her in the past. But my mind was set, I will not change my ways. I like who I am, and who’ve I become. Even without parent’s I’ve raised myself from 5 to now, before I got captured by the state I was in. I thought in Oklahoma, nobody did anything, it was just a small town state. I was wrong. I will not change, atleast not now.
| 
Email this Novel
| 
Add to reading list
