17. Hare and Jade

I was shaken awake. 

It was Jade. The nickname I’d given the golden-haired girl with the shiny green eyes.

At first, she tried to correct me and get me to say her real name, but I could never get it right, so she just accepted the nickname. Every morning, she came to wake me up. Apparently, Hare also rang a bell, but since I couldn't hear it, she took it upon herself to get me out of bed. 

Hare was the nickname I gave to the white-haired and red-eyed man who was in charge of the orphanage. He also tried to correct me as Jade had done, but also eventually gave up.

I turned away from Jade and grumbled as I tried to go back to sleep. She roughly shook me again and lifted me out of bed by the armpits. 

It was at those moments that I always seemed to notice that she was quite a bit taller than I was, making me self-conscious of my height. I swore to myself to take revenge when I got older. 

She dropped me to my feet, still in my pyjamas. I grumbled, to which she only pulled her tongue while winking. She froze her expression and looked down the hallway through the door frame. She looked back at me and signalled me to get dressed quickly.

I swallowed another grumble and got dressed. 

I picked up Darkie, and Jade took me by the hand. 

“Good morning!”

[Good morning, Darkie. Slept well?]

“Mhh mhh, but you woke me up again last night.”

[Really? I don't remember getting up. My bad…]

We walked down the hall to the dining room, where the others were already seated, waiting for us, but no one had saved us a spot. Jade guided me to the end of the table, where there was just enough space to fit two people.

As usual, an odd array of food was on display at the dining table. I wasn’t familiar with most of it, so for the last few days I’d only been eating bread and fruits, but I was growing weary of that kind of one-note meal. 

I eyed the food sprawling before me, and something a bit different caught my eye. It was a red-brown stick, looking rough and textured. Another kid grabbed one and took a bite out of it. It looked hard to chew as he went at it several times before he managed to take out a piece, but he looked very pleased by each bite.

Curious, I reached out to the stick and grabbed it. The texture was tough as expected, but it was also a little moist and sticky. Hesitantly, I brought it to my mouth and dug my teeth into it. Immediately, an indescribable flavour flooded my mouth. It was salty, yet savoury and a little peppery… What was this thing?! 

Excited by the flavour, I munched down the stick and began to reach out for another one, but Jade caught me with a panicked expression on her face. She began calling out to Hare with a sense of urgency.

He rushed towards me, picked me up and carried me through the halls, all the way to the bathroom.

His expression was worried as he set me down by a toilet as Jade looked on, chewing on her nails nervously.

I looked at them strangely. What were they all so worried about? I feel fine.

As the seconds passed and still nothing happened, Hare turned to Jade and asked her a question, to which she strongly nodded. He hesitated before asking her to go get something. She came back with the strange tasty stick from earlier.

He looked back at me and pointed at the stick and motioning to eat before pointing at me as if to ask if I had eaten the stick.

I hesitated for a moment. I was starting to wonder if I did something bad, but I opted to tell the truth and nodded.

He looked at me with a puzzled expression, and after a long moment of hesitation, he handed me the stick, which immediately made Jade jerk forward, but Hare stopped her.

I looked down at the stick in my hands and back at Hare. What was going on exactly? Did he expect me to eat it?

He seemingly encouraged me, so I took a bite of the stick and happily munched on it. They both held their breath as I slowly ate away at it, bit by bit. Uncomfortable with their concerned expressions, I hurriedly tried to finish, but choked on the food.

They both flinched toward me, but I cleared my throat quickly and  continued eating it, eventually finishing it.

They were both seemingly astounded by what they had witnessed. Hare turned to Jade and said something before standing up. He put a hand on my head and gave it a light pat.

I still didn’t understand what had just happened, but Hare looked happy. 

Maybe they thought I would throw up? Or faint? Maybe other kids did… But I guess his being happy meant that I did good, right? I smiled in response, even if I didn’t know why.

He smiled back at me before leaving me with Jade.

I guess everything’s alright now…? That was confusing… Was I not supposed to eat this? But now it’s fine? Why, though? Was there something wrong with me? Did they expect something to happen that didn’t…?

Jade smiled and took me by the hand as we moved from the bathroom back toward the playroom. Some of the other kids were already there. Playing with old dolls, wooden blocks and chipped marbles, or just talking to each other and reading books.

Jade looked around for a moment before spotting someone building a fort out of pillows and sheets. She looked at me confidently before pulling me toward them. I hesitated for a moment, but didn’t resist. The kids hadn’t been very nice to me until now, but maybe if Jade were with me…

We stopped a few feet away from the fort, where Jade called out to the person inside. A purple-haired boy peeked out from under a chair and looked up at Jade. As she held my hand, she said something to the boy with a beaming smile. The boy’s eyes lit up in excitement for a moment, and he began saying something, but when his eyes drifted toward me, his expression froze for a moment. His nose crumpling up in an annoyed expression. 

Did I do something wrong?

The boy hesitated for a moment, but eventually he seemed to agree to let us play with him.

Jade didn’t hesitate to join the game and went to fetch some pillows while I made my way under the thatched roof, but the boy stood in my way. 

He didn’t bother feigning a smile with me, he had probably only agreed so Jade would join their game… Before I could say anything, he placed a sheet in my hand and said something. Confused and a bit annoyed, I tried to force my way in, but without any hesitation, he roughly shoved me back, making me fall on my rear.

The shock left me frozen for a moment. I hadn’t expected him to welcome me with open arms… But I hadn’t expected that. I felt a weight build in my chest, but I tried my best to shake the feeling away as I saw Jade making her way back. She had managed to find someone for us to play with, so what if he was a bit rude? Jade had been mean to me at first, too, and now we’re friends! Maybe if we played long enough, we could also become friends. 

I brought back my focus on the sheet he had placed in my hands before pushing me. I had made pillow forts before, but Knox and Ela had done most of it back then. I wasn’t too sure what to do, so I decided to make another room for the fort with the sheet for a roof. 

I found a chair, dragged it closer and tucked a corner of the sheet to it. I then took the other side of the sheet and tried to throw it on top of the existing roof, but it simply slid back down. I figured I hadn’t thrown it far enough, so I tried again, but the other side came untucked from the chair this time. I went back and fixed it under the chair, but again, the part on the roof slid down.

Frustrated, I went back and tried to find somewhere else I could attach the sheet to. I looked at the chair the boy had emerged underneath from. 

That should be a good place to tie the sheet to!

I didn’t know how to make a knot, so instead I wrapped the corner of the sheet several times around the top of the chair. Finally, it looked like it was holding in place. Satisfied, I went back to the other corner and pulled on it to tuck it for a final time underneath the other chair.

The fabric became stiff as I pulled on it, making for a satisfying first side of my roof, but my celebration was short-lived. In the same movement, I had pulled on the sheet a bit too hard and had made the chair holding the fort together tilt toward me and eventually come tumbling down toward me. 

In an instant, the entire castle came apart as the blanket roof and pillow walls crumbled into an incoherent pile of fabric.

I watched the whole thing collapse in a stupor.

Jade shouted something as she rushed toward the fort. She dropped to her knees and started picking up pillows, motioning to me and other kids to come and help, but no one moved.

Before I could react myself, the boy from earlier emerged from beneath the remains of his fort. I opened my mouth to try and say some kind of apology, but before I could muster a sound, he tackled me to the ground. 

He began raising his fist, but, luckily, before he could do anything else, Jade pulled him off of me.

My whole body hurt. The fall itself hadn’t hurt much in the moment, but with every second the pain increased, and I could already see a stain of red on my sleeve where a wound had reopened. Shaken and dazed, I struggled to sit up as pain continued shooting up all over my skin, doing my best to hold back tears. 

The boy was still arguing with Jade as she held him back. He yelled something while pointing toward me as other kids gathered around curiously. He looked at me, and for a moment we locked eyes. They were filled with hatred and resentment… Like mothers. Like the maid’s. Like his. A look I was all too familiar with. I looked away as the rock in my stomach sank and the tears became too difficult to hold back.

It wasn’t long until Hare walked into the room. Immediately, everyone stopped what they had been doing and stared at him. He quickly walked to me and helped me up. He checked me over quickly, his eyes lingering on the red stain on my sleeve for a moment, before turning back to Jade who then pointed to the purple boy. He rubbed his eyes in a tired expression.

He turned back to me and said something as he pointed to Jade, who was already heading toward me.

She then whisked me away from the room under the confused stare of the other children. I looked back as Jade closed the door behind us. All the kids in the room looked at their feet as Hare stood in front of them. I could see he was speaking to them, but he didn't seem to raise his voice. He didn’t need to. His eyes alone could make a room go quiet.