Orphaned (Commission) - Chapter 6

Series commissioned by Areat.

That night after dinner, Charlie decided it was time to step up the investigation. He approached Eddie in the hallway and said, “You said you knew where there were some hidden secret files before. Was that true?”

Eddie shushed him and looked around suspiciously to make sure no one else was listening. Then, he whispered back, “It’s true. No bullshit. But, keep it down, dude. Come over here.” He led Charlie into a nearby washroom and then spent a few seconds checking under each stall to make sure they were alone. “Coast is clear.”

Charlie wanted to laugh. Eddie was acting like a spy in a bad movie, but Charlie did not want to insult the boy. He needed his help after all. “Well?” Charlie said. “Where are the files?”

“Sister Francine’s office,” he said. “That’s pretty obvious. I saw the file cabinet one time when I was in there for beating up a kid. (Long story. He had it coming.) Anyway, they still use paper files for stuff. Now, that’s not a huge surprise, I know, but here’s what’s interesting. I think all the top staff members have keys to Sister Francine’s office and those cabinets, and I think I know how we can get the keys from one of them.”

“So,” Charlie said, piecing together Eddie’s plan. “We steal the keys from this top staff member. We sneak into Sister Francine’s office when she’s not in there. Then, we open the files, and we can look at all their secrets in there. Is that what you mean?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Eddie said. “Simple, right?”

“But, how do we get the keys?” Charlie asked.

Eddie smiled. “I have a plan for that too, but it needs two people. You in?”

Charlie hesitated a moment. He was reluctant to trust his mission to the planning of a criminal 11-year-old boy, but he had no other ideas at the moment. “I’m in,” he said, and the boys shook hands.

Eddie nodded. “Good. I’ll share the details with you tomorrow once I have a chance to check a couple of things out.” Then, his face took on a serious look, and he said, “We should probably leave here separately. You know, so we don’t draw too much attention. Can’t let anyone think we’re planning something. You got me?”

Charlie smiled. More spy antics, he thought. “Sure,” he said. “Good plan. I’ll wait here for a minute after you leave.”

Eddie smiled back and peeked out the doorway to make sure the hallway was clear. Then he tiptoed out of the room.

Charlie wanted to laugh, but he was also relieved. He appreciated that Eddie was taking secrecy this seriously. It would make it much less likely that the two of them would get caught later. Still, that would not be such a bad ending to the heist. At least then Charlie would find out what it was like to get in trouble here.

***

The next morning, Charlie made sure to keep close to Davion in the showers and during breakfast to make sure that Ben kept his distance. Eddie gave Charlie an occasional knowing look throughout the morning as well, letting him know that their secret plan was still moving forward, although Charlie had no idea just what Eddie was doing to “check things out.”

Then, about halfway through classes, Eddie approached Ms. Peach’s desk in one of the rare moments that she was actually sitting down at it.

“Ms. Peach,” he said. “I don’t feel good.”

“Oh?” she said. “You don’t feel well?” She subtly corrected him. “What’s the matter?”

He put a hand to his head and frowned. “I’ve got a bad headache. Like, really bad.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll call the nurse here to pick you up.” She pressed a button on the wall near the door and Sister Francine replied over an intercom speaker. Ms. Peach explained the situation and a few minutes later, an elderly nurse appeared at the door to pick up Eddie. Then, they left together.

Charlie watched this all as he finished up his cursive practice, which was surprisingly difficult with his little hands. At one point, Charlie was sure that Eddie had given him a sly wink.

It was only later that afternoon that Charlie was able to speak with Eddie again. Once more, they met in the same empty bathroom.

“It’s going to work,” Eddie said. “I saw where she put her keys. You’ll be able to grab them, no problem.”

“Wait, where are the keys? How am I supposed to grab them?”

Eddie walked up closer to Charlie and began to whisper in his ear, cupping his mouth with his hand. Charlie listened to Eddie’s plan.

After Eddie had laid it all out to him, Charlie said, “I think that might work.” 

“You’ll do it, then?” Eddie said.

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

“Good,” Eddie said. “Just one thing. Don’t fuck it up, or I’ll have to kick your ass. Okay?”

“Um,” Charlie said, squirming a little. “I won’t. Don’t worry.”

“Cool,” Eddie said, cheerfully. “See you tomorrow in class.”

***

Just after lunch the next day, Eddie walked up to Ms. Peach and said, “I think I’m going to throw up.” He kept going past her to the door, while holding his hand over his mouth.

“Oh,” she managed to say as he left the room. She followed him to the hallway, but stopped there since she still had a class to monitor. She called in his situation to the nurse like she had done yesterday.

Charlie checked the clock. The first part of the plan had begun, and now he had to wait 30 minutes before it was time for him to do his part. Still, the waiting made him nervous. He kept checking the clock over and over again, always feeling disappointed by how little time had passed each time he looked.

After what felt like hours, it was Charlie’s turn to call on the teacher. He walked up to her and said, “Ms. Peach?”

She turned around, and said, “Yes?” And, he was momentarily dumbfounded by her beauty.

That stupid crush was causing him to slip up, but he pushed through his bashfulness and said, “My head hurts.” He put the back of his hand to his forehead in a dramatic gesture of despair and added, “It hurts a whole lot.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “Do you think you need to lie down maybe?”

He nodded and tried to look like he wanted to cry.

She walked to the intercom and called the nurse for him. The old woman arrived shortly afterwards to escort him to her office. As they walked, Charlie casually noted that the woman had a ring of keys hanging from a lanyard around her neck.

The nurse opened the door to her office and stood aside so Charlie could enter first. It was a plain enough office with a desk, chairs, cabinets, and a couple of recovery couches, one of which was currently occupied by a nauseated looking Eddie.

“Lie down over there,” the nurse said, indicating the other recovery couch. Then, she took off her keys and hung them from a hook on the wall behind her desk and began typing on her computer. Charlie and Eddie exchanged a quick glance as she worked. Then, Eddie nodded. It was time.

Eddie positioned a vomit bowl on his chest, opened his mouth, and jabbed his fingers down his throat. Charlie looked away as he saw Eddie begin to puke. It still sounded awful, and Charlie felt his own stomach heave in sympathy. Still, he made sure to act surprised when the nurse noticed Eddie being sick.

“Oh, dear,” she said, walking over to Eddie. “Let’s get you to the bathroom.”

The two of them left the room together, leaving Charlie alone. As soon as the door was shut, Charlie raced over to the wall behind the nurse’s desk and reached for the keys.

“Son of a bitch!” he said as once more he was reminded how small he was. He could just barely touch the keys, but the hook was out of his short reach, preventing him from taking the keys down. “Damn it!” He pulled the nurse’s chair closer to the wall and climbed up on it, all the while, feeling his time ticking away until the nurse returned.

He grabbed the lanyard and began flipping through the keys. He needed to find the right ones. Eddie had said there was a little one for the cabinet and a bronze key with a square base for Sister Francine’s office. He found the cabinet key first, but struggled to release it from the ring. Again, he cursed his little body, “Damn it!” His feeble little fingers were too weak to detach the key. He looked around for something to use to pry open the ring and picked up a blade-like letter opener. After a couple of tries, he managed to wedge it into the ring and slide the key out. “One more to go,” he told himself. He checked the door. No nurse yet.

He found the office key, pried open the ring, and slid the key free. Then, he heard the door beginning to open. “Shit,” he said. He hung up the lanyard of keys and pocketed the two keys he had stolen. Just as he hopped off the chair and was about to put the letter opener back on the desk, the nurse walked in with Eddie.

“What are you doing back there?” she asked.

“Uh...” Charlie was not sure what to say. “I was just curious about…”

“Is that my letter opener?” she said.

Charlie put it down on the desk. “It’s a letter opener?” he asked as innocently as he could.

She waved him over. “Come here. Both of you lie down,” she ordered them. “And, you.” she pointed at Charlie as he reclined on the recovery couch. “If you’re feeling good enough to poke through my things, then you should get back to class soon.”

“Okay,” he said and tried to seem like his head hurt again. “Can I just lie down a little longer?”

“Fine,” she said and returned to her computer.

As she worked, Eddie gave him a look, Charlie replied with a faint nod.

Step one of the plan was done.

***

Step two was going to be a bit more trouble and required waiting until after everyone had gone to sleep.

On Eddie’s recommendation, Charlie made sure to wear a shirt without a lot of color on it, which was hard to do since most of the clothes they had given him were covered in cartoon characters. An inside out grey Minecraft T-shirt was the best option he had. It would have to do. 

Eddie nudged him, and Charlie slipped out of bed. Then, the two of them tiptoed to the door. Eddie slowly turned the knob and lifted the door slightly as it opened. It barely made a sound, and it seemed that the rest of the boys continued sleeping, oblivious to the sneaking around.

Charlie left the room first and stayed close to the wall in the dim hallway. Again, Eddie had been pretty clear in his directions for sneaking around. He had explained that stepping on the old floorboards in the middle of the hallway would make them creak. The boards near the wall would bend less. Charlie was impressed with how Eddie seemed to possess a natural talent at being stealthy and underhanded.

Eddie joined Charlie in the hallway and then led them both to Sister Francine’s office. He made sure to pause every half a minute or so to listen for footsteps or voices. Thankfully, the halls appeared totally empty.

They made it to the office, and Charlie handed Eddie the key. Again, he slowly opened the door and held it for Charlie to walk in first. The room was dark, and they were not planning on turning on the lights. Instead, Eddie followed him in, shut the door, and produced a night-light from his pocket. He plugged it into the wall behind Sister Francine’s desk, and the dim glow of it lit up the room, casting spooky shadows on the walls.

“Where’d you get that?” Charlie whispered.

“From one of the little kids’ rooms,” Eddie said. “It’s better for them. They need to get over being scared of the dark, anyway.”

“Right,” Charlie said. “You know, this might not be the time to mention it, but I was wondering why you wanted me to do this instead of Jack or Davion.”

“Jack is a goody two shoes.” Eddie explained. “And Davion is crazy. I don’t want to be alone with that kid. I mean, he’s a good friend, but I know he found a knife somewhere, and I’ve seen him do things with it that freak me out.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “He was threatening to cut Ben’s throat to protect me.”

“You think that’s crazy?” Eddie said. “I caught him cutting up a dead squirrel behind the school one day at recess, just slicing it’s parts off and pulling it’s guts out. I don’t even know if he found it dead or if he killed it himself. It was really creepy. I wanted to puke, but Davion had no emotion on his face. It was like he was taking apart a toy to see how it worked.” Eddie shivered. “Like I said, he’s a good friend, and I’d knock heads around for him, but I don’t want to turn my back on him when we’re alone.”

Charlie nodded and decided that he was too young at the moment to say a world like “psychopath” out loud.

“Enough chating.” Eddie said, holding out his hand. “Cabinet key?”

Charlie handed it to Eddie, who used the key to unlock the file cabinet.

“Well,” he said. “I know what I’m looking for. You can go first, though.”

“Okay,” Charlie said and opened one of the lower drawers. He pulled out a few files with boy’s names on them and took them over to the floor next to the night-light. “Your turn.”

As Eddie opened another draw and began searching through the files, Charlie began to flip through the folders in front of him. Each file had information on one of the orphans: their name, their picture, their family history, and a section of notes about them. Charlie focused on the notes section, looking for anything about behavioral problems or discipline. One boy had a note saying he had been in frequent fights with another boy. He had been given “detention” a few times. The note was not clearer than that. Another boy had been caught trying to run away. He had made it a few miles south to the town of Greenwood before the police had picked him up and brought him back. He too had been given a series of “detentions” for that. There were no more details about what had been done to them, though.

Eddie set a folder down in front of Charlie.

“Whose folder is that?” Charlie asked.

“Mine,” Eddie said.

Charlie looked at the folder and recognized the name on it. “Edgar Rios?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “That’s me.”

Charlie looked at Eddie closely. He was years older than the boy Charlie had seen on the video in Kingsley’s office, and he had a new haircut. Still, Charlie could recognize the man he had seen transformed into a boy. He imagined Eddie growing up, getting tattoos, building his muscles, committing crimes, and ending up on death row for some kind of murder. Charlie could picture it, but it seemed so unlikely at this moment that the boy in front of him could do anything like that.

Eddie shook his head as he read through the notes on his family. “This is bullshit, man. Total bullshit.”

“What?”

“Look at this,” Eddie said, rotating the page so Charlie could see it. “It says my abuelita died with my mom and dad in a car crash.”

“That’s terrible,” Charlie said sympathetically.

“It’s impossible is what it is,” Eddie said. “My abuelita hates my mom, and my dad stopped talking to her a couple of years before the car accident. There’s no way we all would have been in a car together.”

“You think the report is fake?” Charlie knew that the report was fake, but he could not tell Eddie.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Maybe my parents did die, but I know she’s alive. She has to be. I feel it in my bones.”

“So,” Charlie said. “What do you want to do?”

“I’m going to find her,” he said. “Maybe they told her I was dead too. If she knew I was alive, she would take me in. I’d have a home again. I’d have a normal life.”

Charlie did not know what to say. Eddie was wrong in thinking that there had been an accident in the first place. The family life he remembered was at least a dozen years out of date. Would it be wrong to give Eddie some hope? Or, would it be worse to lie to Eddie even more?

“If she’s out there,” Charlie said. “Then, I hope you find her.” It was the only honest response he could give.

“Thanks,” Eddie said. He looked over the documents again. “Damn it! No addresses. No phone numbers. There’s nothing here!”

Charlie shushed him.

Eddie shut the file and left it on the floor. “I’m done with this,” he said more quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Charlie looked around the office. “Do you think the key will work on the drawers in Sister Francine’s desk?” he asked.

Eddie looked at the desk. “Probably,” he said. “But, forget about that. We need to get going. Someone could walk by soon.”

Charlie returned the files to the cabinet and shut the drawers. “Grab the key for me, please,” he said.

Eddie retrieved the key and said, “I’m going man. Come with me.”

“I need to see what’s in her desk,” Charlie said.

“Why?”

Charlie hesitated. What could he tell Eddie? “I need to know what’s going on here. I can’t explain why, but I need to know.”

Eddie nodded and handed Charlie the drawer key and the office key. “I’m not hanging around anymore, but you can do what you want. Of course, if you do get caught…”

“I won’t say a word about you,” Charlie said as he pocketed the office key.

Eddie nodded again. “Make sure you lock up when you go,” he said. “I’m trusting you.” Then, he walked to the door, quietly opened it, and left Charlie alone in the room.

Charlie unlocked the desk and began searching through Sister Francine’s private things, hoping that he would find the evidence he needed in there. Where else could it be? He rifled through the top drawers, finding only office supplies in most of them. In other drawers he found some personal letters, but when he tried reading a few of them, they had little to say about how the orphanage was run. He kept digging, but everything he found was useless to his search. There was nothing. No secret plot. No hidden tortures. No evidence of any mistreatment at all.

In frustration, he slammed a drawer shut and sat down on the floor next to the night-light. “What am I going to tell them?” he asked himself. “I don’t have any evidence.”

But, before he could think of an answer, he heard a key turn in the lock of the office door. Then, the door swung open, revealing Sister Francine standing there holding a flashlight. She shined it at him.

“Oh, crap!” he said.

“Young man,” she said. “You’re in big trouble.”