Beautiful Disaster

Chapter Three

Three

After Helen had made herself dinner, (Kat wasn’t allowed to touch Helen’s food, only clean up after her), she went upstairs into her bedroom to watch television and start drinking. At this point of the night, Kat was allowed to make herself dinner, her only meal of the day. It was never anything fancy; canned meat or bland rice or pasta.

The drinking had Helen passed out cold before Kat had finished cleaning up after herself. She snuck upstairs and checked that Helen wasn’t going to come to, but considering there was only a quarter of the bottle of liquor left, Kat didn’t see much chance of that.

Before sneaking back into her own room, Kat opened Helen’s bag and took whatever cash she could find out of Helen’s wallet. There would be no going back after this, for if she did, Helen would no doubt kill her. Pulling on a pair of tattered jeans and a black hooded jumper that was too big for her, she pulled the hood up over her orange brown hair, as it covered her face well. She pushed her feet into a pair of scuffed sneakers and she was ready to go. Kat’s heart was racing as she pushed open the small basement window and climbed out of it.

How long until Helen realised Kat was gone? What would Helen do once she did realise?

Kat kept herself in the shadows as she edged along Helen’s house, towards the driveway that would lead to freedom. Once she had reached the gate, she hopped over it silently and started running. It was dark out, and the street lights were on, but there were still plenty of lights on in houses, so Kat tried to be careful so that she wouldn’t be seen.

It was harder to remain hidden as Kat entered a busier section of town. She assumed this must be the place where shops and schools and everything that could ever be needed would be found. Like ‘Mimi’s Theatre House.’ But the busy section seemed to carry on forever, and Kat had no idea in which area to look for such a place.

Every person or strange thing (which was most things to Kat since she had never seen anything from this outside world) made Kat jump. Her heart was racing a million miles an hour as everything scared her.

Kat kept her head down and her hands stuffed in the pockets of the jumper. No one paid any attention to her; and she soon realised why. There were so many people here, laughing, talking, sitting quietly. All were dressed differently, all were varying ages, and no one looked the same at all. Kat fit in because she was different.

But soon she realised there was a reason Helen kept her isolated from the outside world. Although everyone was different, Kat realised that she had differences from everyone else. Things that other people had in common, were major differences from the way Kat was.

Eventually Kat realised that she couldn’t wander around aimlessly if she wanted to find the freak show that was here for one night only. She saw an older lady sitting by herself on a bench and went to ask her for directions.

“Excuse me miss,” Kat said ever so softly, it was lucky the lady even heard her at all.

Kat’s stomach performed somersaults; she had never spoken to anyone but Helen before. Ever.

“Can I help you dear?” the old lady looked up at Kat’s shadowed face kindly.

“I was just wondering if you could please tell me where ‘Mimi’s Theatre House’ was?” Kat held her breath.

“Mimi's Theatre House?" The old lady repeated, but differently as Kat had pronounced it wrong. "Of course.” The old lady then rattled off directions of left and right and third street and last building.

Kat must have seemed overwhelmed because then the lady said, “Would you like me to write it down for you?”

“Please,” was all Kat could muster up as a reply.

The lady did just that and wrote down all the instructions on a napkin she’d had in her huge hand bag. She held them out for Kat, smiling the whole time. Kat stared at the napkin for a moment before quickly removing her hand from the pocket and retrieved the directions lightning fast before the lady could see Kat’s dirty hands and overgrown nails.

“Thank you,” Kat said politely, and then quickly took off in the direction the lady had pointed.

When she was certain no one was looking, she pulled out the directions to look at them; left up ahead. She put the directions away and then put her hands out in front of her, making right angles with her pointer finger and thumb to remind herself which way was left and right.

∞

As Kat followed the last instruction off the napkin, she looked up and couldn’t believe her eyes. She had actually made it to ‘Mimi’s Theatre House’. It hadn’t been what Kat had expected. It didn’t look like a house at all. It looked like a huge building, with big glass doors for an entrance. There were a couple of people around, but no one seemed to be taking any notice of the building that was the centre of Kat’s attention.

She edged towards it hesitantly, hoping that no one noticed her. There was a small booth out front, so that’s where she headed. A little door popped open down low, and a small folded piece of paper flew out before the door slammed shut. Kat picked up the paper and read the word ‘MONEY’ scrawled along it messily. She reached into her pocket to pull out the wad of cash she had stolen from Helen.

Kat didn’t know how money worked, so she handed down two of the paper bills to the door. It flew open again and a small hand reached out and grabbed the notes from Kat. A few seconds later the door opened and closed again, and a ticket fluttered to the ground. Kat picked up the ticket and walked into the building. She looked around wide eyes, completely unsure of what to do next.

Suddenly a very tall man was standing in front of her.

“Are you 21?” he asked, in a deep accented voice.

Kat didn’t understand what this meant, she stood there clueless for a bit until the man spoke again.

“Say ‘yes’,” he instructed.

“Yes,” she replied meekly.

“Do you suffer from any heart conditions or are you prone to fainting?” he questioned.

Again, Kat stood motionless, waiting for the man to supply her with the correct answer.

“Say ‘no’,” he coaxed again.

Kat did as she was told.

“Then head on in,” the man took Kat’s ticket, then motioned to the doors behind him, “the show is about to start.”

When Kat entered the room, there were several people sitting around on the chairs laid out around the small stage. Kat surveyed the area and calculated where would be best to sit. She didn’t want to sit near anyone, and draw attention to herself, and she also wanted a chair close to an exit in case she needed to make a quick getaway. The only seats far enough away from other audience members were the seats in the front row, so Kat took the one right on the edge. Once she was seated, the lights dimmed and the tall man from outside became lit up in the centre of the stage.

“Welcome all," he paused dramatically, "To the Cirque du Freak."