~Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children~

Chapter 16

I turned the handle of the bathroom door and pushed. The door slid open easily with a small creaking noise as I pushed slowly and walked through the door frame. My foot hurt to walk, but when I was in the bath I tried to clean it and rinse it causing it to hurt a little less. It hurt to have pressure on it and there was a medium sized bump near the cut, but I could still walk with a slow pace and a limp. Walking out I noticed that the windows were still locked and all room doors close. The brown wooden doors covered the clear window, there was a very small lock keeping everything shut. As I ran my fingers against the wood I could tell that the wood was thick and mahogany. I started walking to the staircase noticing the beautiful multi-colored flowered wallpaper running all the way to the bottom of the stairs and connecting to the main floor. Everything had color here much more then my house, rather then everything in my house was always dark and gloomy. And I just loved the colors showing happiness and safety and the house itself gave such a positive emotion. I was at the top of the stairs when I heard my name. "Miss Brookes, are you ready to come and join us?" I turned my head to quickly see Miss Peregrine at the bottom of the stairs holding her two hands together and in a door way waiting for me. "Oh yes, sorry." I said galloping down the stairs putting more of my weight on my right foot. I got to the bottom and looked up to miss Peregrine. "Thank you." I said bowing while pulling my skirt up to show respect. "You're very welcome, now come and eat everyone's been waiting." She said turning, but stopping by my response. "They've been waiting for me?" I asked, she nodded. I felt ever so worse, I've been keeping everyones time. I finally followed Miss Peregrine into the dinning room having everyone stare again. "Finally we can eat." Enoch said before stabbing a piece of meat with his fork and quickly stuffing the big piece straight into his mouth. "Enoch! Polite persons always have patience." Miss Peregrine said before sitting down. "But we should know by now that Enoch isn't polite nor patient." The other older boy said causing everyone at the table to laugh and causing Enoch to roll his eyes and to continue eating. I was still standing in the doorway when Miss Peregrine told me to take a seat. It took a moment to take small steps, but I eventually saw a open seat at the end corner of the table. And to the left a young boy wearing a suit and tie with a top hat sat next to it. "Is anyone sitting here?" I softly asked while setting my left hand on the chair. "No, you can sit there." The young boy of around 10 said. I moved the chair so I could sit in it and adjusted it towards the table so I could reach when I sat down. "My names is Horace." He said before looking down at his food and picking up his fork. "And yours?" He continued looking up and to his right to see me. "Onie." I replied, Horace responding with a nod and finished eating. When I picked up my spoon and dipped it into my soup supper was indeed cold. I was going to say something like "I'm quite sorry for waiting your eating time", but I just kept my mouth shut. Everyone was talking with one another or just eating wildly, but I didn't say one word. I pretended that I was invisible or not there and played with my food. I kept my eyes shut minutes later when someone was calling 'hey you'. "Why aren't you eating?" I opened my eyes and looked up to see out of the corner of my right eye Hugh eating at a separate table with a bees hat on to protect himself from the bees, but it being the other way around and the bees weren't outside of the hat but inside. I took a pause before saying I wasn't use to eating around people. "It is because of your peculiarity?" He asked before struggling to get his fork into the hat. "I'm just use to eating by myself that's all." I said before losing eye contact with him. He said a quick oh before eating again. I finally picked up my fork after playing with my soup when I was caught off guard by questions. "What's your name?" One 7 year old girl asked from the end of the left side of the big wooden dinning table. "Onie." I said quietly causing her to say what. "Her name is Onie Brookes." Miss Peregrine said slurping up her soup without using her spoon like the rest of us. "What a wonderful name." The girl with lead shoes with a full mouth said from my row to the left. I was slowly drinking water or eating the beef with the vegetable soup in between each question. "What year are you from?" Abe said eating with one hand to hold Emma's hand, I answered with a 1961 causing everyone to 'oo' or 'aw'. Apparently everyone had come from the year of 1940s or sooner. They hadn't seen the years after or a person from the later years. They were all astonished. I was asked one final question. "What is your peculiarity?" Asked by the blonde curly haired girl, who was Claire. Everyone had stopped eating and chewing to hear my answer. But I didn't know. "What's a peculiarity?" I asked calmly. Everyone burst out to laughs. Everyone was laughing or chuckling even some fell from their chairs. My face quickly flushed and I slumped down in my seat. All the children laughing for a long time except Miss Peregrine of course. I caught her looking at me slumping into the chair as if trying to melt into it and she nodded her head towards the door. I quickly got up threw my napkin onto my plate and run out the room. Through the doorway and into the main entrance area and up the stairs and making my way to the small schooling room. That room was the only room I felt comfortable in and I didn't have a room so I felt as if safe in there. I ran to the arm chair and soaked my face in the arm part of the chair. I started to cry. I didn't like crying and for useless things, but I felt super embarrassed. Everything was going swiftly before everyone laughed at me. And it felt like years that they were laughing. All except Enoch who probably thought I was an idiot or dumb.
   I was crying for about 10 minutes before I heard the door slowly open. I quickly sniffed up my runny nose and wiped my eyes before sitting up and faced the closed window. "Miss Brookes are you alright?" It was the headmistress. "Yeah...... I'm......fine." I said in between each sniffs and tearing wiping not moving my body position. "I will have the children apologize at once." She said directly. "No.....its its.... alright." I said clearing my voice and controlling my emotions. "I don't know much but I will learn eventually, do you know where I will be resting tonight? I would like to go to bed please." I asking looking her way. "You will be staying and sharing a room with Miss Frauenfeld." She said taking a deep breathe before saying that Millard would check my foot. I just nodded and didn't want to argue back by asking to see him tomorrow, but the pain was still hurting and I wanted to sleep well that night. Miss Peregrine left and moments later Millard come in with a different wardrobe, maybe night ware, and a small box. Must be a first aid, I assumed. I looked up and meet with an invisible boy with my puffy pink eyes. He looked down at me and sat on the floor and opened the box. It was indeed a first aid, but everything seemed old fashioned. This certainly was the 40s. "How's your foot at the moment?" Millard asked before examining my left foot. "It's fine, but hurts a little when I walk or run." I said with my raspy voice and putting my glasses on. Millard looked down and picked up my foot and started to clean it. There was silence between us most of the time, I believed he was focused and I didn't want to be a bother. "So you don't know what a peculiarity is?" He said breaking the silence and his working on my foot and looked up at me. "I wasn't recalled." I said bring my head up and crossing my arms. "Well that's a shame you also must not know about peculiaridom." He said grabbing a syringe. "What's that? Ouchhh!" I asked but squeaked as he cut open my foot with the syringe. "What are you doing?" I asked quite frantically. "You have an object in your foot. I'm getting it out because it doesn't belong there and it could cause an infection." He said before grabbing a part of pliers. I just watched him, he knew what he was doing. He must be the doctor. He then got a small piece of tree bark out of my foot with a quick tug, cleaned it once more, and wrapped my foot up tight and said that he was done. It was really cool, I hadn't see a doctor in years since Cindy stopped taking me. "Okay, its finished." He said collecting all the tools and setting them in the box. "Are you the doctor?" I asked bring my legs up to my chest in the armchair. "No, I'm a ward." He said then standing up. "A ward?" I asked tilting my head. "As if a student, but for a numberless of years." He said. "Oh." I replied. "Which makes you a new ward."
"Oh." I said once more. "Like I asked earlier, you don't know what a peculiarity is." He said, causing me the flush again. "What's with the word and meaning." I said setting both feet off the chair. "Why that's what makes a peculiar peculiar." He said, "I'm peculiar because of my body." He said pulling up one of his sleeves arms showing nothing. "My peculiarity is not being seen with a naked eye, but in other words invisible." He said. "It's what makes us different." He continued. "Well because of my peculiarity I lost everything." I said standing up and trying to walk but quickly lost balance causing myself to be top heavy and falling to the ground. Falling on my butt and having Millard to chuckle out loud. "I'm sorry that happened." He said laughing and setting his box on the ground and helping me up. "Well I must be going." He said picking up his box. "Curfew is soon." He continued. I thanked him for helping me with my foot and nodded and went to the door. "Oh silly me I almost forgot. Here." He said walking back to me and handing me something wrapped in a napkin. "What is it?" I ask, I opened it to see a small piece of, must have been, corn bread. "You didn't eat much tonight so I thought you must be hungry." He said, "Oh um thank you Millard." I said stuffing the napkin wrapped piece of bread into my pocket. Then he was out the door.
I walked slowly out the door minutes after Millard. Since curfew was coming up I needed to get to the bed, but who was Miss Frauenfeld? All the names on the door read only first not last. I wondered around the hallway walking past each room at least twice trying to figure out who Miss Frauenfeld was. I was stopped by my thoughts when I saw Emma walking out of the bathroom. I quickened my pace to call and to catch up to her which I eventually did. "Emma excuse me, but do you know who Miss Frauenfeld is? Miss Peregrine said I would be sharing a room with her." I said causing her to stop and to knowledge me. "Why that's Fiona." She said, "I could take you there." She said. "Why that would be wonderful thank you, Emma." I said smiling and causing her to smile in response. Walking past two doors and to my left we made in to my room. The room door still read 'Fiona and Emma' and it must have been in there writing because they were both written differently. "We'll paint over my name tomorrow. Oh and Miss Peregrine wanted me to give you something." She said running up one door and coming out seconds later. She handed me some white fabric. "It's your night gown." She said. "Its mine?" I softly questioned. "Yes it was mine, but it was getting to small." She said. "Oh and you can keep the dress your wearing." She said I thanked her and opened my door when Emma ran to her room by a bell going off. Must be the curfew Bell. I opened the door and walked in to find a rainforest. Plants were all over the place covering the room. To a small single flower to a big tree. Many bushes, and vines and everything you could think of of wildlife was in here, but in a way everything seemed organized. Moving a bit I found Fiona surrounded by the plants sitting patiently on her bed. "Is this your peculiarity?" I asked, she nodded in response. Wow, it was amazing. She could control plants, it was unbelievable. "That's so cool," I said raising my voice up by a bit and laughing. "And I'm Onie, your new room mate." I said smiling and giving her my hand. She took it and gave a small smile. I got sad, she must not like me I said. I dropped my head and walked to the other side of the room to find an empty bed. Fiona looked just as surprised as I was, I stood for there a couples seconds finally realizing that the bed was mine. I had looked at Fiona for an approval and I eventually got a head nod. I then got dressed into my new night gown and dropped to my bed. Once my head hit the pillow I was out.