When The Sun Rises

Thirteen

I didn’t get back to sleep after shopping yesterday, and Indy and I had agreed to meet that day although we normally didn’t. We were going to go to the library and get some more work for her to do but we were meeting later, so we could get more sleep.

After tossing and turning for two hours trying to get to sleep I went down stairs to have breakfast. As it was Sunday I had beans on toast because I felt like it. Dad was already at work, like always. I needed to study for my exams the day after so I got out the books and placed them on my desk. I studied for hours in-between cooking lunch and dinner.

Lunch was just a ham and cheese sandwich but dinner was a roast dinner as it was Sunday. Indy hadn’t had a roast dinner yet because we didn’t meet on Sunday evenings/Monday mornings, so she never got any. I hoped she’d like it though, Dad did. I ate my dinner and put some aside for Indy, then went to bed at about 9pm because I was exhausted from last night’s shopping. I got up at 3am this time and wondered down to meet Indy.

“Hello, are you ok?” she asked, I could see she was wearing the outfit we bought last night.

“Yep, I'm fine. What about you?” I replied.

“My lump has gone down a lot.” She smiled. I sat down next to her.

“That’s good, can I ask you a question?” I asked.

“Yeah, of course.” She yawned.

“Do you want to find out where your family is? Do you want to know if you can go and live with them and you wouldn’t have to be in a shelter anymore?” I asked wondering if she had ever thought about it - she probably had.

“Yes, but how are we going to do that?” she looked confused.

“I need you to do something. Go into the shelter and ask the person at the front desk for your details. They will most probably give them to you because they are horrible and don’t care who they give them to. Then you come and give them to me. When we are at the library we can ask to photocopy them. Then you can take them back to the shelter.” I explained.   

“What are you going to do with the photocopy?” she questioned.

“I am going to try and find out what happened to your family.” I told her.

“I was never really a family was it?” she pointed out.

“It was for a very small amount of time and you still have a Mum and Dad. Anyway are you in?” I asked.

“Yep, let’s go to the shelter.” She agreed. We walked to the shelter and she went in. I was really hoping this was going to work. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep letting her stay in that awful place. She successfully came out with her files which I think was unbelievable that they just handed them out like that; ridiculous if you wanted my opinion. We walked up to the library. It had just opened as it was 6am so we had about an hour. We approached the person at the desk.

“Please may we use the photocopier?” I smiled sweetly and asked.

“Yes, it costs 7p.” she informed me. I got the money out my pocket and photocopied the files. After doing that I suggested to Indy that she got her own library card so she can take the books to the shelter, but she didn’t know what a library card was so I explained it:

“A library card is a small square plastic card which you scan and it puts the book you want under your name. When it’s been scanned you can take the book home for two weeks and then bring it back again.”

“That’s so cool but what if you are still reading the book after two weeks?” she added.

“You come back and renew it.” I explained.

“Oh, well can I get one now?” she asked the lady at the desk.

“Yes of course, here’s the form you just have to fill it out.” She smiled.

Indy gave me the form because she couldn’t read it very well. I filled it out for her and she got her own library card. We walked around the library for a while and then found the children’s section. Indy went and flicked through books looking at the pictures.

“Do you like that one?” I wondered.

“Yes I want this one please.” She jumped up with excitement.

“Ok, choose some others then.” I instructed while looking for one myself.

“What? You can chose more than one?” she looked surprised.

“Yeah, you can choose four.” I added.

Indy looked at loads of books, not deciding which ones to choose but she got there eventually and we took the books out. I went to the cooking section and looked at recipe books.

“What do you want for dinner tomorrow?” I asked. “Choose a picture in the book.” She looked at all the pictures then chose the one on page twenty eight.

“I don’t know what it is but it looks nice.” She admitted.

“Chicken soup.” I told her and got the book out to make it for dinner tomorrow. We went outside for Indy to eat her roast dinner.

“Lily, this is really nice! What is it?” she wondered. I told her it was roast dinner and I had it every Sunday. I didn’t know the reason but that’s just what lots of people did.

“Well thank you, its yummy!” she gobbled up the dinner then we started to walk back to the jetty. When we got there we sat down just like we normally do.

“Lily…” she began. “Why did you want to help me when you met me?” That question was easy.

“I wanted to help you because when I first met you, you looked like a normal little girl. You were kind but then you told me about your parents and I felt like I was, for some reason, here to protect you. Plus when I saw the state of what you were living I just couldn’t ignore it.”

“Thank you, thank you so much.” She came and gave me a hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” I replied. We both went back home to bed, having a great morning sleep.