Sunlight filtered through the window and all was silent except the sound of birdsong.
I wish.
Sunlight crashed through through the window, illuminating everything in sight, engraving its fiery presence into my eyelids so it hurt. I groaned as I ground the sleep out of my eyes. In the hallway there was the typical yelling and smashing and poundings on the door from the other kids and Aunt and Uncle.
"Get up! Everyone get up and get out! Today is another blessing from the Lord!" Aunt hollered, stabbing the already decrepit bedroom doors in our hallway with her umbrella - she felt it was necessary to have it with her constantly.
I blinked, rolled the duvet out from under my armpits and stared up at the ceiling solemnly. Time for another day in heaven. My brain hurt at the thought of another routine day; get up, walk to school with Ari while she talks about cars or something, sit through lessons and the teacher's' patronizing explanations, walk home, get yelled at, do chores and barely eat. Plus I had extra chores to look forward to. Knowing my luck I will probably be scraping leaves out of the gutter this afternoon.
I surveyed my room as I stretched and got out of bed. Sometimes I do a headcount of all my stuff because of all the stealing that goes on. Not that I really have anything nice enough to steal. I had an old Mickey Mouse alarm clock from my 8th birthday - three weeks after I arrived here, when Aunt and Uncle were sucking up to me and the social workers "caring" for me - a crooked, red old structure that sat lonely on my bedside table. It was 6.27. We were deprived of morning showers; apparently it was a waste of water. So I got dressed in the thrift-store clothes I had reluctantly grown accustomed to, assuring myself that they were 'vintage'. My wardrobe was mostly bare apart from fuzzy old jumpers and anoraks ranging in all sorts of unfortunate colors; bright orange to lime green to dark maroon. None of them suited me, although I was pretty sure nothing would suit me really. I picked out the least offensive khaki anorak and some blue denim jeans, bootleg, thank God. Some girls here only own flares from the 70's. I am strangely comforted by the fact that I'm not the only unfashionable 15 year old on the planet.
The dining room was packed with kids, ages ranging from toddlers to teenagers, all craning around the table for expired milk and cornflakes, pushing each other out of the way and savagely grabbing the food like it was gold. I stood, frazzled at seeing such a violent scene so early in the morning, then shrugged it off and headed out the door. Aunt and Uncle honestly would not care if I didn't have breakfast.
I pulled the strap of my bag tighter around my neck, peering suspiciously out into the street because we were kind of situated in one of those bad neighborhoods. Cautiously, I crossed the road, the cobblestone crunching underneath my sneakers.
"Ruby! Ruby, why'd you hang up?" My head snapped to the left, stricken. "For God's sake, you look like you've seen a ghost," Ari laughed. Her thin blonde hair flapped around her as she quickened her step which soon became simultaneous with mine. Her red pimples were particularly red today in contrast to her pale skin, which was almost blue in the cold. I could relate. I shivered and pulled my sleeves over my freezing fingers.
"Sorry, just tired," I murmured. "Why are you up so early?"
"Wanted to see you," Ari said vaguely, turning her head the other way. I thought she was lying. She said, "You hung up on me."
I said, "Yes."
"You were mad."
"Cleverly observed."
"Hey, I'm just trying to talk to you," Ari snapped, sounding irritated, which only made me angrier because I was meant to be the one who was irritated. She should be begging for forgiveness, not me.
"I needed your help and you didn't give it to me."
"Then stop being so dependent on me! You said you'd hold your own, maybe you should!" she said angrily, her closely trimmed eyebrows twisting downwards in a scornful frown, highlighting her dull brown eyes. She walked quickly away from me. I sighed. I knew she was right.
So I walked alone and the wind blew in my face - regardless of the annoying sun, it was still cold. The air started to get darker, streets became unfamiliar but I was too distracted thinking about how I was going to apologize to Ari. My collar flew up around my neck, a scratchy material that irritated me to no end. I stopped to adjust it, pulling the strap of my bag over my head when I heard someone cough loudly, and then a dark figure shuffled out from behind a huge metal bin. I froze. The first thing I thought of was Oscar the Grouch. The second thing was, I'm going to get mugged. The dirty figure stepped towards me, and I began to see long, bedraggled black hair with bleach blonde streaks, black boots with laces that looked far too big for their owner, being a short girl with dark features, a pale face and a heavy brown leather jacket. She had soot stains on her face and around her eyes.
I stuttered, dropped my folder, picked it up, stuttered some more, and I said, "Hi."
She said, "Hey. What brings you here?" She coughed into her elbow.
"Here? But I'm..." I looked around, and realised I'd wandered into a side street absent-mindedly. "Oh. Here."
She raised her eyebrows and nodded. She didn't seem angry. She seemed friendly. She grinned at my speechlessness, and said, "I'm Calypso. Who're you?"
"Ruby," I said, feeling relieved she wasn't mad at me for invading her space or whatever. "Do you live here?"
She shook her head, spraying dry curls in every direction. "Nah. Going to the city. London."
"You live in the city?"
"Not yet." She had a funny kind of accent, going from the Southern twang that they have in the U.S to British chav.
"Where do you live now?"
"Been stayin' over there for a while," she said, nodding at a discarded old mattress mostly concealed by tall trash cans and their filth congealing inside them. It was not the most pleasant sleeping quarters, and I could see why she had vivid dark circles under her eyes. "But I'm not staying for long. Gonna go to London and find myself a flat and all that," she said, nodding her head determinedly. Her eyes drifted off as she thought about this. She seemed deluded to me. Who would rent out a flat to someone as raggedy and dirty as her?
"Is that right? Do you have a family?" She couldn't possibly be homeless. Could she? She looked no older than me.
"No."
"Friends?"
Her eyes lit up. "Yep! I've got heaps of friends, everywhere I go I'm making friends. I'll be sad to leave these ones when I go, but you know what they say, c'est la vie." She pronounced it wrong, like rhyming with chest, but I didn't say so.
"So you've been staying here alone?"
"No, I said, I've got friends. Leo, Aaradhna, Sadie..." she said, counting on her fingers now. As she listed multiple weird and exotic names I examined the environment. Turning away from her, I saw the alley was indeed strewn with clothing and pillows and dirty Chinese food cartons.
"Oh," I said quietly.
"But they're not coming with me. I asked 'em, and they say the city's a rough place. But not for me. I'm going to make it big time. You'll see my name, Calypso, in bright lights above stages and theatres. You'll see. I'm leavin' tomorrow, and I'll find my destiny." She looked at me, up and down. "You look like you could find your own destiny, too. I hope you do. We're friends now, aren't we Ruby?" she concluded brightly.
I hesitated. "Yes, I guess so."
"See? Making new friends every day. Too bad our friendship was so short. Bye, Ruby." She grinned, a couple teeth missing, and retreated into the darkness of the alley.
I had never met a homeless person before, much less a teenage girl. I'd seen many bearded men sitting with cardboard signs against shops and glaring at people who walked by, pretending they didn't see them. On the off chance that me and Ari have a day out in town, she'll march right past them without giving it a second thought. When I brought it up once she said, "They could get welfare checks if they wanted. They could get a job if they wanted. They're just lazy and pathetic," she explained with a sassy flick of her hair. "I don't feel sorry for them at all," was her final remark, and we continued walking.
I wonder what she'd say now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The bell rang, but I didn't need to worry about being late. I had been seated in homeroom for almost 45 minutes, leaning my cheek on my tightly curled fist, sitting upright when the teacher barged in, so red in the face his glasses had steamed up. Mad about something, as usual. I drifted off into the space reserved for only when I could do nothing else but think. Today, I thought about how it was once a good thing to be me. Maria would tell me fairy stories beside my bed, my warm bed topped with an expensive fluffy blanket that could only be found in arty boutiques. When I had a pinata for my birthday and accidently swung the bat into my father's stomach, to which he laughed heartily while straining for breath. When I would ride my scooter down Woodson Street and imagine all the things families might be up to in those wealthy looking, well-to-do mansions that Maria depised. When Dad finally bought us a Playstation 2, after much begging, and all I could do for the next three weeks was gape at Crash Bandicoot bounding through obstacles at the press of a button.
I thought; what if I could do that again? What if I could have another family, to once again experience those average, happy events I had once cherished that were now only thought of as a faraway memory?
But I couldn't. I slumped in my seat and leaned my head on my shoulder. Many of the other students were adopting the same posture, clicking their pens or chucking notes at each other while Mr Hudson complained about his financial problems and how the principal was ripping him off. Finally, the bell rang and he grudgingly let us file out into the corridor.
I considered what Calypso had told me; that strange, eerie girl so determined to find her place in the world when she had probably grown up in a cardboard box her whole life. I was facsinated. I wanted to know how she could maintain a positive outlook when her future looked decidedly bleak. But maybe she was onto a winner with the idea of fame. I hear people are more and more interested in sob stories from divorced couples or poor families. Calypso could be the ultimate success story - homeless girl in alleyway to flashy starlet raising charity money for homeless kids.
And could I? Sure, I wasn't homeless, but orphaned to some extent. Not that I ever wanted to be famous. I had always fancied becoming an architect. When I first got to the foster home, I dreamed I would build my own cottage and live in it with only the company of woodland creatures.
But now I wasn't so sure I wanted to be alone.
I sit alone in every class. Ari is only in three of them, and while she gives over her silent treatment in the second, I feel strangely absent from the conversation, like I am just living through the routine until I get back to the home, the home, not my home, and go to sleep and start over tomorrow. I don't want it to be like that. I want to change.