The next morning Sunny hopped down the stairs and into the kitchen with Sarah dragging herself behind her. Both girls stopped when they heard Carly and Leanne arguing.
"Why do I have to tutor her?" Carly asked.
"Because she needs it" Leanne responded. "I will pay you like I would pay anyone else alright?"
"No, not alright. Now I won't be able to go out with my friends"
"It is only two hours after dinner Carly." Leanne grew impatient.
"But mom" Carly whined
"No buts. You will do this. It will give you guys some time to bond or something"
"It's not like we need to. They are leaving next week right?" Carly frowned when Leanne didn't answer. "Mom. It is for one more week right?"
"I do not know yet. If everything goes well we will see. Now finish your breakfast and go get dressed" Leanne sighed.
Carly scoffed and got off her chair and stormed out of the kitchen. She passed the girls in the hallway without a glance and walked up the stairs to her room.
Sunny looked at her before taking a peek inside the kitchen where Leanne was roaming around the kitchen. The girls walked up to the isle and sat down. They took a bowl, poured cereal and began eating. They noticed that Dean had already left for work. He was rarely there in the morning because he had to wake up early but he made sure he made it early in the evening to have time with his kids and wife.
"Morning girls" Leanne smiled.
"Morning" they answered
"Are you ready for another day at school?"
"Yes" Sunny cheered as Sarah stayed quiet. "Yesterday was so much fun"
For the rest of breakfast, Sunny talked animatedly to Leanne about her wonderful day at school and all the students she met. Meanwhile Ben came down all ready to leave and sat beside Sunny. He took part of the conversation happily while eating his breakfast. He sat away from Sarah because she still made him nervous. He could feel this bad vibe leaking off her and it made him shiver. But if Sunny could be friends with her then surely Ben could do it as well.
The four kids filled the car while Leanne was fiddling with the manual stick. The driving age here was sixteen and Carly was in the middle of her course. The course takes a year to complete and spend a thousand dollars before Carly could drive without supervision. This was the new law in Quebec because the government believed that teenagers didn't know how to drive properly.
The drive to the school was silent except for Ben and Sunny who talked to each other quietly. Once the car stopped, Sunny gave her sister a kiss goodbye and ran out. Sarah was stepping out of the car when a hand on her arm stopped her. She turned around to see Leanne stretched out with a worried expression.
"Be careful" she said. Sarah rolled her eyes and nodded. Once Leanne let her go, she got out of the car and frowned at Carly who had been waiting for her. Silently, the girls made their way to the school doors.
"So" Carly said nervously. Sarah looked at her and raised an eyebrow "Tutoring from seven to nine tonight yeah?"
"Sure. Thanks"
They continued walking in silence, not knowing what to say to each other when and male voice called Carly's name. The girls turned around and saw a tall, muscular dirty blond boy coming their way. Once he arrived beside them, the boy threw his arms around a squeaking Carly in a bear hug. He put her down and kissed her deeply.
"Hey babe" he said.
"Hey Tommy" she said lovingly. They stared at each other for a while until Sarah awkwardly cleared her throat. Both heads turned her way and Carly blushed as Tommy studied the new face.
"Sorry, Tommy, this is Sarah. Mom's fostering her for a while and Sarah, this is Tommy my boyfriend"
Tommy smirked at Sarah but she only rolled her eyes. He was a typical boy. Tommy extended his hand as a greeting but received none from Sarah who only scoffed in return.
"Nice to finally meet you" Tommy said, dropping his hand. He turned his attention back to Carly and kissed her again, a little rougher. "Are you coming to the party on Saturday?"
"Yup" Carly grinned but her smile vanished a little when Ken called out.
"Tommy, come on. Let's go already" Ken shouted. Tommy hugged Carly one last time before joining his friends. Sarah raised an eyebrow at the blushing blonde.
"Please don't tell mom about the party" Carly asked Sarah.
"Whatever" Sarah sighed and started walking to her locker. "So, your boyfriend is a friend of the bully"
"Ken is Tommy's soccer captain. The boys on the team are really close to each other" Carly argued "Tommy and I have been friends since kindergarten. He is nothing like Ken" Carly turned around and walked to her locker where her friends were waiting.
"That's what they all say" Sarah murmured under her breath before opening her locker. She was looking at her schedule to figure out which books to take when someone stepped behind her and coughed.
"Well, well, well" a voice said behind her "Is it not least my favorite waitress"
Sarah banged her head on her locker door. It was too early in the morning for this to happen. She took a deep breath before turning to face the girl.
"Well, isn't it my favorite client" Sarah said sarcastically. "Missed me already?"
"Not a chance" Vivian scoffed. "I was simply coming to see how trash walked around"
Sarah chuckled darkly because she knew what was going on. Vivian had marked her as her new toy. For some reason, rich people were better at tormenting others for the sake of it and Sarah scolded herself for starting it. She only wanted to be left alone.
"What do you want?" Sarah sighed and Vivian shrugged her shoulders with a mischief smile.
"I really like your file" Vivian taunted. Sarah stiffened and her blood ran cold. "Although, I have not been able to read it all because it is so big"
"How did you get my file?" Sarah growled.
"I have my ways" Vivian winked.
"The file has many holes, darling" Sarah whispered darkly. "If you really want the juicy stuff, I might tell you the stories during one of your bonfires. I think I might make you puke"
"Now that will be the day" Vivian's smile grew.
Both girls stared, analyzing each other. The bell rang breaking their daze and Vivian looked around. "I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting semester"
Vivian waved Sarah goodbye and walked away to her class. Sarah picked her books out of her locker and slammed the door out of anger. This was a horrible way to start the day.
Sarah entered her first class of the day already tired and annoyed. It didn't help when the Goth boy decided to sit silently beside her again. Sarah didn't want another person bothering her for the rest of school so she confronted him. Sarah turned in her seat to face her surprised seatmate.
"Okay, spill it" Sarah said roughly. "Why are you following me? Are you expecting me to protect you again?"
The boy stayed silent for a few seconds debating on what to say. He slowly raised his hand up but averted his eyes to look behind her. "Hi, my name is Nimrod" he said shakenly with a heavy Spanish accent.
"Nimrod?" Sarah asked while meeting his greeting by shaking his hand. She felt a little bad of scaring the poor boy. She was not a bad person, just a confused one.
"Please call me Nim" he said quietly. "And your Sarah. You don't need to introduce yourself"
"Well Nim" Sarah said exasperated "Are you going to tell me why you get bullied. Is it because you're gay?"
"No" Nim smiled. She had a good gaydar, he thought. "Sexuality here is no issue. The problem is reputation. I was born in Guatemala but moved to Canada when I was little. Unfortunately, my father's university degree and twenty years in engineering was not enough to convince the government that he was able to work in chemical engineering and he now has to redo his University diploma. It took all our money to come here so my dad didn't have enough money to go back to school-"
"Nim, I don't need to know your life crisis, I have enough of my own to think about" Sarah said while rubbing her temples.
"Sorry, I do tend to drag on" Nim smiled apologetically "All in all; my parents are working for Ken's family; the Berkley's. My dad is the butler and my mom the gardener and I work there once in a while. They don't get paid much but we have a free roof over our heads and food on our table. High school is free in this country so it didn't cost much for me to come here"
"That sucks" Sarah said and Nim simply shrugged. It was better than living in Guatemala "So you're targeted because you have no money and your parents do not have a reputation?"
Nim opened his mouth to confirm when the teacher walked in and started class without delay. Both of them got comfortable while quietly listening to the teacher. This was not as bad as Sarah thought. Maybe she will be able to obtain a friend for the first time in a school. It was progress.
-
"What is so complicated with this problem?" Carly asked annoyed. They had been on the same math problem for half an hour and Sarah still couldn't grasp the idea. In Sarah's defence, Carly was not doing a good job at explaining. The rest of the family could feel the tension from the living room where they were playing cards while waiting. The tutorial was not going as good as Leanne had hoped but there was nothing she could do that would reduce the strain between both girls.
"Everything is complicated, that is why you're supposed to teach me how to make it un-complicated" Sarah growled.
"This is grade ten math Sarah, you should have learned this two years ago" Carly replied.
"I've been busy"
"With what? Partying? Drugs?" Carly scoffed.
"Life" Sarah was getting tired of all this negative talk. She came closer to Carly and whispered darkly in anger "And don't you ever accuse me of drugs again."
"School is a big part of anyone's life. You seem to like school so what could you possibly have done that was more important than that?"
This house was supposed to give Sarah a break from always explaining herself not always pressuring her into things she simply couldn't grasp. Sarah roughly pulled her right arm sleeve up to her elbow and showed her forearm where there were three visible scars. The first one was a long gash that went from the elbow to the wrist. The second were three small puncture wounds in a straight line equally distant from each other and the third was a burn that went around her wrist.
Sarah raised her finger and pointed to the gash and said "Knife". She then pointed to the puncture wounds "Fork" and finally pointed to the burn and said angrily "Rope. Fill the blanks"
The brown haired girl shoved her sleeved down and picked her pencil again while Carly remained speechless. She didn't know what to do or how to process the little information about the strange girl sitting beside her.
Sarah cleared her throat which broke Carly's daze. Shaking the idea out her head she gently took the sheet of paper and slowly explained the math problem with as much details as she could muster. Both girls continued to study in this weird tension. They didn't fight or complained anymore and they were behaving as if the other would have a breakdown if one of them spoke out of line.
In the living room, Leanne, Dean, Ben and Sunny were pretending playing cards but were in fact eavesdropping on the girls. They looked at each other in confusion when they couldn't hear any arguments. Ben was quite disappointed because he was rather enjoying the girls insulting each other. He once told his mother that learning as much insult as possible was good for him because he would be more knowledgeable about what not to say to others.
"What did Sarah say, Sunny?" Leanne asked the young Japanese girl "I didn't quite hear what she said that had Carly to tutor her properly"
Sunny frowned slightly. She didn't know if she was allowed to speak of their past to the Murray family. They did not have an easy life and speaking of it always reminded Sunny of the worst times; times when she wished she had died with the rest of her family. Also, Sunny was afraid that their foster family would not accept them if they knew. She was afraid they would call her freak and kick them out and Sarah would have been right. But, so far they have been nothing but helpful and understanding.
"Did you see Sarah's body without clothes?" Sunny asked delicately to Leanne who had been waiting patiently. Leanne shook her head as Dean and Ben looked at Sunny in confusion. "It's full of scars"
Everyone was quiet. They hadn't expected that for an answer. The little information had both adults concerned as to what had happened to these poor children they dragged out of the sewers but Ben saw it differently.
"Like battle scars?" Ben asked. A grin was slowly forming on his face as he imagined Sarah in a dark armor and a sword in hand fighting demons. He couldn't picture her in a shiny armor with light coming down from the sky towards her, the contrast was too big.
"What?" Sunny said confused.
"You know, in every book the hero always has battle scars to prove all the battles he has fought and lived through. The girls dig that" Ben said with fascination.
"I am far from a hero Ben" Sarah said as she walked into the room. Ben gulped at her stare bu still looked at her in awe. Sunny jumped from the sofa and ran to her sister.
"You're my hero" Sunny giggled. She knew Sarah hated tacky phrases. "Onee-san, let's make an Olaf"
"But, it's dark out" Sarah answered. It was past eight in the evening. The sun had been set four hours ago.
"We can turn the lights on" Sunny started to jump on her heels as Leanne watched them interact.
"What is going on?" she asked.
"Oh Leanne, can we please make an Olaf?" Sunny hopped to the older woman. Leanne was surprised by the energy and couldn't find the strength to say no.
"Sure, let me just ask Dean to get the work lights out of the shed. Are you sure it is not too cold?"
"It's perfect. Every time snow like this fell out of the sky, me and Sarah would build a snowman" Sunny grinned "Of course they were small because we had no gloves to cover our hands most of the time"
Leanne raised her eyebrows and looked at Sarah who simply shrugged. She found it interesting that the girls could speak of such things like not owning gloves as if it was the most normal thing to say. Those were the moments Leanne was at loss of words, which was not often, because she had no idea how to respond.
Together, the girls went to get ready as Leanne looked at Dean. Dean raised an eyebrow which was matched by his wife which became a staring contest until Dean gave in, as he usually did, and walked to the garage.
Once the lights were on in the backyard and both Sarah and Sunny were well dressed for a cold, snowy January night, the girls started to push snow around. Sunny was twirling around laughing while Sarah began building.
One by one, the Murray's ended up by the windows to stare at the odd children plying in their backyard. The Murray's were a busy family who barely had time to do an activity together. They were so busy with their own lives that sometimes they forgot about enjoying the company of their own family.
"Can we join them?" Ben asked. He looked to his parents who were snuggling on each other's arms by the window. Carly also stared at her parents pleadingly. The girls outside simply looked like they were having so much fun.
"Fine" Dean rolled his eyes and received cheers from the rest of his family. They knew that Dean was the least comfortable fostering these kids and did not want to him to feel unheard. But Dean was not a cruel man. He knew what this moment meant for all of them, including the two outside. They all got warmly dressed and stepped into their backyard.
"You guys came" Sunny cheered and hugged Ben who was closest to her.
"Well, we didn't want you girls to have all the fun" Dean said to her. "So kid, how big do you want this Oalf?"
"Dad" Carly whined "It's Olaf"
"Sure, sure" Dean playfully waved a dismissive hand towards her and bent his knees so that Sunny was higher than him. "How big do you want this Olaf to be?"
"Humungous" Sunny grinned happily.
"Humungous it is" Dean straightened up and started to speak with a pirate voice "Leanne, fetch me ladd'r. We'll make this Olaf of ye's so big, ye ain't gonna see its nose"
"Dad, that's a horrible accent" Carly laughed and walked towards Sarah who had stood up. "Mind if we give a hand"
Sarah smiled. She knew this was a way for Carly to apologise for her behavior during tutoring and she was also ready to get along with her.
"Sure, with the size it's going to be, we are going to need all the help we can get"
For the rest of the night, the Murray family, along with their additional two, spent their time building a giant snowman. Dean looked at each of them enjoying their evening and thought that perhaps, Sarah and Sunny were not going to be a problem after all. It felt as if Sunny already belonged in the family and he knew that Sarah trusted Leanne. As long as the older girl trusted his beautiful wife and could one day open up to her then he was glad he could help these children. Children should never be mistreated and Dean felt something in his heart warm up to know that he could help save two of them who had not had a good life.