Chapter 35
I walked slowly towards the Wreck Room, with Squid's arm circling my waist. As we crossed the silent dirt road a loud whirring noise erupted through it. I turned my head and saw a huge delivery van roll into the camp. I gave a puzzled look to Squid who gave me the same expression. We both changed direction and walked towards it. Two guys in baggy t-shirts and dusty overalls stepped out of the driver’s section of the truck. One walked to the back of the vehicle, whilst the other walked over with a clipboard to Jenkins who had had come out of his new office. The other campers came out and joined us looking at what was inside the back of the truck. The man with the clipboard whispered to Jenkins’ ear and pointed at different places at the clipboard. I noted that the other man started unloading cardboard boxes. As clipboard man pulled away and took out a pen from his back pocket, Jenkins stared at me.
“Why is he staring at us like that?” Charlie appeared from behind me with Zigzag hugging her from behind. Jenkins turned and took the clipboard and pen from the sweaty truck man and walked towards us. As he came forwards he confronted Charlie, Zigzag pulled away quickly and pretended to be spontaneously interested in the boxes with the other half of the camp. I stood next to Charlie.
“Miss Charlotte, may we have a word?” he said, his voice hushed. She nodded confused and glanced at the clipboard. “There seemed, um, do you want to go somewhere private? This might be bad…” He looked at me and the other crowd.
“No, I hardly think it’s going to be that bad.” She retorted head held high.
“Are you sure?” He asked.
“Yeah, yeah it’s okay.” She dismissed the question with a wave of her hand.
“Well, okay.” He flipped one of the pieces of paper on the clipboard and scanned the page. His eyes flicked up and looked at her for a second then looked down again. He cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry Charlotte, but your family has disowned you…” I gasped and moved closer next to Charlie and gripped her arm. The camp went silent. Her face was frozen, unemotional. I expected her to burst out into tears in front of the silent camp. But…no. She slowly turned away from Jenkins and faced me.
“Kat?”
“Yeah?” I flinched; she was making a face that I knew would go down badly. Situations according to family always made this face full of rage. Squinting eyes, pressed lips curved into a frown, skin slowly turning red.
“What the fuck…” She hissed. I backed away. She swiveled towards Jenkins, who looked terrified, and snatched the clipboard from him. She pulled it towards her face and glared at it, flicking through the pages with wild eyes. I backed all the way towards Squid. Charlie smashed the clipboard on the ground and held her hand out towards Jenkins motioning for the pen. He shuffled near and placed the pen in her palm then quickly backed away again. She was looking quite scary. Charlie got the clipboard and flicked it to the last page. She scribbled something down in several places then shot her gaze at me.
“Kat!” Charlie barked. I jumped.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I’m living with you now!” She shouted then stormed off, quickly followed by Zigzag. Jenkins came up to me.
“That’s all her stuff…” He pointed at the stack of boxes. I blinked at them. He glanced at the direction where Charlie went. “Make sure she’s okay.” He pressed a white envelope into my hand. “Give this to her, its from her parents.”
“Okay.” I was thinking about my own "parents" and how I wished to never hear from them again. I imagined if they disowned me…
"What's on your mind, baby?" Squid asked in his really cute southern drawl as we walked into the Wreck Room. We sat down next to Ziggy on the couch. I was surprised that he wasn’t with Charlie. I twisted my hair into a braid, pretending to ignore Squid’s question. He obviously could tell when something was wrong with me. I shook my head and put my head on his chest. He leaned down to whisper something in my ear. "You're thinking about your parents then." I nodded.
"Yep." Just then X-Ray handed me a letter. It was one of those God damn ‘speak of the devil and they shall appear’ situations. Except, obviously the people who called themselves my parents weren't there, and instead of their appearance, it was a letter. Squid looked at it, shook his head, and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"You don't have to open it if you don't want to."
"I think I better. I mean, what is the worst they could say? It’s probably not as bad as what’s in this letter." I flapped the white envelope addressed to ‘Charlotte’ in cursive writing. Of course, I knew they could say a lot about me in the stupid thing. But, I could say worse things about them. I opened the letter.