Telling Chapter One

Chapter One1

Memory2

She couldn’t escape the memories.3

The little girl sat in the middle of the small living room. She did not look up from the face of her sleeping sister; she only breathed through her mouth so not to smell anything of the house. She didn’t listen anymore, she just waited. They thought she didn’t know them or herself. They were wrong.4

“Can’t she hear us?” A guilty tone from the female being led into the house.5

“Of course not.” The girl’s father was quick to assure, and in his mind he was truthful, for he no longer paid any attention to what went on around him. “The girl can’t hear anything; she just sits there and watches the other. She does not know herself. The other is too young to know anything. Their mother is sleeping, and wouldn’t care should she be awake. Relax, my love, all is well this night.”6

The little girl did not respond in the slightest to the words she heard; her dull grey eyes staying blank; emotionless holes to a soul of the same color. She was not very old, but yet her mind was older than her father’s, battered to maturity.7

When the young woman left, the father came in to look over the little girl. Still she didn’t respond to anything around her, grubby fingers methodically running over the temple of the two year old in her lap.8

“You are a stupid girl!” The man hissed, taking the child’s arm to pull her to small feet. “Let the babe sleep! You have better things to see to.” With that warning he shoved her to the equally small kitchen that was covered in a layer of grim no one wanted to identify. He didn’t eat or cook in the room anymore, he never had. Sense his wife had taken ill after losing her fifth child; he had given the chore to the oldest kid, who didn’t know how to cook either. As a result the three children that had survived their first months learned how to survive on what their father didn’t finish with his beer.9

The oldest, the little girl, who stood only to her father’s waste protected the others. Like all the others she knew, her father was a violent drunk, and like many, she saved the other children from him by taking all his anger. She didn’t even know her age; she had been neglected so long. Her name was Samantha Pin. She wouldn’t know that for years to come.10

She put up no resistance to his pushing, never looking up to meet his eyes, didn’t walk any faster or slower than that he propelled her. She went to the kitchen gladly, for she was tired of looking at the pitiful sight of her starved siblings. She took the stool from the side of the kitchen island, carefully and silently moving the clutter from it before she moved it in front of the sink and climbed up to fuss with the faucet till a slow drizzle spattered obediently out onto the old pans that were covered in strange colored fur layers. She took the scrubber from where she had put it last, wet it the best she could, and started pressing it in circles to the pans under her small hands.11

She woke up on the kitchen floor, years later, and with a quick look around started to go about cleaning the blood from the floor. It was her own blood, which the pain in her head identified with sadly. The kitchen was clean; or at least the equivalent to, once the blood was cleaned. Samantha moved to the sink to rinse out the cloth and scrubber. The utensils couldn’t be thrown away as they would have to last for years more.12

She didn’t move a muscle when she heard him come in from behind. He was with the girl again, who he had been showing off sense Samantha’s mother died. The new woman was thinking about leaving, had been sense he had raised his hand to her. She wouldn’t last much longer, and Samantha wished her luck in the running. Whenever any of the kids ran, it was only a matter of time before they were caught and beaten all the harder for making him chase. Samantha just hoped the woman had a plan before she ran.13

He hit her in the back. A solid punch that made her gasp and then fall to the ground limply. He then kicked her hard in the stomach. Samantha looked up and saw that he wasn’t mad. Lately the beatings were just casual, working off negative energy, as he couldn’t do at the new job he had. It was a good job, by their standards, and paid great. He was moving up in the world, but that meant that he couldn’t hit the kids publicly, couldn’t get into bar fights or smack coworkers. He had to take his anger out when he got home, and by that time it was cooled, so the kids just got icy hatred.14

She didn’t fight back, and didn’t make any sound as he took all his pent up emotion from the day out on her. She would have to go to school tomorrow, where they ran and played, sung and laughed, and pretend to be normal. She wouldn’t fool anyone. They all knew what and who she was. She grew up with these people; they all knew her father, most of their mothers and sisters having slept with him. Good looking, her father was a stud. A stud she would have to get away from soon. She saw it in his eyes now, as he kicked her. He liked her submissive form too much; she would have to get out of here soon, before he hurt her in other ways.15

“We’re moving.” was a nightmare. Samantha stood in front of her new class room, with new class mates, and knew, only her, that she would never belong. They didn’t know her, but she knew, and she knew she would never be like them. The teacher asked her to introduce herself in class, but still she stood there mute. She hadn’t talked in such a long time, hadn’t seen all these pretty colors. Her father was right, they were moving up in the world, and moving onto ground where she didn’t belong. She was still as low as dirt, and everyone would know it soon enough. She heard every whisper, saw every look, as she stood staring at the room full of fancy dressed children. They saw her in her dirty jeans and her father’s old sweater. They all saw that she was different.16

Later that day they were all reading and Samantha sat there silent, staring down at the pretty white pages with the black symbols on it. She didn’t know how to read, when every other kid here obviously did. She sat there silent, and promised herself she would take the book home, and she would read it till she understood every word. She wouldn’t be different for long; she would know what the others did.17

Math class; and Samantha was lost. The teacher had called on her, and Samantha had just sat there staring blankly at the man, until he grew impatient and called on someone else with their hand raised and waving.18

She was in over her head.19

She was shoved to the floor without ceremony, and her shirt grabbed from behind, ripped off. She didn’t cry out, even though it had taken her a week of babysitting to earn the money to buy the shirt. She just lay there holding the fabric to her shirt as her father took off his belt and swung it so the buckle hit her. She wanted to die, but refused to let the tears fall. She memorized the pattern of the tiny tiles under her cheek and tried to ignore the pain. He was getting better; he didn’t let the marks show on her face or hands anymore. He was sneaky, so only her torso was harmed. She could even wear a one piece in gym class, and no one suspected a thing. She was getting numb to the pain and deaf to the insults. It was all a routine now; she didn’t even care anymore.20

She stared at the boys blankly as she listened to the insults hurled at her. They didn’t think she understood them, and those who did felt safe with the fact that she would never retaliate. She just sat there at her desk that was against the wall, watching them; waiting for the teacher to waddle back in. Under her hands sat the pen and the perfectly written sentences, waiting to turn into the teacher.21

There were three boys turned around as if talking casually to her. Directly in front of her, diagonal across the aisle cluttered with bags and garbage, and right beside. Unless she got up and moved, she was trapped. She just watched them, silent and angry, not responding as they would never raise a hand to her on school grounds.22

“Some say that you finally reacted to one guy. Guy says he got you under him.” His smile was dark. “Said, he did, that you got mean when excited, punched him in the face when you screamed in pleasure.23

Samantha was hard pressed not to show any signs that she wanted to laugh at that. Guy Summers had attacked her yesterday afternoon, frustrated that she didn’t respond to his taunts. She hadn’t moved a muscle until he took a hold of her hair, pulling her back. He then raised his free hand to hit her. It was a usual action; though the kids here were very well dressed they had a bad habit of hitting each other. Boys wrestled in the school yard, fought over girls, attacked for little things like not offering a cigarette. Girls fought over boys, insults, and for some times reasons that they wouldn’t ever admit. Tussles were normal and looked forward to. Hitting was friendly too, a sign of affection, same with hitting was slapping and pushing. An excuse of touching in affection or in frustration, no one seemed to take it as anything more, and never took it to heart, that Samantha had seen. There was a difference with her though, as all hitting she had experienced in life had hurt, and usually left her with marks that ached for a long time.24

Samantha had turned to Guy Summers. Her reaction and attention to him had startled the boy. Samantha rarely let her eyes go from blank to any emotion, so as she looked at him with obvious angry snapping in her eyes he was surprised. Samantha had then stopped all further attacks he would ever make on her. She decked him. One well placed fist to just under his eye, that made her hand sting painfully, and he had fallen, dazed as Samantha walked away.25

Apparently Guy had told his buddies at the game locker room a different story. She didn’t really care. The boy could save his pride, he and she knew what had really happened, and he wouldn’t attempt the same thing again.26

“You ain’t gonna deny it?” The boy Samantha knew didn’t believe the story asked with a snicker. He lived two house down from her, and when she had came home yesterday he was there in his back yard when she passed through the forest to push her friendly on his way past her.27

Samantha continued to just stare, and her patients paid off as the walrus of a teacher finally lumbered his way in. Oversized and bald, he sweated a lot and had a handkerchief in his hand at all times so he could dab his wrinkled forehead. Samantha didn’t understand what he was so nervous about, none of the kids talked back to him as they did other teachers. He was the most respected man in the school building. Not even the principle got as much positive responses from the kids.28

“Alright, you brats.” Was his usual greeting to the class, and today was no different. “If you did your homework, bring it out and set it on your desks so I can collect them.” He said and gave a look directly to the girl in front, who never had her homework. Today was as usual, as she gave him a defiant look as she sat back in her seat, long legs sticking out from under her desk and she pursed her lips.29

While no one was looking Samantha’s grey eyes snapped fire as she glared her wish of death to the three boys in front of her. In just her anger the heart in her chest started to pound like a war drum, fast and furious as she imagined pain pouring into the three boys. She thought of long horrible deaths for all of them. Her heart rushed fever hot blood through her body as she made hateful plans she would never accomplice. She started to breath faster, though silent. Sweat pebbled on her pale forehead, the tips of her fingers pressed just slightly on the desk, making them white.30

Samantha sat in the peach room of the man in charge of relocating her. Her father was dead, she had no other relatives. She was not well liked in her school, and police were unnerved by her silent treatment. She didn’t show any sign of pain. Samantha had spoken though, to demand in a soft voice that her sisters were not separated from her. They had ignored her, and so she had not answered any of their questions.31

How could she explain it anyway? Her father had been of perfect health when he suddenly died. At work he had suddenly swore more colorfully then any of his coworkers had heard before, grabbing his head and stomach, then fell to the floor dead.32

The police had their list of suspects, naturally. The woman that lived with Samantha’s family. A woman at work that came forward to say she had being seeing him as well. And Samantha herself, as she was the closest relative.33

Still, with no proof to go off of, they were forced by services to get her into a home. The young girl needed a family and would for some years now. They were trying to find a lost birth certificate. It seemed no one knew for sure just how old any of the dead man’s kids were.34