Runaways

  Despite her reserved facade, Raven wasn't all that different from the rest of us. She had lived with her real family, her mother's brother, for a while after her mother had been arrested for a drug related crime and put into rehabilitation. We didn't know the nittygritty details, but something happened and Raven was brought here. All she would tell us was her uncle and aunt were not fit parents, especially her uncle. She did tell me that whatever had happened at her uncle and aunt's home involved her cousin, Jennifer. I wanted Raven to trust me enough to explain what had happened, but it seemed like Raven had trouble trusting anyone, even Crystal, Butterfly and me.

  Raven's situation was really a lot more complicated than ours because Raven had a natural blood parent out there, somewhere, and the state made it almost impossible to adopt a child if there was even the slightest possibility she or he could be returned to that parent.

  Crystal was the only one who really had a good experience with foster parents. She didn't speak about them very much, but when she did talk about them, she described Thelma's obsession with her soap operas and Karl's obsession with being efficient and organized. She told us he was an accountant and saw life as a balance between assets and liabilities. He often lectured her about being sensible. She said her adoptive parents were pleasant enough people, but from the way she spoke of them, I think she believed they were both living in a fantasy world. When they were both killed in an automobile accident, none of the relatives wanted to take her in, which resulted in her being returned to the system.

  So here we were, the four of us, the

  Orphanteers, so different from each other, and yet, drawn to each other, feeling safer in our own little group, each of us adding something that we all needed, each of us willing to risk pain and

  unhappiness to protect the other or the group. Just looking at us, no one would think we had anything special to hold us together.

  I usually wore dungarees and a tee shirt or old sweat shirt I had sneakers and one pair of dressy shoes, but I favored my clodhoppers, as Raven called them, with sweat socks. I always wore the pink ribbon my real mother had tied in my hair before I had been given over to foster care. Of course, it was quite faded by now. I just tied it on my wrist. I hardly ever wore lipstick or makeup and used a stick deodorant rather than a cologne, when I even cared. Raven always wore a skirt or a dress.

  Crystal wore simple one-piece dresses, and kept her dark brown hair either in a bun or sometimes in a ponytail. She would wear lipstick rarely, much less any makeup. She could walk around with an ink stain on her chin all day because she rarely looked at herself in the mirror.

  Butterfly had much of the clothing she had when she lived with the Delorices, dainty little dresses, multicolored sneakers, a nice pink leather jacket. It was as if her growth had been stunted by her unhappiness. She hadn't grown out of much. She kept her golden hair in curls and only wore lipstick when Raven helped her with makeup.

  Despite our four individual personalities, we did have something special, something we knew the other girls coveted. Maybe it was just the "Joining." Maybe there was some spiritual tie. At least we had something to believe in: each other.

  Despite the episode with Butterfly, we were dressed and on our way down to the dining room in plenty of time. The Lakewood House was physically a perfect dormitory for two dozen or so foster children. Very little had been changed since its resort days. There was still a large sitting or recreational room where there once were card tables used for board games, dominos, card games or a game none of us had ever heard of before, something called mah-jongg. Louise said it had been the most popular game the tourist women played. She showed us the pieces, all with Asian writing on them, but warned us never to touch them. She explained that she and Gordon were just waiting for the right time to sell them as valuable antiques.

  Most of the house was antique, or just plain old. The stairway we took down to the dining room shook and squeaked. The pipes groaned like arthritic old people, windows froze in their grooves, even in the summer, and very often, electrical fixtures didn't work. Gordon hated doing any maintenance, and usually waited until it was absolutely necessary. He didn't replace a step that had cracked badly on the stairway, for instance, even though it was dangerous, until he knew someone was coming from the state to inspect the premises. If something broke in our rooms, or if there were plumbing problems, he blamed it on one of us and let it remain broken for as long as he could.

  Early on we noticed Louise was almost as afraid of Gordon as we were. If she ever contradicted him in front of us, he would just glare at 'her, his face crimson, his eyes glowing like embers in a fireplace, his neck muscles straining so hard, the arteries and veins would pop out, and his two large hands tightened into mallets. He was unusually strong. When he felt like showing off, he would permit the children to watch him chop down a tree. He did it with an ax, never pausing from the beginning until the tree actually began to topple. Chunks would fly around him like pale yellow moths; the tree seemed like it was made of paper. These demonstrations of power were indelibly pressed into the minds of the children. Woe to those who were the target of Gordon's fury.

  And yet, whenever there were guests or state officials at the house, Gordon metamorphosed into a soft, smiling, gentle giant of a man who could walk around with a seven-year-old on his shoulders, loving, caring, protective. To see someone with such obvious physical power behave so gently was heartwarming to the visitors. Once, he caught me staring with disgust at him while he was putting on one of these Academy Award performances. He glanced my way and then he turned back to me, fixing his gaze on me with such a cold, bone- chilling look, I had to walk away quickly, my chest vibrating with the hammerlike thumping of my heart. I avoided him for days after that and finally he seemed to forget about me.

  None of the wards seemed of any real interest to him He him our names and he knew which children to use when he wanted to demonstrate his concern and care in front of state people, but he usually left the real parenting work to Louise. She was the true administrator of the Lakewood House; he was more like a work boss,

  However, Gordon was always after her to keep some distance between herself and the wards. He would complain about it, out loud, right in front of us.

  "You're getting too involved with that one, Louise. I warned you."

  Afterward, she explained that she and Gordon had been specifically instructed not to get too close with or form any sort of bond with a foster child. The logic was we were here only temporarily and soon were going back to our real parents or off to new adoptive families, and no one wanted any of us to feel sad about leaving or resent our new homes. What a joke. Who would resent leaving this? For my part, I was happy Gordon kept some distance and happy he was always after her to do the same.

  Sometimes, she looked at us as if we really all were her children. Childless, she regretted losing any one of us. A real mother couldn't be more possessive at times, but warm affection around here was like contraband. She had to look for Gordon first and be sure he wasn't around before she planted a kiss on a child's forehead or held someone close to her ample bosom.

  Louise wasn't the only one who tried to make us feel like a family here. A sweet elderly lady who insisted we all call her Grandma Kelly prepared our meals each day and always had kind words or a smile for us. Grandma Kelly lived in the nearby village of Mountaindale and had actually worked for the Tooey family when the Lakewood House was still a tourist retreat. She was only about five feet three with a round face that always had scarlet tinted cheeks, especially when she worked over a hot stove. She had soft eyes as blue as blue jay feathers. Her hair was the color of pewter and even more curly than Butterfly's, but she always wore a cap when she was in the kitchen. She told us she hadn't been brought to America until she was nearly twelve. To this day she still had an Irish brogue. Crystal said she reminded her of a leprechaun.

  "It would be great if Grandma Kelly really was a leprechaun and led us to treasure so we could get out
of here," I said.

  Of course, Crystal didn't believe in such fairy tales, but we all liked to think that there was a pot of gold out there for us.

  We joked about what Grandma Kelly would have made for breakfast that morning as we walked down to the dining room and while we stood in line waiting for our meals Crystal told us she planned on spending the day at the library, using their computer.

  Crystal's dream was to become a doctor, and she told us she'd been researching information on getting college scholarships. She claimed that anything we wanted to learn about could be found on the Internet.

  "What about my future?" I asked.

  "As I told you before, there are statistics about foster children. Every year about fifteen thousand graduate from foster care by turning eighteen with no permanent family, and forty percent of all foster children leaving the system end up on welfare."

  "Thanks for the encouragement," I muttered. "Miss Good News."

  "You Mild get married," Raven said. "That's what I'm going to do as soon as I find someone rich enough."

  "Why should he marry you?" I asked.

  "Because I'm the prettiest girl he'll know," she replied, turning her shoulder and fluttering those long, black eyelashes. "And I'm the next Selena who will make one hit song after another, that's why." Butterfly laughed and Raven hugged her. "Someone loves me," she said. "Butterfly will be a famous dancer too, Crystal, so put that into your stupid statistics."

  "I hate to disappoint or discourage you, but it's pretty hard to make it in the entertainment industry," Crystal joked back. "And look what happened to Selena!"

  Raven stuck out her tongue as she turned to take Butterfly's hand. "C'mon Butterfly, let's get our food and let Crystal be grumpy by herself. She just doesn't know how to believe. We can be anything, as long as we believe." Raven's words sounded brave, but I knew that they were mostly for Butterfly's benefit; she was still shaking from this morning's episode.

  As we waited in line for our food we surveyed the dining room.

  Along the walls were the old photographs of the Lakewood House's bygone days, group pictures of guests gathered at the lake or around the lawn chairs. In most of the pictures, the people were dressed formally, men in jackets and ties, women in anklelength dresses with high collars and frilly sleeves, all with pale faces, and all looking years and years older than they really were. There were many photos of families because the Lakewood House catered to families. The foster children now living here looked at these pictures closely, usually with soft, dreamy smiles on their faces, imagining themselves as part of one of those families, hugging their mother, holding their father's hand, standing close to their brothers and sisters, having a name.

  It did look like the Lakewood House was a pretty, happy place once, full of laughter and music. According to Grandma Kelly, the guests sat on the big wraparound porch and talked into the wee hours while the crickets chirped and the owls peered through the moonlit night, curious about the murmur of voices, the sound of screen doors, the cry of a child. Sometimes, although I would never say it, even to one of the Orphanteers, I thought I heard the ghostly laughter and even the quick steps of happy children running through the house, out the screen door and down the steps to play on the carpeted green lawns, safe, happy and full of hope.

  Maybe someday we would run out of this house to a place full of safety, happiness and hope.

  The din of conversation, clanking dishes and silverware, laughter and screeching that greeted us this morning was a hundred decibels louder than on weekdays. School-age children knew they had two days off and except for the final afternoon hours of Sunday, could put school work aside. On nice days, we could play softball or go down to the dilapidated, cracked and crumbling tennis court and volley or play doubles after our chores. Raven and I were the house champions and I was always the captain of the softball team. Louise permitted the older kids to have a picnic lunch if they took a few of the younger ones with them and watched over them. She trusted the four of us with more children than any of the other older children.

  Often Gordon would find work for us, however. We painted the house, cut grass, collected leaves or washed windows. Inside, we washed floors, helped with dishes, dusted and vacuumed. We were told this was our home so we had to take care of it ourselves.

  "You'll appreciate our home more," Louise explained to soften the blow of Gordon's assignments.

  "You don't have to justify anything I tell them to do. They should work for what they get," Gordon blasted at her before turning to us, his eyes fixed like two laser beams. "I don't ever want to hear

  complaints."

  Chores were rotated. None of us four had to do kitchen work this weekend. We stepped into the dining room, a long, wide room with the biggest windows and the only windows that had new blinds because this was where the state people were entertained when they came. We saw Meg Callaway running the food line. A few long tables were placed together at the other end of the room and all of us walked by, filling our plates. Meg was fifteen, tall and gangly, with braces that looked like car bumpers on her teeth. Crystal said she could be the daughter of Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow. She read the description of him that said he had a neck so long and a nose so long, he looked like someone had perched a weather vane on his shoulders.

  Meg was always trying to get in with us, be one of us, but whatever chemistry existed among us didn't exist in her. She was sneaky and conniving and full of so much jealousy and envy that Raven said her eyes had to be green no matter what. She was always whispering and trying to turn one of us against the other. She spread rumors like fertilizer in a garden hoping to grow conflicts and make herself look like everyone's hero. No one really liked her, but many were afraid if they didn't pretend to be friendly, they would be the object of some mischief. Twice last week, I had caught her taking stuff from younger kids.

  "Here comes Goldilocks and the three bears," she quipped as we approached the food table. She studied Butterfly a moment and then her lips thinned and hinged at the corners to form her icy smile. "Why was Goldilocks crying now? Someone pour glue into her dancing shoes?"

  "Come outside after breakfast and I'll show you why she was crying," I said. Her smile quickly evaporated. She turned to one of the ten-year-olds assisting her.

  "Get more toast, I told you," she said and avoided looking at me.

  We took our food to our table.

  "Why is it these rolls are so hard?" I muttered. Crystal finished her orange juice and signaled with her eyes so the four of us drew closer.

  "I overheard a conversation between Grandma Kelly and Gordon yesterday when I was working on the computer. Grandma was complaining that he was buying two-day-old bread because it's cheaper. She said she knew he was not buying the best grades of meat too. He denied it and told her to mind her own business. She said the food was her business and he said maybe she should think about retirement."

  "The creep," Raven said, her eyes fiery.

  "I don't want Grandma Kelly to retire," Butterfly said mournfully. She almost always looked down quickly after she spoke as if she were afraid of what reactions her words would create in listeners. Her foster mother had to have been a tyrant.

  "Don't worry, she's not," I told her. "Doesn't anyone check on him, check on how he uses the money than supposed to be spent for us?" I asked Crystal.

  She shrugged and thought a moment.

  "Bills are doctored, I suppose, or deals are made under the table with suppliers."

  "We oughta turn him in," I said. The four of us were still crouched over our trays, whispering. It felt like a conspiracy.

  "If we didn't put our names on the complaints, he would accuse Grandma of doing it now that she has complained to him," Crystal pointed out. "And I don't think any of us want to sign anything against Gordon Tooey."

  As if on cue, Gordon entered the dining room. Almost immediately, the din diminished. He panned the room as if he were looking for an intruder, his dark eyes just narrow slits
, his big hands on his hips. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his bulging forearms. On his right arm was a tattoo of a shark, something he had gotten when he had been in the navy.

  "I don't expect to see no lollygagin' about today. Right after breakfast, everyone get to his or her assignments pronto. We got an inspection in a week and I want this place looking tip-top."

  I wanted to shout out "Then burn it down and start over," but I just looked at my food. Louise came bustling in behind him, full of smiles. She was somewhere in her fifties, a five-foot-ten brunette with shoulder-length hair. I thought her best feature was her startling cerulean blue eyes. She had a way of looking at you, but clicking on and off you as she spoke so that you never felt you had her full attention. It was as if she really was afraid of what Gordon told her, afraid that if she looked too hard or long at one of the state's wards, she might form a deeper relationship and suffer if and when the ward was adopted.

  "Good morning, everyone," she cried, looking more at the ceiling than at us. She turned toward the windows. "Isn't it a glorious day? Let's all do our work quickly and efficiently so we can have time to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. You know, children, years ago, people came to these mountains to recuperate from lung ailments like tuberculosis and that's because we have the best fresh air. You're all lucky to be living here," she declared, slapping her hands together before she went to a table to help some of the younger kids.

  "She has syrup in her veins instead of blood," I murmured. "I can't imagine them making love. They look like oil and water. She probably keeps her eyes closed the whole time and holds her breath until it's over."

  Raven laughed so loud she drew Gordon's gaze for a moment. All of us dropped our eyes to our plates. When we looked up again, he was marching out. There was a collective sigh of relief.

  "Welcome to another joyful weekend of slave labor at Hell House," I said, loud enough for the kids at the next table to hear. Some laughed, others checked the doorway to be sure Gordon was gone.