The Orphan's Assassin

All of us have lived in the same house our whole lives. 43 of us right now, but that number changes often when 16-year-olds graduate and new babies come. An orphanage, we’ve been told. And I believed that for the longest time. I still do, only because that’s the only thing that makes sense. People make up stories to scare people, and that doesn’t work on me anymore. Living in the same house as Brycen, I’ve learned to tell the difference, and the Orphanage being a science experiment controlled by the government is something I’ve decided goes into the crazy conspiracy pile instead of the truth.

This is my family, 43 kids all under 16 and names beginning with A-E. I share a room with four others in the group, five girls all cramped up in a tiny room, getting in sister arguments and getting in each other’s stuff. With us, it’s basically an infinite sleepover, though sometimes the girls in our room switch rooms with others so they could sleep with the ones their closer with. The ones that don’t sneak out at night, is me, Becca, Coraline, and Allison.

Dawn is supposed to go in the same room as us, but she usually likes sleeping in the same room as Evie. The two of them have been friends since they were one, basically, and haven’t grown apart since. Dawn is one year older, but we all seem to look at them like twins. Both with silky brown hair and the same smile. The only difference, Dawn’s eyes are brown vs Evie’s blue and Dawn has freckles spread across her cheeks everyone made fun of. Made fun of in a cute way, of course. She always knew we were just messing with her.

Everyone stays here until we turn 16. After that, we’re either adopted by a family or set out in the world to find our own job, house, and become a member of society, if we’re lucky. That’s what they tell us happens, but I think it’s more likely that a 16-year-old minor with no parents or stable roof would end up in the streets. Sad, but true. I’ve seen them.

Next to go out there is Becca Jones. We’ve stayed friends since five years old, but not quite the same as Dawn and Evie. She’s my big sister, the one who told me made up stories and real ones she’s heard on the news. None of us are allowed to watch the news until were 15 and old enough to understand real world politics. She told me stories of protests, elections, and less commonly the dark things that happen on the news. Woman gets shot standing up for African American friend, 25 killed, 40 injured in shooter accident, those things.

She quit telling me those things when I started showing Anxiety from them. I wanted to know, but if the leaders notice anything beyond normal for me we’ll be in worse trouble. I forced myself to break my habit of biting my nails around them, just in case they saw it as any sort of symptom. I still get updates on the less scarring political things, though. Trade wars against Russia, and even things in preparation for the new election next year in 2020. As a 14-year-old orphan, I don’t need to care about those things much. It’s not like I have a say in any of those things anyway.

None of us are allowed past the fence in the backyard. Little kids have plenty of space to run along with trees and rocks and dirt piles to climb, no it rarely concerns us. Curiosity kills me, though, as it does to most. If I was physically able to climb the fence, I would definitely get caught trying. A tall metal fence about 7ft tall with sharp wires at the top and no places to put your feet or pull yourself up past the bars. No door that I can see, either. If there is one, it has to be secret. Forcing myself not to think about it is easier than letting my mind obsess over it. If I really want to know, there’s no way that I can find out without being in trouble.

The only thing I can do is stare. Stare at the faint vertical bars miles away and think about why they’re there to begin with. What they’re keeping us protected from. Emmie unknowingly makes herself a distraction when she grabs my wrist and pulls me down from the boulder I was sitting on. Emmie is youngest of us that aren’t in the nursery, at 7 years old, giving her the ability to not get slapped when randomly grabbing me and running with my wrist in her hand. Her and most of the kids under 11 years old play in the backyard during free time when we’re not studying or eating dinner inside. Today is one of the nicest days it’s been, a good 60 degrees in April compared to 40 on a lucky day.

“Alexa, you have to play this time! You’re our fastest runner and we need someone fast to be the tagger for the first round.” She runs with me to the group of kids in the yard waiting to play. I love playing with them, mostly because it serves as a distraction from the fact I’m an orphan living in an orphanage and if no one adopts me before I’m 16 I’m probably going to die in the streets as a hobo. Having an excuse to run is good too, feeling wind push past your face and the sound of footsteps running against the grass.

“Alex, you playing?” Devan asks me, seeing the way Emmie was acting and trying to be a somewhat less childish 11-year-old. I nod to answer him, seeing a smile creep on his face. “Well then, let’s GO!” On the word go, every kid in the circle took off running in different directions, some weaving through groups of trees making it harder for me to catch them. I start in that direction, targeting a girl with long orange hair dancing behind her, Allison, one of the best tag players in the group besides me with the unfair advantage of age. She’s best known for hiding. Running so far before ducking behind a bush or climbing up a tree.

Once I’m only five feet away from her, she grabs a branch of a tree and swings herself up, moving as fast as she can through the branches. She’s only three branches up when I jump as high as I could and touch her foot and yell out. “Allison’s out!!”

Kids run faster at this message, knowing one person was out and I was in game mode. Allison would be the one to be the tagger next round, so that cleared every one of that incentive, but everyone still ran because that’s what the game is and saying you beat someone three or more years older would win serious bragging rights. A few others took the strategy of climbing in trees after getting tired, and others kept running in random directions trying to avoid me so they wouldn’t get tagged. I start off again, trying to find a new hard target while getting some of the easier ones along the way. There’s about 15 playing, and about 10 left.

After the few first people are tagged, it gets easier. The way we play it, if you’re tagged you become a tagger and the last one standing has 15 people hunting them down. After tagging two or three more, I let myself relax.

Leaning against a tree to catch my breath, I saw I was much closer to the fence than I was sitting way back there on the boulders. Still a good distance away, I could see the same metal bars clearer and imagined myself standing behind them, on the other side.

* * *

After ten minutes every kid playing crashed on the grass, trying to catch their breath. I lean against the same boulder I was sitting on before the game every began, watching all of them laugh and fall to the ground in exhaustion. It took me a moment to realize Becca behind me, doing the same thing. She usually doesn’t play the games the younger kids do every day, but it’s fun to watch. I usually do the same except for tag.

Becca is quieter than others, but not afraid to get out there. Like you and me, just not as long winded. When she does talk, there’s confidence. When she’s not outside, she’s playing card games with Carmen, Brooke, and Ellie, and sometimes me, or inside the closet with fairy lights behind her and her nose stuck in a book. In our house with 40 kids, closets are the only place with quiet privacy besides bathrooms which are often fought over. With this many kids, none of us miss privacy because it was never there to begin with. But after going out and being social for so long, the closet it our space for a small break to relax and read by ourselves.

Inside the closet there is a small pile of books stacked underneath our clothes. The same ones, The Outsiders, The Fault In Our Stars, and the first few books of the Harry Potter series and a copy of Milk and Vine. Those of us in the room who read are trying to save up money to expand the collection, but it’s hard getting 25 cents for a day of chores. We’re allowed to buy anything we want as long as it’s appropriate and we pay for it ourselves doing chores around the house. Me, Becca, and Coraline all work up to get enough money for a new book at the store when we can.

Becca got quite a few things with her money. Mostly books, along with a used Polaroid camera she had saved $25 for, really cheap compared the normal price for cameras. It wouldn’t have been worth it for months of chores for me, but she loves that camera. Collections of printed pictures were taped to the wall above her bed, pictures of the five of us in the room and others and pictures of nature outside during the day with dates written at the bottom in a blue ink pen. Allison had bought a different outfit a while ago, different from the boring white pj-like clothes we have as uniform. Nothing but white pants, and a white button up shirt. We have the option to get ones with designs as long as we pay for them ourselves and they fit the no booty shorts and no crop tops rule and they didn’t have any bad words or symbols on them. Same rule applies to everyone. The outfit Allison got was a summer outfit with blue-jean shorts and a short yellow sundress with small flower designs at the bottom that blended in with the fabric. The whole thing $13 at Goodwill, which is cheap compared to other outfits but a month and a half of chores for her.

The only thing I had ever gotten with money was a hoodie sweatshirt I got in case it got too cold winter nights or I just wanted something soft to wear. $9 at Goodwill, worth it for me. The inside was soft with a big hood at the end and a pocket in the front that could fit just about anything smaller than an average sized water bottle. Becca had never minded the white button up shirt and pants, even though it was just like everyone else’s. Somehow, she was the only that could actually pull them off. Only a few of us really put effort into getting enough money for different clothes- my sweatshirt, Allison’s summer outfit, Brycen’s dinosaur T-shirt all bought at the same cheap store. Once every few months Mrs. Valerie would take all of us who wanted to go down to get what we wanted and come back, the closest we would ever get to really going past the fence.