The Knight is Still Young

Chapter 13

It was still another week before Michael let Ashley return to school and when she did she found out that everyone had been worried about her even Miss Avery. When they found out she was coming back they threw her a surprise welcome back party.

'Are you alright? What happened to you?' Chloe asked concerned. Devon had told her not to tell anyone what had really happened so she had to make something up.

'I was riding my bike and I fell off and rolled down the side of a rocky hill.' She shrugged.

'Ouch, I'm glad you're back though, we all missed you. Right everyone?'

'Yeah!' They cheered.

However when recess and lunch came she was sad as she had to sit on a bench and watch as the rest of the kids ran around without her. She soon became bored without her friends who were all either doing extra co curricula activities or in the toilet and despite being told not to use her comlink at school she decided to call KITT anyway, just to talk to him.

'Hey KITT.' She sighed.

'Hello Ashley, you know you really shouldn't be talking to me while you're at school.' The AI reminded her.

'I know, but I'm alone and I wanted someone to talk to.'

'I see, now Michael wouldn't like me doing this, but... What would you like to talk about?'

'Um... What's happening over there?'

'Well Bonnie thinks she might have tracked down the Chameleon and Michael is preparing to catch him, oh dear he's coming. I'm sorry Ashley, but I can't talk anymore, goodbye.'

'Bye KITT.' She said dejectedly.

Now she really was alone, her school friends were to busy to hang out with her, her teachers wee to busy for her to ask questions, she couldn't talk to Michael, Bonnie or Devon and now even KITT couldn't talk her. So she sat there staring out across the oval watching the other kids in the class until the bell went and lunch finished. Afterwards they had English next and they were talking about making sure that all sentences have a capital letter at the start and a full stop at the end. She tried to listen and ask good questions like she had before the accident, but the teacher just ignored her and paid attention to the other kids. Defeated she gave up and just sat staring at her book with all of her perfect sentences, each with perfect gramma (or at least as perfect as a nine year old could get it) and the edition of question marks where they were appropriate.

That after once school had finished she went to the car park and was surprised to see that Michael and KITT weren't in the car park waiting for her. She looked carefully at all the cars in the car park, but no where could she see her favourite black t-top. Thinking that they were probably just late she decided to wait and she stood watching as her classmates met their parents by the car and they hugged and talked about what had happened. She saw as they other young girls cuddled their mothers tightly, smiling and laughing in their arms and others doing the same to their fathers and she snapped. She got up and hobbled back into the school just to get away from the site.

She was angry, her life had been miserable from the start; born to a mother that couldn't keep her and a father that didn't even know she existed. Then given to an orphanage where she was mostly ignored in favour of kids that were sure to be adopted before being given to people who were more interested in their own self-image than caring for her. Now she had a father who said he cared about her and yet he was almost always to busy and she still had no mother. No mother to look after her while her father was busy, no mother to read her bedtime stories or tuck her in to bed.

She kicked her bag with her bad leg and cried out, both in pain and in frustration, then she sat on a bench and waited. Every minute felt like an hour as she waited on the bench and stared around the now empty courtyard, even the teachers had gone home, but she waited all the same.