Six Years After

As the light beamed through my blinds, my eyes slowly fluttered open. The smell of rain and mist blew gently through the open crack in my window. The sky seemed to be completely covered in grey clouds, without even a glimpse of the sun. As I sat up and stretched, the smell of eggs, burnt toast, and bacon filled my bedroom. I really didn't want to get up that morning, but I knew eventually someone would burst into my room and pull me out of bed by my ear or my hair. I lived in a house with six other girls, and a cranky, skinny, older woman. She was our assigned caretaker. The seven of us were being taught to be proper, to be successful, to "know our place in the world." Every girl was assigned to a house and caretaker on her twelfth birthday, and the boys were assigned a house and a mentor. But each boy got their own mentor, even though the boys lived in a house together. Instead of it being six boys to a house, it was eight. They were running low on space and had to make their groups bigger.

We, boys and girls, were in these lessons until our respective mentors or caretakers saw us fit to be a part of the real world. This could be months or years. So once Miss Jennings, our caretaker, sees one of us as ready, she'll send us to get paired up with one of the boys who was also graduating from his lessons. That boy would then become our husband. Yeah, they make us marry right out of completion of these teachings. I've been dreading it for about six years. I'm not the slowest girl of the seven of us. I had just turned eighteen, and I was so ready to get out of this hell house. At that point, I'd rather be married than be stuck with Miss Jennings for a whole 'nother year. The best part was we had our own rooms.

I looked at my clock and realized the alarm was about to go off. When Miss Jennings hears our alarms go off, she comes into our rooms and inspects it for tidiness. If it isn't the way it's supposed to be, she throws all of our things to the floor and we have to do it again. We always had to wait until she was done with inspecting to get dressed. She had to give us permission. I climbed out of bed as quickly as I could, immediately making up my bed and straightening up my room. I grabbed my ugly long grayish-blue dress that went down to my ankles from the closet and laid it out nicely over my bed. It had a weird dark grey band around the waist, and the sleeves were long and frilly. We had to wear this every day unless told otherwise. If you saw one of the girls wearing a formal dress with short sleeves, you knew she was graduating.

As soon as I finished, my alarm went off. Once it silenced, Miss Jennings' heels could be heard from down the long corridor. I stood there by my bed, facing the door, with my hands behind my back and my legs together. She threw my door open, and immediately looked around my room. Miss Jennings kept her grey hair up in a tight bun, and wore a long, thin green dress with a purple belt around the waist, and black heels. Her brown eyes were thin, and her skin wrinkled around her eyes and her cheeks. She seemed pleased with my room and nodded.

'Very good,' She said hoarsely as another alarm went off. 'You may get dressed.'

After I changed, I brushed out my hair and put it up into a braided bun -- as we were taught to -- and slipped on my old grey shoes and tied on a white apron. I continued to my bathroom -- we all had one in our rooms -- and brushed my teeth and applied light mascara. I left my room, shutting the lights off and leaving the door open, and headed towards the kitchen/dining hall. I was relieved to see I wasn't the last person there. I took my normal seat at the long dining table with the four other girls; Jenny Sheridan, Kim Lavan, Casey Tallow, and Penny Rose. The two other girls in the house were Violet Leann and Belle Greenwood. Violet always had to redo her bedroom in the mornings. We each took a day to cook. Today was Violet's day to cook, and she was the best at it out of everyone. She placed a mug in front of all of our seats at the table and poured all of us some coffee. We weren't allowed to consume anything until after nine-thirty. I checked the clock on the wall; it read nine-forty. The five of us picked up our mugs and slowly sipped our coffee. Just as we set down our mugs, Belle came scurrying in with Miss Jennings trailing after her.