The Noble Ladies' Orphanage

Chapter 21

The peasant girls finished helping Cook and still had a few minutes before dinner. "Let's go explore the city a little," Karolina said.

"We only have a few minutes," Zdenka said, putting away the polishing cloth.

"That's okay. We'll just walk up and down the street a little." Zdenka and the other two looked skeptical. "I could just go by myself," Karolina said. She hopped down from the stool where she'd been sitting and headed for the front door. Zdenka shrugged her shoulders at the other two, and soon all three were out in the street.

Karolina liked the pace of the city. People walked faster here than they did at home. It seemed like they had important places to get to, and she wondered where they were going and why they were going there.

She ran up the steps of a church on the corner, peeked in, and was shooed away by a nun. She bumped into a boy carrying a load of clean laundry on his back. "Karolina, be careful," one of the other peasant girls said. "You're going to get us in trouble."

Karolina slowed her feet down. They felt heavy and awkward in these shoes she'd been given at the orphanage.

Here and there, people stopped and pointed at the four girls in their matching dresses and matching shoes. "Orphans," they said. "They go to the new school."

Across the street Karolina saw something she'd never seen before. A man sat in a chair that had wheels at the bottoms of each leg. A younger man stood behind the chair and pushed it with handles that extended out behind the chair. Karolina gasped.

She crossed the street and spoke to the man, "Excuse me, Sir," she said. "This chair is marvelous. May I ask where you got it?"

"My son made it for me," the man said. He pointed at the young man behind him.

"You made this?" Karolina asked the young man.

He nodded.

"I would love to get one of these for my father," Karolina said. "How much would you charge to make another one?"

The young man rubbed his short beard with one of his hands and, "Forty crowns should do it."

"Forty crowns," Karolina repeated. She'd never be able to earn so much. "Thank you," she said. She ran a thin finger along the smooth wooden arm of the chair. "It's really beautiful. You're lucky to have such a fine son," she said to the man in the chair.

He laid a firm hand on her shoulder and said, "And your father's lucky to have such a fine daughter."

"Would you really make my father a chair like this if I bring you forty crowns?" Karolina asked.

"Yes. Just come find me," the man's son said. "My name is Adam, and I live on Zámečnická Street."

"Adam on Zámečnická Street," Karolina repeated.

She nodded and watched as the man was wheeled away down the cobblestone street. She continued on.

Turning a corner, Karolina stopped in her tracks. She saw Marcus holding a bucket of oats for his pony to eat while Jan gently placed eggs in a customer's basket and counted the coins dropped in his hands. The other peasant girls stopped, too, when Karolina stopped. Zdenka bumped right into her.

"Do you know them?" Zdenka asked, squinting and pointing to Marcus and Jan. Just then Marcus looked up and saw the four girls. At first he just glanced at them and looked back to his pony, but then his head shot back up and he made eye contact with Karolina. He set the bucket down on the ground and walked quickly toward Karolina.

Karolina turned around and darted through the crowd. The other girls didn't realize she'd gone until Marcus reached them.

"Was that Karolina Duffala?" Marcus asked the girls.