Hana Dow and the Dreamcatcher's Bow

Chapter Two: Hana and the Rat

Ten years passed since the day Hana appeared on the front porch of Dorothy's House For The Young. In those ten years there were leaky roofs, a tree that crashed into the living room, and children coming and going day after year and year after year. But Hana, however, never saw a single family that didn't find something odd about her. In fact, not a single child Mrs. Ringer ever looked after was ever as odd as Hana was.

She couldn't even describe the events, but they almost always happened whenever a family was expecting to adopt the little girl. She wasn't sure how, and most certainly wasn't sure why, but Hana had to have been the source of the oddness. Once, a family that seemed to come from the wealthy side of town seemed interested, but the woman ran right out of the house with her voluminous blonde hair up in flames. That day, Hana sat alone in the parlor drawing, not wanting to talk about what happened.

The truth is, Hana didn't know how it happened. She just knew that when she first met that nasty woman all she could think of was how hot-headed she was and then all of a sudden the lady's hair caught on fire. She was just as shocked as they were, and a little scared when it happened. She just didn't want to look poor Mrs. Ringer in the eyes and try to explain something that didn't make sense to her. None of this made any sense to her.

Hana woke one morning in May to the sound of Ms. Brookes's shrill voice. "Up and at'em! Up and at'em! You've all got a busy day!"

Every day is a busy day, Hana thought to herself.

All the children, boys and girls, had chores to do, which changed every day according to Ms. Brookes's Chore Chart. Everyday, the children had to look at the chart to see what chores they had for the day and get to it before starting their lessons. The lessons, taught by Ms. Brookes, started just after lunch at 1:30 and went on and on until 4:30 and they had homework.

Hana wasn't exceptionally good at the lessons, she preferred looking out the window at paying attention to the birds or the clouds in the sky, or drawing pictures of things she'd see in her dreams. Ms. Brookes often had to snap her into attention, which Hana didn't like because Ms. Brookes could be very rude when she did so. After lessons, Hana liked to go into the parlor and start drawing or reading, often alone.

After being woken by Ms. Brookes once more, she and the eight other girls in her room filed out and began getting ready for the day. There were only three bathrooms - two were the best and the biggest, but one was a small and gross one. All the children, some of which were from five-years-old to about fourteen years, made a race to the best two and whoever was too slow would only be able to get the last one. Hana was a bit too slow this morning.

After taking her shower and brushing her teeth, Hana returned to her room and got dressed in her mustard yellow shirt and burgundy overalls, and tied her black, coil hair into pigtails that stuck up. She looked down at the dreamcatcher that hung from her bedside table's handle and smiled. She nodded to herself. Today was going to be a lovely day, she said to herself. She turned and skipped out of the room and down the stairs into the kitchen.

Most of the kids had already finished their breakfast and headed out to begin their chores. Ms. Brookes turned to Hana, a sneering frown perpetually on her face, and pulled out a wet plate from the rack next to the sink. "Hana."

Hana smiled big. "Hello Ms. Brookes."

"You're late to breakfast," she said as she slapped a heap of grits onto the plate "again." She then picked up three links of sausage that looked hard as stone and placed them on top of the grits.

"Well yeah, guess I just didn't get to the shower in time."

Ms. Brookes grunted as she took a slice of burnt toast and put it beside the grits and handed the plate to Hana. When Hana took it, she pulled out a wet spoon from the rack and handed it to Hana.