The Fire Chronicles: Book 1: The Gift Of the Fire

Chapter 2: You Don't Belong

Sophie found her seat, the neat name tag taped to it, and sat down. She watched as kids entered the classroom and sat down, talking and laughing with friends. Feeling oddly detached, like she didn't even exist, searched through her backpack for something to do. Her hands found a little sketchbook that she had found in Gabriella's room. The pages were wrinkled with age and it was only half finished. 

A girl sat down heavily in the desk beside Sophie. "God," she said rolling her eyes. "Why can't I sit next to my friends?" she complained, leading back dramatically in her chair. 

Sophie's shoulders tensed. She quickly turned away from the girl and continued thumbing through the pages of the old book. 

"I mean you," she continued, looking directly at Sophie. "Couldn't she have put you next to Bobby? Why me?"

Bobby was a small weasel-like boy who always had his finger crammed up his nose and didn't seem to care that people noticed. This was a little unfair, Sophie thought, the girl-- Annemarie, if Sophie had recalled correctly-- hadn't even tried to be friends with Sophie before offering that. Was that how people saw her-- like Bobby? 

Miss Brown stood at the front of the room and clapped for attention, "Hello everybody!" she said as if talking to a room of toddlers. "My name is Miss Brown!" she pointed to her name spelt out neatly in chalk on the board. "Let me tell you a little about the rules and expectation of my class..." 

Attention running short, Sophie found a blank page and did her best to iron out the wrinkles with her palm. Sophie finished her drawing, an image of Lancy her stuffed bear. Proud of it, she admired it for a second before turning the page, but when she tried to turn the page, it had lit on fire. Small but noticeable. Sophie's hands searched in her backpack for the water bottle and she poured it on the book, doing her best to make it look like a spill and stuffing the book back in her bag. 

"Good lord, girl!" Miss Brown exclaimed swooping over to Sophie, her tight brown bun wobbling atop her head lightly. "You ought to be careful. Go get paper towels right now and clean yourself off. Hurry, I have things planned today!"

Sophie stood up and hurried out the door quickly, glad for an excuse to leave. She made her way down the hall and found the girl's bathroom quickly. She pressed herself into a corner of the room and held her hands out in front of her. There was a burn on the tip of her index finger and thumb on her left hand, where she had touched the paper. How could the paper have caught fire? 

Sophie shut her eyes and when she opened them, she recoiled in surprise. There was a  ball of flames in the centre of her palm. It was small and flickered wildly, but it was fire. Sophie closed her hand and the flames dissipated into the air. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her breath light and shallow and mind reeling. She shook her head, swallowing against her dry throat and grabbed as many paper towels as she could, hurrying back to class. Luckily, the paper towels did not combust. 

When the last bell rang for the day, Sophie met back up with Fern and her brothers and began their walk home. Fern and the twins spoke about their day with occasional bickering, but Sophie remained silent. 

Sophie sat in the living room with her two stuffed animals, playing restaurant with them and some paper food Fern had helped her draw. Fern was curled up on the couch watching the window, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Sophie looked up when she heard tires crunching on the gravel driveway. 

The door swung open and Frank stumbled past them, collapsing in the armchair and taking a swig of his brandy.  "What the hell..." he hiccupped, "are you looking at, Bitch?" he snarled at Sophie. 

She turned away from him.

"Is that sass?" he snarled, sitting forward. 

"leave her alone, she's not doing anything," Fern murmured. 

"I think she's being a little bitch on purpose. Little Bitch!" he shouted suddenly, making both Sophie and Fern jump. "Look at me!" 

Though frightened eyes, her emerald eyes met his dull grey ones. I hate you, she wanted to spit in his face, I hate you and I wish you would fall off a cliff. She didn't though. 

Frank crouched down beside her and took her stuffed bunny. "Where did you get this?" 

"It was Fern's," she said quietly.

"Where did Fern get it?" his voice was poisonous. 

"Mum."

"You think that woman was your mother? Do you think that bloody woman you murdered was your mother, you dumb bitch?" He slapped her across the face with the back of his hand. "You don't belong here. You're not my daughter, found in a bloody hospital. You should have stayed there! But no Gabriella needed to take in more than I could afford and look where she is... Dead." He tore the rabbit's head from its body and Sophie gave a piercing scream and wail of anger. Frank stood, throwing stuffing at her as he dismembered her friend. 

"STOP!" she wailed, her nails digging into her scalp as she screamed and pleaded. "Stop it!"

"Stop screaming," he demanded, slamming a large fist into her stomach and arms. 

Fern began to wail and Max and Gabe burst in the room from the back garden outside. 

"Get the hell out of my drawing room, now! The lot of ya! I'm sick of all of yer faces."

Sophie pressed Lancy to her chest and bolted for the stairs. As she ran, Max scooped her up and all four of them sat in Sophie and Fern's room. Max retrieved a wet wash-cloth from the bathroom and had her hold it up to the side of her face bleeding from a small cut. 

"Did he hurt you anywhere else?" Max asked, brushing stringy strands of hair from her tear soaked face. 

"He killed Sherbert!" she wailed. "He threw her guts at me and everything! Why'd he have to kill her, Max?" she sobbed into his chest as he held her. 

"He's sick, that's why," Gabe snarled. 

"Please stop!" Fern begged, clapping her hands over her ears.

"But it's true, Fern and you know that."

"But he's still our father. he's just drunk."

"he does it when he's sober too."

"No! Stop... please..." 

Gabe fell silent and plopped down on the desk chair that groaned under his weight. 

They stayed in Sophie and Fern's room for hours until an apologetic voice called up to them, "kids... I wanna talk to you."

They only exchanged dark looks and then Frank said angerly, "Come on, you lot. Get down here!"

They moved as if pulled by a trance and descended the stairs, they sat on the last steps and Frank looked at them all except Sophie, "you know I love you. What you saw today... that's won't happen again. I'll be better. How about we go get some ice cream. You could use a bit of cheering up I figure." 

They were all hesitant about getting in the car with him as they could still smell the scotch on his breath. they entered the ice cream shop and held Sophie's hand in his, her cut, bruised cheek hidden in the shadow his large body. "What do you want my sweet girl?" he asked. 

Sophie didn't answer and Frank smiled gently at the teen boy whose face was littered with acne behind the counter. "She's shy. She'll take a small cup of vanilla." Fern and the twins ordered their's and they sat down. Sophie didn't touch her food and kept her head pressed against the cold window. 

"How was school today my loves?" he sounded sincere. He was such a liar. Sophie wanted to spit in his face. "Did anything cool happen?" 

Fern looked down at her spoon and said, "well, my friend got a new puppy over the summer holiday."

"Oh yeah?"