Forgiving Isn’t Easy
- Why did Becky care so much? -
Rachael sat in the courtyard of the orphanage staring blankly at a group of five year olds playing tag. She leaned back on the bench and inspected her casts. Both of them were large and uncomfortable. She wanted nothing more then to rip them off and chuck them in the bin, but of course she had to restrain herself. When Ms. Marshall told the head of the orphanage, Mrs. Ramben, what the girls had done, Rachael was hoping so much that they would end up writing lines or scrubbing the cafeteria or some horrible punishment Rachael had been told to do whenever she did something wrong.
But to her complete shock...well not so much shock but... you get the picture... all Mrs. Ramben told them to do wasn’t to do that again. Rachael was so enraged she wanted to scream that every time those two did something wrong all they were told to do wasn’t to do it again. Why did she always end up getting to do the dirty work?
Ms. Marshall must have known what was going through her mind because she immediately took Rachael out of the room. Ever since she got back from school she realised she actually needed a personal instructor to keep her from doing something stupid. Otherwise she probably wouldn’t get to go back to school. If she hadn’t had a personal instructor to keep her in check she might’ve transfigured the three of them into slugs or something by now... oh how tempting the thought was.
Wonder if Remus got my letter, she thought as she gazed up at the blue sky and watched a sparrow fly overhead. She hoped her mother hadn’t gotten to it before Remus. If she did then there was no way Remus would ever see it. She would bet all of the gold in Gringotts that if her mum got to it before Remus, the letter would be somewhere drifting in the breeze in fifty pieces. She now wondered why she had bothered writing at all. She couldn’t guarantee Remus would get the letter at all. She was sure his eyes would never see it. Well they might see the envelope at least....
“Why are you out here by yourself?” said a voice from behind. She ignored it; no one was going to ask her that question. She looked down at the group of kids playing tag. One of them had tripped over another kid’s outstretched foot and fell into some mud. She watched as the other kids around him laughed. She felt a sudden surge of sympathy for the boy in the mud. “Rachael?” said the voice again.
Rachael jerked up and spun around. Behind her was one of the only kids in the orphanage who was nice to her, Brittany Becker. She was standing behind her, fixing her brown hair.
“Just thinking,” Rachael answered truthfully. But she wasn’t willing to discuss what she was thinking about... even more so when Brittany asked. “Nothing... just stuff.”
“What happened?” Brittany asked looking down at Rachael’s broken wrists.
“My roommate that’s what,” she answered bitterly.
Brittany made a face of disgust; she knew how horrible Becky was. Then again... who didn’t know? “Well what’d she do?”
Rachael launched into the tale of how she was doing her homework and went to go put it away when she discovered, painfully, that it was missing. So she made hard contact with the floor and resulted in a trip to the infirmary. Brittany listened, a look of revulsion on her face the entire time. She disliked Becky just as much as Rachael did... and you can imagine how much she didn’t like her then. Being that she knew Becky a lot longer.
“I never liked that girl,” she said grimly. “I remember when she first came here.”
“When was that?”
“Oh... around seven years ago I guess... She was five I think...” She launched into a tale about how her mother’s house was set on fire when she was a child and when the firemen came in to get everyone out they never found her mother. It seemed she was in the bathroom on the first floor and thought she was safe. Her mother perished in the fire. Becky was on the second floor and the fire never made it all the way up there so she was saved, along with all of her belongings.
She hadn’t any other family. Her father had died a few months after she was born and she had no grandparents living on the continent that she knew of so she was sent to the orphanage.
When she got there everyone felt sorry for her, losing her mother in such a way. But they all soon learned that feeling sorry for this person was something you simply couldn’t do. Even as a five year old she was pure evil, always shooting her mouth off and causing havoc. But she never got in trouble for it. No one could understand why Mrs. Ramben could take pity on such an undeserving child. That was something that always remained a mystery...
“Honestly though, when she was five she knew enough to make the lunch in the cafeteria explode!”
Rachael laughed. It reminded her of the time in Potions when Snape made their potion explode and he was covered in blue goop. “I can imagine...” she said, still grinning. “How long’ve you been here anyway?” She knew it wasn’t such a good question to ask, but she was curious.
“Since I was born, I think,” she answered, not looking the faintest bit bothered by the question. “My parents abandoned me so some police found me and brought me here... been here all my life.”
“Your parents just left you? That’s terrible.”
“I suppose, but I’m not really bothered about it. If my parents could abandon their child, they couldn’t have been nice people anyway.”
“I guess.”
“How come you came here?”
Rachael was startled at first, but knew she should have been expecting it, and it was only right for her to tell, with vagueness of course. “My mum disowned me,” she said simply, trying her best to look as though it didn’t bother her as much as it did... and it bothered her a lot.
“Why?”
“Because me and my twin brother were in an accident.”
“You have a twin.” Rachael nodded. “What’s his name?”
“Remus. Anyway... we were in an accident and I got blamed for it.”
“How come she blamed you? Did you even know what happened?”
“No I ran into a tree. My mum just doesn’t have the best of patience and understanding I guess... She overacted and sent me here.”
“Speaking of your mother,” came a voice from behind Rachael and Brittany.
They turned around to see Ms. Marshall approaching them, clutching a parchment envelope. “She sent you this.”
She handed Rachael the envelope and marched back towards the building while Rachael tore (very carefully) the letter open.
Dear my good for nothing so-called “daughter”
What have I told you about sending Remus letters? Don’t you realise we want nothing to do with you? Hasn’t that penetrated your thick skull? So STOP RIGHT NOW! I want no association with you and you should know that by now!
So STOP SENDING HIM LETTERS RIGHT NOW!
Your alleged mother.
Rachael glared at the letter for a mere second before crumpling it up in her fist, jumping off the bench and running inside. Brittany, who had been reading over Rachael’s shoulder, didn’t even try and stop her; she knew Rachael had to be alone. Rachael ran through the double doors, down a long corridor, up a flight of stairs and into her room. She climbed up the ladder (which had been found in the utility closet) and buried her face in her pillow.
I hate her! she thought resentfully. I hate her! I hate that woman! Why did she blame me? Why? I didn’t even do anything! I hate her!
She heard the door to her room open, but she didn’t even bother to look down, seeing her roommate would not make her feel any better. But Becky didn’t even seem to notice Rachael was in the room. She sat down on her bed after going to the closet and taking out her book bag and started doing her summer work. Rachael listened to the scratching of her roommate’s pencil as she tried to forget about her mum’s letter, but she knew she couldn’t. Why did her mother hate her so much? It wasn’t her fault! It wasn’t her fault they were in the forest! Remus had suggested it! He was the one who want to go in there! Not her! She even tried talking Remus out of it... but he didn’t listen to her! He was the one to blame!
No, she told herself. No, I can’t blame Remus for this... he didn’t know Mum would do this. She sniffed and wiped her eyes on her pillow.
The scratching of the pencil stopped. Becky stood up and climbed the ladder. “What’s your problem?” she asked harshly.
“None of your business,” Rachael snarled.
“Come on really, what’s wrong?”
Rachael rolled over and gestured towards the crumpled letter next to her. Becky picked up the letter, unfolded it, and smoothed it out on Rachael’s bed. She read it in a matter of a half of a minute and Rachael wasn’t even sure why she could possibly want to read it. Becky and Rachael were worst enemies after all. When Becky had finished reading she let out a low whistle.
“Wow that’s mean,” she said.
“Yeah, I know that!” Why did Becky care so much? For what she was like she should have been agreeing with the letter, not saying it was mean! Becky wasn’t the person who would actually point out that someone was that mean!
“No need to get angry at me, I was just saying it was mean,” said Becky, defending herself.
“Yeah well... since when do you care how someone treats me? You don’t treat me any better than my stupid mum does!”
“You shouldn’t talk about your mother like that.”
“Since when are you one to lecture someone else about how to treat someone? You treat me like dirt and you can tell me how to treat someone who hates for something I never did!”
“Yeah, well, she is your mother.”
“She’s no mother of mine... As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather have Ms. Marshall as my mother than this woman! She hates me and I can’t say I like her more than she likes me!”
“You know you don’t believe that...”
“How do you know what I believe?”
“Because you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Where do you get off preaching?”
“Look... I know I’m always mean to you, but just because I’m mean don’t mean that I don’t know you. You wouldn’t say that! You love your mother even if she doesn’t love you back.”
Rachael didn’t answer. Becky was right. Even though she always said she hated her mother, she didn’t. She was just frustrated, she wanted her mother to love her as she used to. When she used to treat her like a daughter and not a criminal... when she loved her and Remus equally....
“I do... its just... I want my mum to love me like she used to... before she thought I wasn’t anything but a criminal.”
“Why does she think you’re a criminal?”
“It’s not something I’d discuss with the person who took the ladder off my bed.”
“I’m sorry!”
“How do I know? You might just go and pull again and make my wrists snap off this time.”
Becky frowned. She had never realised what she did was wrong. She thought it was fun. “Look I’m really sorry... I know I’ve been horrible to you and I’m sorry.”
“Like I can believe that.”
“I am! I really am sorry... I was being an idiot!”
“Yeah, you were.”
Becky sighed... this wasn’t going to be easy... not easy at all. “Listen... I am sorry; the letter your mother wrote made me realise that... that you don’t need more people making your life miserable... I really am sorry.”
Rachael wasn’t sure to believe her or not. This was this person who caused her pain and torment for four years. It wasn’t easy to forgive someone like that. But... there was just something about the way Becky had said sorry that made it sound like she meant it.
“Can you just tell me?” Becky asked hopefully.
“Fine... it was four years ago... Me and my twin brother were coming home from getting groceries for my mum; we took a short cut through the woods. We’d been walking for a while and kept hearing growling sounds following us. We tried getting out as fast as we could, then we found a...a... wolf. It started chasing us. My brother got caught behind but told me to keep running; I was so stupid for listening. I ran into a tree, the wolf got him. It...it... well it hurt him really bad.
“When my mum found out she went crazy, she blamed me even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, I never knew what happened. No matter how many times me and my brother told her she would listen. She talked my dad into disowning me and bringing me here.”
Becky was silent after listening. So this was the reason why Rachael was the way she was. She had a no good mother who could do something as horrible as disowning her child for something she had no control over.
“Rachael... I really am sorry.”