“Quiet! This way. Come along! Martha, Evie, Milly, Hannah,” the figure in black counted off names on a list, making a mental note, before coming to “Hope?” who wasn’t there. “Hope? Girls, have you seen Hope?” None of them had. All fifteen girls silently shook their heads, glancing around anxiously, and slightly excitedly, although if you asked them, they were only worried for their fellow classmate, definitely not a little excited at the prospect she might have disappeared. The girl called Hope was, in fact, rather lost. She’d wandered into a little side tunnel, and was now sat, against the tunnel wall, feeling sorry for herself. It hadn’t occurred to her at all to cry for help, so there she was, all alone. Just her luck, she had thought miserably. Things like this were always happening to her. On that trip to the Natural History Museum, for example, she’d had wandered off again and was found by a security guard, curled up underneath a blue whale skeleton. She’d received an awful telling off, just like she supposed she would this time. The fear of punishment was perhaps the reason why, when the thought to shout for help did pop into her mind, she pushed it away. For a seven-year-old, she was rather clever. Clever enough to weigh out the odds of her survival in her mind, at least.
“I suppose they’re all a dreadfully long way away now,” she murmured to herself. “Bother.” It was from being constantly fussed over by the older girls, as the most obliging ‘baby’ at the orphanage, that she’d learnt to articulate her thoughts so well. And have thoughts in accordance with what many considered to be “very high-level thinking, for a seven-year-old” in the first place. “So there’s no point in shouting for help. But I’ll not survive long in here, either. Oh, what a bind I am in.” (yet another phrase she’d picked up from her ‘siblings’ back home.) “So there is only really one course of action, I suppose. I’ll find my own way out.” Despite her intelligence, Hope was still only seven years old and had not the logic of an older child, so instead of working out how she could retrace her steps, she decided to wander around until she found her way out.
After a few hours, she felt her stomach begin to rumble. “I suppose the others will be having their snacks around now.” Each of the youngsters had been given a snack to keep them from complaining, and indeed Hope was right. While she had been mulling over her situation, the other children, accompanied by the two teachers, had walked quite a way more, before stopping to eat. None of them had thought to ask where they were going, or why, even as they were ushered into the tunnel and told to keep quiet. Hope, of course, had considered these questions but kept her mouth shut, sensing that she would only be reprimanded for her impertinence. But now she really was hungry and despite her resolutions to save the little supplies she had, her stomach coerced her mind into giving in.
Here we leave Hope, for now, just sat down to eat and wondering about the small party of her fellows, and what will become of her. This is not my usual writing style, in case you were wondering, I don’t normally like to let the narrator interact with the reader, or provide information in that forthright manner. Let me know how you found it in the comments. Thank you! (Part 2 will be released soon)
Ink x
Just A Girl in Ink 