[Yes, posting in two halves
did work. Thank you, Jenny! *hugs* And it was a
smashing idea!]
Chapter 20
Carmelita trudged along the grounds through the snow as she headed for the gray building where the classrooms were located. Suddenly, she felt something sharp strike the back of her head painfully, and she spun around to see Warren Mitchell and Lisa Logan, along with three or four other children who Carmelita recognized.
Walter was standing in front of the group, clicking together two large stones— he had already used the third to hit Carmelita with —and smiling cruelly in her direction. “Well, well, well,” Walter said in a tone that matched his smile, “if it isn’t Carmella Spats, Prufrock Prep’s very own cakesniffing sixth-grade baby. Where do you think
you’re going, cakesniffer?”
Ignoring the pain in back of her head, Carmelita glared daggers at her former acquaintances. She made every effort possible to avoid them, and didn’t understand why they refused to do the same when it came to her. “To class,” she answered. “Why?”
Warren turned to Lisa and the others, and laughed.
“To class,” Lisa mimicked back in a voice that reminded Carmelita of the way Vice Principal Nero had been before the fire at the Hotel Denouement.
Lisa’s imitation of Carmelita only made the other children laugh harder, and Carmelita rolled her eyes. She was about to turn away and continue on to the gray building when Warren called her back.
“Get
back here!” he snapped.
Carmelita turned, her azure orbs narrowed in bold defiance. “And if I don’t?”
“Then”— Warren snickered —“you’ll be sorry.”
Her response was a wry smirk. “I doubt it,” she said. She turned to leave again, only to learn that such a thing had been a huge mistake. Seconds later, she felt Warren and Lisa as they yanked Carmelita by her backpack and then threw her down into the snow. Too overcome with surprise by what had just occurred, Carmelita never saw two of the other children as they flew at her; one of them managed to punch her square in the stomach while the other administered a painful blow to her right eye. She tried to scream, but the pain in her stomach was so intense that she felt more like throwing up.
It took her a few moments to regain her ability to stand, and once she had the first urge she got was to run.
And that was exactly what she did—
Right towards the Orphan’s Shack.
“Get her!” she heard Warren shout to his friends from behind her.
This only caused Carmelita to pick up her pace. It seemed that the faster she ran, the more the pain in her stomach intensified, but she forced herself to continue onward, reminding herself of what would happen if she
did give up. She couldn’t let them catch up to her. No matter what, she couldn’t let them win.
The snow was thick, making it difficult for Carmelita to run in, but it was also making things hard on her pursuers, most of whom were a lot bigger than she was, and by the time she reached the Orphan’s Shack, Warren and the others were still several paces behind. Quickly, Carmelita flung open the door and hurried inside, throwing the entire weight of her body against it in order to keep her pursuers on the other side.
Seconds later, she could both hear and feel their fists as they banged mercilessly against the metal door, swearing and threatening her with what they would do if she didn’t come out. She was just about to search for a lock on the door when she felt something brush up against her feet. She kicked it instinctively, thinking it was a mouse, only to receive a good strong pinch on her big toe that was just as painful as the rock that had hit her in back of the head.
“Ouch!” Carmelita cried. Craning her neck downwards, she squinted into the darkness and saw an irritable-looking crab staring back at her. Apparently, he had been the one with the nerve to give her a less than warm welcome. “Sorry, but it looks like I’ll be hiding out in your house for a while.”
The crab snapped his claw at her, as if he didn’t like the idea of a little girl who was being chased by a group of bullies hiding out in his house, and Carmelita made a threatening gesture with her foot. The crab seemed to get the idea, and scurried away underneath a pile of hay.
The commotion on the other side of the door soon ceased, and Carmelita began to relax a little. She decided that it probably
wouldn’t be a bad idea to hide out in the Orphan’s Shack for a while, just until she was certain that Warren, Lisa, and their friends were no where in sight. Carmelita hated feeling like such a coward, but she hated the idea of what
could happen if she came out of the shack and ran into her former acquaintances even more.
With her stomach aching and her eye throbbing, she crawled into one of the three available piles of hay and lay down. It wasn’t long before she felt the first tear fall, and soon enough she was sobbing. When she finished crying, she was so exhausted and in so much pain (both physically and emotionally) that she closed her eyes and fell into a dreamless asleep.