The Charming Little Girl: A Short Story by India

The Charming Little Girl
~ India

          She was beautiful. Long blonde hair, exactly how I liked it. Her eyes also, they were sparkly, that was just right too, just like they should be: blue and sparkly. She was laughing and smiling, carrying plates and glasses, setting the dinner table. It was a big table, huge! I’d never seen anything so big! The plates all matched, they were all white and glossy. Clean. They were all clean, that’s right, the whole room, it was clean. A little boy and girl giggled and ran around her and tugged at her sides, even the children were beautiful. A man walked in the room, tall, with dark hair, and glasses! I knew it! He would have glasses; that’s what I’d always thought. They looked happy, they all looked, so happy. They were perfect.

‘Splish, splash.’ I felt a wet splatter on top of my head and flinched slightly squinting my eyes as I tilted my head back to look up at the dark sky.

‘Splish splish, splash,’ more drops followed, heavier. I scowled at the sky wiping a large drop of water from my cheek. Within seconds the rain began to fall down harshly, attacking my face.

“Oy!” I yelled angrily up at the sky my head snapping down and arms quickly rising to defend my hair, I’d just brushed it too, so it would look all nice, so I would look all nice.

Still standing a few paces from a low window on the bottom floor of a big white house I took a deep breath. The woman and man and children inside were now settling down at the dinner table.  After a few more moments of staring through the glass I slowly shuffled towards the front door of the white house looking down at my bright red rain boots, my favorite ones, with each step. Reaching the front door I looked up and saw a little white button. I knew what it was immediately, a door bell! Wow how incredible they even had a doorbell! I knew they would, I knew they would, they were just so perfect! Standing up on my tippie toes I stretched my arm up as high as I could, and pressed the white button triumphantly.

‘Ding dong!’ I could hear it in the house. I quickly planted my two red boots side by side and held my hands together behind my back. I hoped they thought I was pretty; the children are always pretty. I heard faint voices inside the house before footsteps quickly became louder and louder and the door opened. Staring down at me was the beautiful woman, she was even more beautiful this close up!

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed surprised. After a moment she crouched down to talk to me, “hello” she said with a big smile, “who are you, love?” Her eyes were sparkling at me with all their might.

“I’m Addie,” I said in my most charming tone, I prayed it sounded charming, like I was the most charming little girl in the world.

“Hello Addie!” she beamed, “My name is Elizabeth,” she paused her head tilting slightly to the side, “why are you here Addie?” I bit my lip. “Are you lost?”

 I nodded glad that she understood, I was sure she did, that I was lost. Her eyebrows pressed together and she looked kind of upset, I hoped I hadn’t made her upset. “Poor love, come in, please come in.”

I followed the woman, Elizabeth, into the hallway, shutting the angry rain out behind me.

“Here oh goodness,” Elizabeth said turning back again to face me, “you got all wet out in the rain!” I nodded, holding in a frustrated sigh; that silly rain didn’t like me much at all. “Well let’s get you in some warm, dry clothes, how about that, Addie?” She smiled. I nodded with a huge grin. I bet she had beautiful clothes, clothes that she was going to let me wear! This was the best day ever. “One second Addie wait here I’ll be right back,” Elizabeth cooed sweetly heading into a large archway. I stood as still as I could, I had to show her how polite I was, yes, a polite and charming little girl, then she would like me. In the other room I could hear Elizabeth’s voice faintly and a man’s voice, the tall dark haired man, with glasses, she had to be talking to him. After a few moments she re-emerged through the archway with the man, and this time he came over to crouch down.

“Hello Addie my name is Richard” he smiled. “I understand you’re lost. Is that right?” I nodded staring at him stunned. His eyes sparkled also, just like Elizabeth’s. I didn’t think I’d ever seen eyes that sparkled so much. “How old are you Addie?” he asked sweetly still crouching near me.

I held up my hands and exclaimed “six” proudly, holding up my thumb on one hand and all my fingers on the other hand. I had practiced. They both smiled, I knew that I did it right.

“Okay Addie,” Richard said, “head on upstairs with Elizabeth and we’ll get some dry clothes on you, and when you come back downstairs we can look up your parents in the directory and call them up.” Richard paused. “How does that sound?” I gulped and shifted my gaze downwards towards my red boots, tapping them together once.

“I - ” I began still looking down, “I don’t have parents.” I was still for a moment before cautiously looking up at Richard. He looked surprised. He blinked a couple of times before standing back up and looking at Elizabeth. She looked surprised too. Oh no, I didn’t like it when people looked surprised like that, it usually meant that I had done something wrong. “I – I’m sorry” I said looking up at them my eyes getting stingy. I blinked rapidly, no crying. After another second Elizabeth quickly made her way over to me crouching down and holding me tightly into her shoulder.

“No no no! Don’t apologize it’s okay, it’s all okay.” Tears began to trickle down my face gently as I wrapped my arms around her neck. I didn’t ever want to let go; I hoped that she would never let me go. After a couple of seconds Elizabeth pulled away from me, “Come on, we need to get you out of those clothes before you get a cold then we’ll figure everything out.” She looked back at Richard who nodded, looking at me with a big smile.

“Yes,” he said his eyes softening, “don’t worry we’ll figure everything out, go get some dry clothes on.”

“Daddy?” A voice cried from inside the archway. Richard turned his head towards the noise,

“Coming!” he responded and then disappeared into the hallway.

Elizabeth led me up a giant staircase and into a huge room with pink walls. It was the most beautiful room I had ever seen. There was a large white bed in the room with pink curtains covering two windows on either side of it. On the bed there were three large stuffed animals but to the side of the bed under a table with a lamp there was a basket with even more! I never had a stuffed animal, just a dirty torn blanket that I used to sleep with. I spun around to face a large bookcase filled with colorful books. I loved books! Especially the kind with pictures in them, I loved to see all the pictures in the books. Elizabeth moved towards a giant closet next to the book case opening it and reaching into the dark.

‘Click!’ The lights in the closet flickered on illuminating various pink and blue dresses, skirts, and tee shirts on one side, while the other held pants and shorts. Various brightly colored shoes were also lined along the bottom of the closet neatly.

“This is my daughter, Natalie’s, room,” she said as she began to look through the various t shirts picking out a blue one with a pink flower on it. My mouth hung open as Elizabeth’s blonde hair whipped to the side as she spun around. “How about this shirt Addie?” She smiled. “This one would look great on you.” I nodded frantically outstretching my arms towards the beautiful shirt. Elizabeth chuckled, handing me the shirt and turning back around. “Now for some pants…” she trailed off flipping through Natalie’s pants. Overturning blue jeans and various colored shorts, creating a confused rainbow on the floor. Suddenly Elizabeth stopped, holding a pair of black leggings. “Alright, here you go Addie!” She smiled passing me the leggings with a wink. “You think those will do alright?” I nodded again frantically looking down at the clothes, amazed. “Alright, well the bathroom is just over there,” Elizabeth pointed down the hall to a door, “in there you can dry yourself off with a towel and then get on clean clothes.” I looked down the hall to the door, nodding. “Then just come back downstairs when you’re done!” Elizabeth smiled sweetly. She was so nice to me, maybe nicer than anyone ever had been before! I really hoped this time I could stay, that this time things would be different.

“Okay,” I giggled skipping down the hall to the bathroom to change.

When I was done I carefully tip-toed down the gigantic stairwell gripping the railing carefully so I didn’t fall, they would never like me then, a clumsy little girl, that’s what they would think of me then. I soon reached the bottom floor and followed the quiet voices coming from the archway to find Elizabeth and Richard sitting across from each other at the dinner table. I slowly entered through the archway and let out a little cough when Elizabeth and Richard didn’t notice me at first. That was okay, I was used to that. They both spun around to look at me, Elizabeth standing up and Richard staying seated. Her face lit up like, like, the sun! Oh she was so happy! That was nice.

“Addie you look… beautiful!” She exclaimed happily, running over to me and spinning me around! It was incredible, like an ultra high-speed merry-go-round! Well- at least what I imagine a merry-go-round would be like… She put me back down on the floor, her face sill shining.

“Ding dong,” I looked towards the door.

“Oh my goodness,” Richard pushed himself out of his seat and began to move towards the archway, “well, aren’t we popular tonight?” I smiled at him, he was funny. Elizabeth smiled too, she liked him a lot. Maybe she could like me a lot too, I could be funny too, couldn’t I? I could hear the door open in the hallway and Richard greet the mystery visitor with:

“Hello. Can I help you?”

“Oh god, we’ve lost our girl, Helen, have you seen a little girl?” No. Another voice,

“Yes she’s six, wearing bright red rain boots.” No.

“Umm, well, there’s a girl in here, but her name is Addie?” NO… I had to, to, leave. Not again, NO! I turned to face Elizabeth panicked, feeling my eyes grow wide in shock. She looked at me her face changing, confusion, no, something else? Anger… no. Realization. I turned towards the door just in time to see them, pushing past Richard into the dining room.

“Helen!” No, that wasn’t my name, it simply wasn’t. They, they’d done it again. No. Not again, this always happened. The woman ran over to me trying to hug me. I moved backwards slowly.

“No…” I said my eyes welling up with tears. “Please no” The woman clasped at my shoulders repeating that terrible name again, again. I wish she would just disappear. Tears began to stream down my face, I failed. Failed… again. Again and again and again they always won. I didn’t understand.

“Helen, Helen, please just look at your poor mother please, Helen!” the woman cried sniffling and holding back her tears, “please just look at me! Look at us! You can’t keep running away from us, I don’t understand, Helen, what are we doing wrong?” She was frantic, grasping my shoulders and desperately wiping my tears.

“Everything!” I yelled at her sobbing. Richard and Elizabeth now both stood stunned in silence by the archway watching the woman, watching me, it was too late, they’d seen everything, it was too late now.

“Helen!” she cried, “I don’t understand!” How couldn’t she? This woman who took me, out of that horrible place, the terrible place, her and the man. But they couldn’t be- what they called themselves, my parents… they just simply couldn’t be. The woman, she wasn’t pretty, she didn’t have sparkly eyes- no- not at all. The man didn’t wear glasses, he couldn’t be my father, no. I didn’t have a nice room, no, the walls were white, no stuffed animals. No matching plates. No clean rooms. No pretty clothes, No, no- nothing! I didn’t understand, they were supposed to be funny, and smart. We were supposed to live in a big white house, just like in the movies, in the movies I used to watch! And they were supposed to look like in the poster, like that big giant poster in my room in that awful place! They weren’t right at all, they’d gotten it all wrong, the wrong people took me, I knew they had!

The man stood a few feet from me with his sad old-looking gray eyes. His brown hair wet from the rain. 

“Helen, you never give us a chance! You’ve never even given us a chance!” she sobbed her lip quivering. Her black clothes were dripping, making a puddle on the floor.

“You aren’t my parents! You AREN’T!” I screamed at them angrily. Why did they always ruin everything? Elizabeth and Richard were perfect; they - they were nothing to me! Why couldn’t they both just disappear?

“Leave me alone!” I screamed at them moving further away from the frantic woman and the sad man.

“Helen- we have to go now,” said the man sadly- always sadly. I looked down at my red boots, tears still running down my face. I could see myself in them, my sad little self. I knew that there was nothing else to do, the way Richard looked- Elizabeth looked. They would never like me, they would never take me away from the sad man and woman. I sniffled before looking back up at the sad man.

“Okay,” I said trying to hold in my tears. I was wasting them, after all, I would need them for next time, it was always the same, always the same.