A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters by Martin H. Greenberg Read Free Book Online

“Stop that. This is difficult enough for your mother without your dramatics.”
    As we entered, I heard more sobbing.
    And when my mother left, still more.

    A girl named Annabelle had been found dead in her bed the morning of the day that I went to live at Our Lady of the Angels. I could still hear the wailing and sobs as the ancient nun, whose name was Mother Mary Patrick, directed me to lug my beautiful crocodile hide suitcase down a labyrinth of passages to my dormitory room.
    “Whatever is in that, you won’t be needing it here,” Mother Mary Patrick said, as I set it down and wiped my brow. Then she handed me a uniform—baggy blue dress, white pinafore—that looked like something out of a Victorian novel. My suitcase contained everything I owned in this world—several smart outfits including my lovely silk pajamas; my silver brush and mirror; my fox stole; and my bride doll, Angelique. Draper, our former driver (now let go) had tried to persuade my mother to sell all my clothes and trinkets, but she had refused. Now I wondered if I was about to lose them anyway.
    “Here’s number four, your bed,” she said, still holding my suitcase.
    I stared in disbelief at the metal cot in the center of double rows of eight—sixteen of us in a long, drab room with a creaking, dark wood floor and a crucifix made of what appeared to be olive wood hanging over each bed. There were no sheets on the thin, padded mattress or the equally thin pillow. All the other beds were unmade, and the pillow of the bed directly across from mine—number twelve—lay on the floor. The bed of the dead girl, then. Annabelle had been found at sunrise, white as a sheet, eyes glassy and half-open. I’d been only minutes at the orphanage, and I had already heard all about it.
    My hair stood on end. I didn’t want to sleep anywhere near that bed. But it seemed I was to be given no choice.
    “Put on your uniform and come to my office,” Mother Mary Patrick ordered me. Then she looked hard at me and said, “You’re quite old enough to be on your own. I only took you in as a courtesy.”
    To whom? I wanted to ask. She wasn’t courteous in the least.
    “Please, miss, I mean Mother, where should I put my suitcase?” I asked her.
    She looked confused for a moment. Her eyes were milky, and I wondered if she had trouble seeing. If maybe that was why she kept glaring and squinting at me.
    Then she said, “Under your bed, I suppose. Hurry and dress, then come to me.”
    I tried to do as she asked, but my tears made everything hazy, like her milky eyes. I had never dressed myself alone before; I’d always had a maid, and then my mother had helped me. I was helpless.
    The room swam; shaking, I lay down on the bed that was directly across from the dead girl’s bed, and cried.
     
    Two hours later, after I had washed and swept untold numbers of floors, I was sent to dinner.
    I staggered down a hall, so hungry, tired, and frightened I could barely move. The din in the enormous room buffeted my ears as over seventy girls sat down to eat. Some girls were still crying over the death of Annabelle. Others were laughing and chatting. I missed my mother. I wanted her arms around me, holding me against her bony chest. I would rather have that than the watery soup and pieces of unbuttered bread being served by six young girls wearing all-white habits to orphans seated at six plain wooden trestle tables, a dozen to each table.
    Then I forgot my longing as I caught sight of a tall, uncommonly thin girl seated at my table. She looked to be near my age and was wearing my fox stole around her bony shoulders.
    “Look at me, lahdidah, the new girl,” she announced, grinning at me, swirling the stole around her shoulders. A couple of the other girls at the table—my new dorm mates, I supposed—grinned as they gazed from her to me, watching to see what I would do.
    “You went in my suitcase,” I blurted; then I realized she’d done something even worse. My