Ashley Greene - Johanna >>>

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When class had finished we walked back home, well, we walked back to the Orphan House together, none of us had ever really thought of it as our home, it was just somewhere we lived. We existed together in a big Orphan House with lots of other kids; it was where all the reject kids got put.

It wasn’t a bad place to grow up, many kids that lived there actually thought of it as their safe haven, where all their troubles seemed to melt away. It was a friendly Orphan House; big, with rich coloured carpets, even though they were growing slightly threadbare. The mothers that ran the place were large ladies with open arms for any child that needed them; always offering comfort and a sense of security that helped make the foundations of the kids that grew up there. It was probably the best Orphan House in all of Elmira, it just never seemed like a place that we could call our home, we didn’t really belong there; we were different from the other kids and you could tell.

Some people assumed that we were brother and sisters, very close triplets, and if anyone asked us if we were related, we wouldn’t have laughed much. We look so alike it’s uncanny; we have the same prominent cheekbones, the same shaped eyes and noses, we’re all thin and strong with pale skin.

Even though we looked alike, we weren’t related, at least not by blood. We were just three reject kids who came to the house on the same day, Johanna in the morning, Jacob at noon and me in the night. We were around same age and apparently got on together from being babes in cot; one cot for the three of us, the House’s funding was not high. We grew up together in the House, it was full of other kids, but we remained in our little group of three, no one came into our group and none of us ever wanted to leave it.

             Other kids said that we were ‘strange’ and I suppose we do seem strange to them as we keep to ourselves and are relatively quiet around other people; we talk to be polite. But when it’s just the three of us together, it’s totally different; we mess around like best friends and argue like siblings. I don’t know any other people that can relate to each other the way that we do.

            We were sitting alone in our room at night talking as usual and I heard some small child outside the door. The other boys that knew us well enough to know our relationship think that it’s abnormal that Jacob isn’t with either Johanna or I romantically. We both have blue eyes, dark hair and are of medium height with long legs and a willowy figure, hence the reason we’re often thought of as triplets. The easy way to tell us apart is our hair, Johanna’s is long and falls in waves down her back, whilst mine is cropped short like a pixie’s, Jacob says it’s because I’m the more mischievous one.

            The girls that know us, also ask Johanna and I why one of us is not with Jacob romantically, they don’t seem to understand how we can be so close to him all the time and only be friends. Some don’t believe us when we say that that’s all we are. Jacob is tall and very strong but his build is more lithe and flowing rather than bulky, he also has long, slightly messy dark hair that falls around his eyes which are a deep turquoise blue, like Johanna’s and mine put together.

*          *          *

            The next day we got up at the same time as usual and went down to get something to eat, just fruit for Johanna and I, Jacob had meat and bread, men are such carnivores. We walked to the academy as usual and all that lay ahead of use was another monotonous day of ‘learning.’

            We could hear the faint thud of marching feet as we passed the walls of the palace armoury. Soldiers stood outside the main gates and we could see hundreds more inside, walking around in the same pattern doing a drill. It was slightly overwhelming to watch all these trained men walk in complete unison to each other, metal weapons hanging proudly at their sides. They were a force to be reckoned with and the main reason that Johanna was so worried about trying to go into the forest; these men would be the ones who would be shooting the arrows at us, in unison, if we got caught.

After passing the palace armoury the mood lifted and we joked and messed around on the way to the academy, talking a lot and laughing even more. The best thing about having to go to the academy was being able to walk through the streets and feel like we didn’t have to be quiet; we can just be as loud as we wanted to, without being asked questions. The guards posted on the street corners gave us hard stares but said nothing to us as we made our way clearly through the city.

As we got closer to the centre of Elmira we quietened our voices down to a normal talking level and continued through the town centre. It was market day. The town centre was always so alive on market day and I loved just watching all the busy people going to and from stalls, bartering for food and cloth to make dresses or other enigmatic items. We walked through, smelling the aromas of cooking food and listening to the general conversations of passing people. It felt so alive with all the different characters and the shouts of the stall owners trying to sell their wares.

We got to the edge of the centre courtyard and were on our way out of the market, down one of the side roads, when a heavy built stall owner carrying a basket of fruit knocked into Jacob, “Oi! Watch where you’re going!” he shouted to him and cursed loudly.

 “It was an accident Sir and I am sorry but I object to you cursing in front of these ladies.” Jacob said hot-headedly

“Oh, you object do you?” I guess you’ll just have to get over that won’t you.” He said rudely.

“Just leave it Jacob, he’s not worth our time.” Johanna said quietly. I could feel the man’s emotions grow slightly heightened as he looked at Johanna and I closely.

“Oh, not worth your time, eh? Mind you, you and your sister are pretty little things anyway, so I might forgive you if you do me a sweet little favour.” He suggested repulsively, cracking his knuckles. I saw Jacob’s fists curl into aggressive balls as he tensed his arms. Johanna put her hand on his shoulder.

I brushed past Jacob, catching his eye. I could tell from his expression that he couldn’t understand, but didn’t try to stop me. “What did you have in mind?” I asked the stall owner enticingly.

He looked slightly taken aback, “Erm, well a nice little kiss on the cheek would be a good start…” He said attempting to be silky, but I could feel the excitement rise in him as he thought about the possibilities. It made me sick.

Jacob leaned forward slightly and warned him away with a quick glance. “Of course, it’s the least I could do.” I tilted my face towards his grimy cheek, then paused, as if thinking. “Of course the other thing I could do is go to that guard over there and tell him that you were threating to start a fight with my friend here unless my sister or I, who are minors, ‘do you a sweet favour…’ which would technically be blackmail with proposed assault.” He gasped at me but said nothing. We walked away.

Once we had gotten far enough Jacob turned to me “Why didn’t you just knee him in his privates?” he asked laughing, “It would have taken less effort.”

“I think that she did quite enough.” Johanna said quietly.

Jacob and Johanna were opposites in this respect; Jacob was more prone to violence whereas Johanna would make up some sort of excuse so that a fly could escape unscathed. I was just as hot headed as Jacob, but with a bit of Johanna’s compassion. I think. 

We carried on our way to the academy and chatted like normal, getting to our first class slightly late, but the teacher liked us; he was the type that favoured the more intelligent pupils, so let us off with a small verbal warning. We sat at the back of the class and pretended to listen to him drone away about a subject he seemed to have done many thousands of times before.

We had two lessons and then a break in the morning where we went outside and into the grassy gardens of the academy. There were hundreds of children there, all in groups, some playing around and others just sitting on the grass talking to each other. We found a clear spot, away from the others and sat on the grass. It was hot so Jacob took off his shirt like many other boys and lay down, Johanna took out a book and I just sat there, people watching. It wasn’t long before we had a group of younger girls close by us ogling Jacob as he lay there, topless. Johanna got annoyed by their heightened voices and laughs, she whispered to me quietly, “Watch this.” Smiling, she slowly traced the muscle definition on Jacob’s stomach and chest. He laughed and grabbed her hand playfully, holding it against his chest.

The girls stopped smiling and shot Johanna looks of dislike and jealousy. I laughed and pulled her away from him, “If you do that too much, they’ll all ambush you on a dark night.” I whispered in good-humoured caution. She grinned at me and continued to read her book.

The signal bell went, so Jacob put on his shirt and we waited until all the others had gone to class, and then went in, getting into room just as the second bell rang; perfectly on time. The lesson was another one where we could just sit at the back and day dream, keeping an ear out for any questions that were shot our way by the teacher who thought we weren’t listening. At one point during the lesson, a boy whose name I hadn’t learnt, turned around to ask me if I had a pen that he could borrow, so I leant him one, even though he had one poking out of his bag on the floor.

When lunch came we went out to the same place and sat on the grass again. There were a group of boys our age playing a game with a big yellow ball and a hoop, but Jacob didn’t feel inclined to join in with them. He took off his top again while Johanna and I shrugged off our over-cloaks. We were wearing a very old style summer clothes; a short skirt and one shouldered vest top that came down to our navels. A few girls gave us funny looks but we weren’t bothered, it meant that we were cool and not overheating, it was more practical than the thick cotton top and breeches that were in ‘style’ now.

Johanna went back to reading her book and Jacob went back to just lying on the grass and daydreaming, I was stuck doing nothing and slightly bored. Taking the initiative I invented a game for myself; I removed a notebook from my bag and tore out a page, ripping that up into little pieces I screwed them into balls. With the balls of paper I played target practise, the target was the middle of Johanna’s book. I threw dozens of little pieces of paper trying to get them in between the open pages of the book. “If you throw one more piece of paper down my book I will do more than just verbally abuse you.” Johanna threatened monotonously without raising her eyes from her page.

I giggled but left her alone, turning my attention to Jacob. Lying down on my front at a right angle to him, with my chin just above his stomach, I softly blew on it, tickling the small hairs that were there. He laughed “That’s cold,” I just smiled, laughed and kept on doing it. He sat up suddenly and wrestled with me playfully on the grass. He turned me over so I was on my back and lay across the top of me until I begged him to get off. He let me loose after a while and I stood up, then messed up his hair and ran off laughing.

I wasn’t watching where I was going and ran straight into the boy who’d borrowed my pen, “Oh, sorry!” I said breathlessly and stopped.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” We stood there for a few awkward moments, “Oh yeah, here’s your pen back, thanks for letting me borrow it.”

“It’s okay.” I said, taking the pen off him.

He looked at me strangely and I could feel his apprehension “Erm, are you free this…” Jacob jogged up behind me and grabbed me around the waist picking me up, I fought him off,

“Hey!” I stabbed Jacob with the pen and indicated at the boy.

“Oh, sorry.” He put me down and stood behind me while I waited expectantly for the boy to continue.

“It’s doesn’t matter, see you in class.” The boy said, giving Jacob a hard look, I suddenly got a wave of pure jealousy emitting from the boy and looked at him in surprise

“Okay, see ya.” Jacob said and picked me up again, slinging me over his bare shoulder and walking off with me, even against my loud protests. We passed the group of girls from morning break and they gave me the dirtiest looks I had ever seen in my life. I told Johanna about them when I was sitting back down again “And you told me to be careful about dark alleys.” She snorted.

I asked her what she thought about the boy, “You are so naïve sometimes Ilea! He was about to ask you if you wanted to do something with him,” I sat there with a blank expression on my face, “Uh, like go on a date.” I screwed up my nose.

“But I don’t even know him.”

“Yeah, maybe not, but he seems to want to get to know you.”

“Isn’t he practically the captain of the academy boy’s sports team?”

“Yeah.”

“So why doesn’t he just date the captain of the academy girl’s sports team?” I knew that she was the typical ‘adored after’ perfect beauty.

“He was, he broke up with her.”

“Oh.” I had nothing else to say about it, the minds of boys were strange and foreign places that I wouldn’t even try and pretend I understood.

When lunch was over we had another two lessons and then we walked back to the Orphan House. The boy caught up with us in the street outside the academy and tried to speak with me, but I just answered his questions and then walked on down the street to catch up with Johanna and Jacob.

Johanna said nothing about it but Jacob teased me all the way back to the House. When we finally got there I was feeling really bad, but didn’t say anything to him, Johanna did for me, “Jacob, just leave her alone!”

“Okay, okay, sorry.” He walked inside the house, Johanna and I stayed in the front garden for a bit. “Why did you turn him down?”

“Because I don’t know him, and I don’t know if I like him.”

“Fair enough, I wasn’t sure if you were doing it because of Jacob and the way that he would tease you about it?”

“No, that’s not it at all.”

“Okay then, just wanted to make sure, I didn’t want you to pass things by just because of us.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that, I’d ask you both about it first, but I wouldn’t just let it pass without asking if it was something that I really wanted.” Johanna hugged me and we both walked into the kitchen to find Jacob, he was eating, as usual.

“You two okay now?”

“Yeah we’re fine” I said

“Look, sorry if I hurt your feelings before, I didn’t mean to, I was only joking around.”

“It’s okay; I know you weren’t doing it to hurt me.” He slipped off his stool and hugged me,

“Sorry if I did.”

We all went upstairs to our room and sat on the balcony outside, watching the sun go down in the pink sky, I could smell the fresh air as it blew over the top of the city. I looked at Jacob sitting in a chair and Johanna standing at the railings, it was times like this when I loved living here; beautiful views of the city, the sun on the horizon, glowing and warm, casting silhouettes of buildings standing tall against the darkening amber sky and next to the two people I loved. 

We talked about going into the forest before we went to bed. Jacob really wanted to go, but Johanna was still unsure. I felt like both of them mixed together, I was in tone with Jacob’s excitement, but also felt Johanna’s caution. I didn’t know what we should do.

We went to bed that night without deciding about what we were to do the next day, although it was in my dreams that night, I dreamt of how the forest looked to me when I was young, how I had run though it with ease, inhaling all the scents; the fresh green earth, the sweet smell of sap. Hearing the sounds brought it all back to me: the birds chattering in the trees, the sound of water trickling off leaves. I knew that I wanted to experience the forest again, that I needed to, I knew that it was worth the risk.