Chapter 16:

Maxine Henderson:

"Do you want me to read you a story, there's lots to choose from?" I asked the little girl who was sitting in my lap snuggling up against my body.

"Yes!" She squealed causing me to smile at the little girl.

"Okay, what one?" I asked her.

Saffron jumped up from my lap and raced over to the bookshelf over to the far corner.

The bookshelf was a dark brown with four long rows with books lined up across all of them.

There was a row of children's books that my dad used to read to me when I was little and the next two rows were books that helped me with research for school and things.

Mum and dad had bought them for Max and I so that we could study and get good marks.

The last row was filled with novels that I had bought and gave away to the poor people so they could have some entertainment with reading.

Saffron stared at the shelves, tilting her head to the side.

She pointed one of her fingers at the first book sons attempted to read the title out loud.

"Wire Tea Weld Ting's Are." Saffron said and looked at me with a small smile on her still dirty face which reminded me that I needed to clean her up.

I shook my head at the little girl and laughed.

"That's Where The Wild Things Are. Have you read that book before?" I smiled at her and she giggled, running to my bed where she jumped onto it.

"What are you doing miss?" I said to her as she picked the little bear up that I had on my pillow.

"I like this bear. It's so cute." She squealed, hugging the white bear.

"It's yours Saffron."

"Really?" She gleamed, jumping up and down on the bed in excitement.

"Yes, I bought it just for you." I told the girl truthfully.

"Now before I read this book to you I think you need to clean that dirt off your face."

The little girl frowned and sat on my bed, staring at the bed covers they I had just changed from flowers to stripes that afternoon, before Max had come into my room.

I decided that the flowers on the bead spread was too much for older people.

These ones were much nicer.

"Yes, now come on I'll take you to the closest bathroom." I said to her and grabbed her tiny hand in mine, leading her to the bathroom down the hallway.

When I got to the doorway I opened the door to reveal two sinks on the wall across from where I was standing and there was a bath tub sitting next to me.

The bath was really pretty with its charcoal outsides that matched the colour if the tiles.

The top of it was a glossy white colour with a tap that had little gems covered on it, making the tap look really expensive.

My eyes darted to the other side of the bathroom where the was a curve in the wall.

I spotted the toilet along with a shower next to it and I laughed silently at why in earth there was a shower right next to the toilet.

I met my eyes back to Saffron who was looking at the bathroom in awe.

"Pretty." She said, her mouth slightly open and her eyes narrowed.

"Yeah it is pretty. Do you want a bath, or a shower, or do you just want to wash the dirt on your face with the tap water?" I asked her politely.

"Hmm..." She mumbled to herself and then pointed the bath next to us.

"Bath please."

"Alright I'll run it for you, then I'll leave and grab you some clothes. I'll drop the clothes just in front of the door, oh along with a towel." I smiled.

"Thanks." She said.

The girl had surprisingly really good manors.

I guess she'd learnt to appreciate the things people did for her and her family taught her good manors.

I lent over the bath and gripped the hot water tap, turning it to the left.

Hearing the stream of water dripping onto the bath floor and I turned the cold tap on as well.

I dipped my arm in the stream if water and felt that it wasn't hot, but nor was it cold.

Feeling satisfied I turned both of the taps off when the water reached halfway up the bath.

"Alright Im going to go now. I'll be back."

"Alright." Saffron replied and I turned around using my toes.

Opening the door of the bathroom I wandered down the hallway until I found the entrance that led into the nursery from when Max and I were little.

I smiled happily when I took in all the photos if Max and I with our arms around each other as little kids and there was a box of baby clothes sitting underneath the photos on the wall opposite me.

I walked over there and sat down in a cross legged position, opening the sealed box up.

I searched through the clothes for some pyjamas I could give to Saffron and they'd be her size.

I flicked through so many clothes.

I came across little frilly dresses and some pants sling with various types of shirts until I finally came across a pair of pyjamas that were short and pink with fair us all over them.

Smiling I grabbed them out and stood up, exiting the room.

I wandered out to the cupboard where the towels were and grabbed out a baby link towel and ran through the house and back to the bathroom where I opened up the door slightly, chucking the clothes in.

"Your clothes are there!" I yelled out and sat on the floor, leaning against the wall waiting for Saffron to come out when I heard the screams of my mum arguing with Max and I rolled my eyes.

She was so full of herself.

I heard the door clicking open and it revealed Saffron in the pyjamas I had given her.

Her hair was asking wet and dripping onto her shirt.

"Want me to dry your hair for you?" I asked her.

"Yes please." She smiled.

I grabbed the towel from around her arm and wrapped it around her wet hair, squeezing it feeling water soak through the towel.

Once her hair was dry I took the towel off her hair and put it across my shoulder.

"Alright we can go read that story you want to read now Saffron."

"Yay!" She cheered and raced down the hallway towards my bedroom, opening the door.

I followed her slowly and when I got to the door I entered the bedroom to see Saffron sitting on the bed with the book in her hands, attempting to read it.

I sat on the bed and opened the book up to the first page and began reading it aloud.

Slowly Saffron fell asleep and I heard my brothers footsteps coming to my bedroom.

"Hey, how's she going?"

"She's fine. You had a fight with mum and dad?" I asked.

"Yeah I did. It started over the dog." Max sighed.

"Of course, mum being selfish."

"Yeah" he responded.

Max yawned and ran a hand through his hair.

"We'll I just came to see how Saffron was doing. I'm going to go to bed now. Night sis." He smiled at me and left the room leaving me to myself and Saffron.

I moved Saffrons head onto my bed and got under the covers, not bothering with my pyjamas. 

I closed my eyes and all I saw was darkness.

I was going to have to ring Saffrons parents tomorrow.

I couldn't keep her living in the house forever as much as if like that.

Breathing heavily I stopped thinking about it and drifted off to sleep, a dream forming into my vision.

Dream-

There was three people all sitting on a brown lounge and we were all watching tv from the plasma screen.

On the screen if showed that it was on ABC3 and it was playing Blue Water High.

The three people on the lounge was Max, Damon and I and we were around about the age of fourteen.

We were all laughing and eating random pieces of junk food at Damon's house.

To us Damon's always felt more like our home rather than our own.

The scene suddenly changed to when Max and I were fifteen.

We were at the park with just the two of us.

Our parents had gone to work that day.

Max and I were swinging high on the swings and laughing with each other as we battled it out for who could swing the highest.

All of the sudden the scene changed once again and formed into when we were sixteen.

It was just Max and I again and we were laying across Max's bed playing UNO.

That day it was raining outside and our parents left us at home by ourselves for a week because they got caught in a storm, decided to stop and visit our nan and pop.

That day the both of us were pretty miserable because we hated the fact that our parents never spent any time with us.

That scene then changed into another memory from this year.

It was two weeks ago where Max and I were both researching on what fund raisers there were around at the time to help poor children and also people who were sick.

We had found a bunch of them and went to all of them without our parents finding out.

The scene finished and everything became pitch black again until it formed into a weird dream where I had to go through an obstacle course to get to Saffron.

The obstacle course had been made by Max and his group of friends and all my friends were there as well, cheering me on.

There arms waved and they all screamed out in triumph as I finished it and I smiled in my sleep, my dream forming into something else.