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| SOMEONE SOMEWHERE SOON WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU by Enola PART 1 Your flight to London is leaving in half an hour and you’re thrilled to bits because in less than 3 hours you’ll be there and you can hardly believe it’s true. London has been your dreamland since you were a teenager and when you knew you’d spend six months there, you thought “It’s a joke, isn’t it?” A friend of yours told you about an agency which looked for volunteers for some orphanages, rest homes, shelters and so on, so you asked for all the information and submitted your application. Two weeks later you got a phone call that informed you your request was accepted and they told you about your destination, a children’s reception centre in South-East London. During the following days, you got in touch with Mrs Lewis, the centre’s director, and Shane O’Brien, the centre’s infantile psychologist, who told you about the centre and your duties. You look at your parents tenderly, you’re ready to say them goodbye, but they look quite nervous, especially your dad, but you did expect that. You perfectly know how apprehensive he is and even though you know he’s happy for you, you are sure he’d rather you stayed at home, but he knows what London means to you, and as you are an adult he wants you to live your life. He holds you tight and starts with his warnings: “Don’t forget to call us as soon as you get there”, “Be careful! Don’t go out alone at night” and so on…you reassure him, “I will, don’t worry!” Your flight lands 20 minutes late at 1:40 pm and as Shane told you on phone the day before, he’s there waiting for you. He gave you a description of himself and you recognise him at once: tall, slim, dark blonde hair almost reddish… “Shane?” you ask shyly going close to him, “Monica?” he asks back, so you nod and you introduce each other shaking each other’s hands. “Shane O’Brien. It’s a great pleasure to meet you Monica!” he smiles genuinely, “My pleasure” you reply, “You’re Irish, aren’t you?” you ask. He laughs and replies, “Yeah, I am! You’ve understood it from my name I guess!” “Well…yep…from your name, your blue eyes, your reddish hair and your freckled face!” you smile. Your reply makes him laugh even more and afterwards the 2 of you go to collect your luggage and having loaded it into Shane’s car, you leave. During the journey he talks to you about ‘The House’, the reception centre. He says that at the moment there are 14 children, 8 boys and 6 girls, the youngest is 4 and the oldest is 13. They are there because their parents can’t take care of them for several reasons, because they are too poor, because they are in prison or because they are ill for instance. When you get there and you see it, you understand why it’s called ‘The House’. It’s a typical British house with a small lawn, a narrow front walk and a nice red front door. A brass plate beside the door says ‘The House – children’s reception centre’. ‘The House’ is divided into 3 floors; on the ground floor there are the kitchen, the living room, the lounge and a big playroom where the kids do their homework as well. At the back there’s a large playground with some swings, a slide and 2 small goals to play football. Shane leads you upstairs where there are girls’ rooms, yours included, while boys’ rooms and his are on the upper floor. Your room is nice and slightly smaller than yours at home. There’s a bed, a bedside table, a wardrobe, a desk by the window and a couple of chairs. Shane tells you that as the room is yours now, you can do whatever you like in it; you can re-paint the walls if you dislike them or hang some pictures and posters and so on. Meanwhile, a woman enters your room, so Shane introduces her to you. She’s Mrs Lewis, a nice woman in her early 60’s, and she welcomes you kindly telling you she hopes you’ll get on well with them, and before going away, she says that for anything you need you’ll have to ask Shane as he’ll be your *guide*. Since it’s Monday and kids will be back from school in a couple of hours, you have all the time to tidy your room up and Shane offers you to give you a hand, so he’ll be able to answer to your questions. Firstly, you tell him you’re a bit surprised because you expect the place to be different and he knows what you mean because he thought the same when he got there 2 years before. He tells you that Mrs Lewis and her husband are the owners of ‘The House’, they bought it more than 20 years before because they couldn’t have any children and as they were well off, they decided to create ‘The House’ to take care of the needy kids. Then he talks to you about them. He says they are angry, angry with everyone, they are tired of living there, they are tired of all the volunteers who stay there pretending they care about them and after some months they all go away. He warns you, they’ll be naughty with you, so you’ll have to be extremely patient, strong and, if it’ll be necessary, you’ll have to be evil. You’ll have to win their respect and it might even take you months. You stop a moment to think about that: patient? You are, even too much! Strong? Yes, definitely. Evil?? Not at all!! You know you won’t ever be able to be evil with them. Empting one of your suitcases, Shane finds your CD’s, “Mmm, the Manics, Travis, Radiohead, Muse…you have good taste girl!” he says clearly pleased, “Who do you like most?” “The Manics” you reply, “their music is great and they behave as normal people, if you know what I mean” “Yeah, I agree with you. Do you fancy anyone of them?” he asks, “I like James a lot.” “Mmm…nice, but not my type! I like most Nicky, above all in a dress with make-up…then that smile!!” he sighs, “I think you have to know that I’m gay” he says proudly, “Hope that’s not a problem”, “A problem? Not at all, don’t worry!” you smile genuinely, “So you fancy James…” he says “Yeah. But don’t think I’m a sort of groupie because I am not!” “You mean that you wouldn’t do any follies to meet him?” “Exactly! I wouldn’t. I’d like to meet him just to talk to him, but that’s all.” “Wouldn’t you sleep with him?” he asks quite disbelievingly, “Nope” “Are you serious?” he laughs, “Absolutely.” “That sounds pretty weird! But do you feel an attraction for him or what? “Yes. Honestly, I find him very sexy, but that’s all! You can’t understand, I know. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sooner or later.” Shane was right about kids, you find out that at once when you meet them for the first time in the playroom where Shane has reunited all of them to introduce you. You say hello to them, but none reply. Shane looks at you extremely sorry, but you tell him not to worry about that, you know that it won’t be easy at all. Afterwards you cook dinner hoping that they’ll appreciate it, but they just limit themselves to taste it, while Shane, Mrs and Mr Lewis don’t stop praising you for it. PART 2 >>> <<< Enola's stories |