⇗ Chapter 1

Five years later

"Sabine?" Miss Julia said. She gently shook Sabine's shoulders to wake her up.

Sabine opened her hazel eyes and looked up at her latest guardian. For the past five years, she had been tossed from person-to-person, school-to-school, home-to-home. No one had adopted her yet, and all her guardians either ended up being unfit to care for her, or died from old age. Sabine seemed to have bad luck following her everywhere she went, but Miss Julia seemed okay so far.

"Good morning, Miss Julia," Sabine said sleepily.

"Good morning, Sabine. Are you ready for school?" Miss Julia asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Sabine said, sitting up in bed.

Miss Julia smiled warmly. "Well, then, come on downstairs. I have hot cocoa and oatmeal for you."

Sabine smiled as well and followed Julia downstairs for breakfast. She enjoyed her rich hot chocolate and apple flavored oatmeal. Then, with a full stomach and a happy heart, she headed back upstairs to change clothes.

She finished changing and then slung her new backpack over her shoulders. Her old white backpack covered in drawings had finally worn out too much to carry her heavy school books, but she kept it as a memory of her old life.

Her new backpack with cactus designs on it was sturdier and had more space for school supplies, but the stiff straps dug painfully into her shoulder blades as she bounced down the stairs.

"You look nice, dear," Miss Julia said as Sabine walked back into the kitchen.

"Thanks, Miss Julia! I really like these new clothes you got me," Sabine chirped happily.

"Well, that's because you picked them out yourself!" Miss Julia laughed. Sabine giggled and smiled as she pulled her lunchbox out of the fridge.

A horn honked from outside and Sabine's eyes widened. "Oh, I'm gonna miss the bus!"

"Go on outside then, I'll be at the store after school, but I should be back around five," Miss Julia said, giving Sabine a pat on the back.

"Okay, see you later Miss Julia!" Sabine said as she walked out the front door.

"Bye-bye, Sabine!" Miss Julia waved as the door shut.

Sabine raced down the concrete sidewalk to the end of the road, and reached the bus just as the driver was about to close the doors.

"Wait!" Sabine called.

The driver, Mr. Thompson, opened the doors back up and Sabine climbed on the bus.

"Late again, Miss Trillian?" Mr. Thompson called as Sabine sat next to her friend, Isadora, towards the back of the bus.

"Yeah, sorry!" Sabine called back.

"No worries." Mr. Thompson yawned, then closed the bus doors again and drove down the street.

"Morning, Sabine," Isadora mumbled as she wrote a couplet down in her commonplace book.

"Hi, Iz," Sabine said, looking over Isadora's shoulder.

"Hey, no peeking until it's done!" Isadora laughed, closing her book so Sabine couldn't see.

"Okay, okay," Sabine said, putting her hands up in mock surrender.

"Well, I guess you can look because I actually just finished it," Isadora shrugged, opening the book again.

"I am a triplet, a child of three; And my brothers annoy the heck out of me," Isadora read out loud.

Sabine giggled and said, "Yeah, your brothers are annoying sometimes."

Isadora giggled with her just as someone from the seat behind them smacked them both on top of their heads.

"Hey!" the girls said in unison.

Duncan and Quigley, Isadora's triplet brothers, poked their heads up from over the top of the seat.

"We are not annoying!" Quigley said defensively.

"Smacking me on the head is annoying and you do it constantly," Isadora shot back.

"You love us though," Duncan said.

Isadora shrugged. "Eh, I guess so."

Duncan put his hand over his heart and feigned hurt. "I can't believe my own sister doesn't love me!" he said dramatically, wiping away non-existent tears.

"Oh, shush!" Isadora laughed.

"Boys, sit down," Mr. Thompson called. Duncan and Quigley flopped back down into their seats.

"See what I have to deal with?" Isadora told Sabine exasperatedly. Sabine laughed and nodded and the girls chatted about pointless things all the way to school.

"Middle school kids, get off the bus," Mr. Thompson called when he pulled up to the school.

"Trying to get rid of us already?" Isadora said jokingly to the bus driver.

Mr. Thompson laughed and said, "Just doing my job, Miss Quagmire."

Isadora and Sabine smiled at their driver, then hopped off the bus and skipped into the school. As much as they wished they could stay and chat with each other, they didn't have their first period class together, so as they stepped inside and the school bell rang, they said their goodbyes and parted ways, each heading to their separate classes.

~༄~

A few hours later, Sabine was sitting quietly in her favorite class, geography. The teacher had told them to study the atlases and memorize where all of the states in the U.S. were, because they would have a test in a few days.

She was seated near the back of the room, at a table with Quigley and a few other students. It seemed to her that she and Quigley were the only ones actually doing the assignment. Everyone else at the table was talking and giggling instead of working.

"Students in the back, this is not a social hour," the teacher called. Sabine could never remember her teacher's name, but she thought it was Miss Zada or Zora or something.

"Sorry," some of the kids at her table said, then went back to talking, but were quieter about it.

Sabine was about to continue studying, when she noticed how oddly quiet Quigley was being. He was usually a real chatterbox in class. She glanced over at him for just a moment, but slightly jumped and looked away when she saw his dark, intense eyes focused on... her.

She tried to refocus her attention on the atlas in front of her, but she kept feeling like he was watching her.

Is there something on my face? she wondered, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. Is that salad from lunch stuck in my teeth?

She willed herself to calm down and tried again to focus on the maps. Sabine could still feel his eyes on her, but it didn't seem like he was judging her, simply... observing.

In some odd, twisted way, his stares made her feel safe. She couldn't explain why, but she didn't have much time to ponder it because the phone rang, knocking Quigley's attention off of Sabine.

"Miss Zora's room," the teacher said as she picked up the phone.

There was some quiet chatter on the other side of the line, then Miss Zora said, "Yes, I'll send him right away," and hung up.

She turned around and scanned the classroom until her eyes found Quigley.

"Quigley, you're signing out early," she said, waving her finger at him.

He cast one final glance at Sabine, then smiled when he noticed she was glancing back at him. Sabine couldn't fight the smile that crept up her own face as she met his dark eyes once more. Then, he whispered a "Goodbye" to her and quietly exited the room.

~༄~

"Bus riders, to the cafeteria," the intercom spoke as Sabine sat in her last class of the day.

"If you ride the bus, you can go," her teacher said dismissively.

She and a few other students stood up, grabbed their backpacks, and walked to the cafeteria. They waited patiently until the teachers on bus duty called their bus number, and then headed outside and boarded the bus.

Sabine rode the late bus, so she occupied her time by working on homework and drawing maps in her journal.

When the teachers finally called her bus number, she raced out the doors and hurriedly climbed onto the bus. She had hoped to get her normal seat in the back, but too many students had boarded the bus before her, so she was stuck sitting behind the driver.

"Where are your triplet friends?" Mr. Thompson asked Sabine as he drove.

"They went home early," Sabine said with a tired sigh.

"How come?" Mr. Thompson said.

Sabine shrugged. "I'm not sure. I didn't get a chance to ask."

Mr. Thompson nodded and kept driving, but he didn't take the normal route. Instead, he drove to Sabine's neighborhood first, when usually she was one of the last stops. She gave him a puzzled look when they stopped, but Mr. Thompson said, "I figured you wanted to go home early too."

Sabine smiled and told him "Thanks" as she climbed off the bus. He gave her a friendly wink and then drove away.

Sabine sprinted down the sidewalk, and then stumbled up her driveway and headed inside the house. It was about five-thirty by then, and she expected to find Miss Julia in the kitchen, cooking up some sort of delicious smelling desert, as she had been for the past few weeks. But the house was dark and empty, and smelled of nothing but stale, cold air.

A bad feeling filled Sabine's stomach. Slowly, she dropped her backpack by the front door and stepped deeper into the house. "Miss Julia?" she called.

Her voice echoed through the empty living room, and was met with no response. Her shoulders drooped as she searched the whole house for any sign of her guardian, though she knew she would find none. Eventually, she ended up back in the living room, and for the first time noticed something sitting on the coffee table; her old, white backpack. Beside it was a sheet of paper covered in black writing.

With a sigh, Sabine picked the note up. It was written in Miss Julia's handwriting, and it said;

Dear Sabine,

I am so terribly sorry to leave you like this, but I can't take care of you anymore. There's something important that I have to do but it puts me in grave danger, and I can't bear to put you in danger along with me. Please show this note to Mr. Poe and he'll take care of the situation.

I packed all your things in your backpack for you. I hope you'll find somewhere better to stay.

Sorry again,

Miss Julia.

Sabine sighed tiredly again and shoved the paper into her pocket. She grabbed both her backpacks, then made the all too familiar trek down to the bank to see the very unhelpful Mr. Poe.

Sabine knew that Poe meant well, but he could never seem to find a suitable guardian for her. They all abandoned her for one reason or another, and she wished that her life was just a little more steady, though she was used to the chaos by now.

Eventually, she trudged into the bank, and headed up to the front desk. She asked the secretary, Jacquelyn, if she could talk to Mr. Poe.

"Is everything alright?" Jacquelyn asked sympathetically.

"Miss Julia left. She said she couldn't take care of me anymore." Sabine took the note from her pocket and handed it to the woman, whose face twisted into a look of disapproval, but not quite shock.

"Where does Poe find these guardians?" Jacquelyn shook her head, and handed the paper back to Sabine.

"I was just wondering the same thing," Sabine agreed.

"Well, go ahead and talk to him, he's not busy." Jacquelyn pointed her head towards Poe's office and Sabine nodded.

She walked up to the door and knocked on it, then entered the room when she heard a, "Come in," and then a bunch of coughing.

Sabine held her breath as she always did when she was around Mr. Poe, hoping that she wouldn't catch whatever bug it was that made the man cough so much.

She silently placed the note on his desk, and listened as picked it up and read it out loud. The words stung worse after hearing them a second time. Why does no one want me? she wondered.

"Well, this certainly is a very bad situation," Poe coughed.

Sabine nodded and tried to fight back her tears of exhaustion.

"Maybe we should try a different form of guardianship?"

She furrowed her brows in confusion.

"I was thinking of sending you to boarding school," he explained further.

Sabine's eyes widened as she let out the breath she was holding. She was too surprised by his suggestion to care about whether she caught his cough or not. "What?" she exclaimed. "Boarding school?"

"Yes." Poe nodded. "You would sleep, eat, breathe and learn there instead of going back and forth from home to school."

"Like, a boarding school with uniforms?" Sabine asked.

"Oh yes, plenty of uniforms!" Poe said excitedly. "My, I would have loved to wear a uniform when I was your age."

"B-but uniforms take away any sort of originality that I have left! And boarding schools are suffocating, soul stealing, death traps filled with snotty rich kids!" Sabine explained frustratedly.

"On the contrary, Sabine. Boarding schools are an excellent way to express one's creativity," Poe said. "This one in particular has raving reviews. It's called Prufrock Preparatory School, and all the children's parents and guardians seem to love it! Just listen to this review. 'Prufrock Prep is a wonderful school. It has the most charming vice principal, (who is not the one writing this review, just in case the Board of Directors see this,) and is also a master violinist and deserves a pay raise. In my professional opinion as a real parent/guardian, and not Vice Principal Nero, this school runs perfectly!' See Sabine? How trust-worthy and honest is that review?"

"That's the most fishy review I've ever heard," she replied. "It sounds like the Vice Principal posed as a parent to write that."

"Oh, Sabine, don't be silly. This parent says twice, very explicitly, that they are not Vice Principal Nero. And you know you can always believe everything you read."

Sabine rolled her eyes but sighed in defeat, knowing she would never be able to reason with Mr. Poe. He was dull and close-minded, and he wouldn't listen to anything she had to say, because she was just a thirteen year old girl, and he was the adult, the one who got to make all the decisions. So, she kept her mouth shut and simply nodded.

"You can come stay at my house for the night until we can get you settled in at Prufrock Prep," Poe told her.

Sabine nodded again as he stood from his chair and led her out to his car. She didn't bother to hold her breath again, praying that she might die from whatever sickness made Poe cough so much before she had to go to a boarding school.

"It will be fun!" he assured her as they drove to his house.

Oh, how wrong he was...

𝔼𝕟𝕕 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣