Me and Scott Shunpike sat bored and sleepy. “How are we supposed to get out of here Liby?” Scott asked me. I don’t know. I thought to myself. “We’ll find a way.” I said aloud, Scott nodded. 

Mrs. Rubin knocked on the door loudly. The door shook with the strength on her fist. “Open up, we need to talk.” Mrs. Rubin said gruffly, we looked at each other nervously. “Open it!” She shouted through the door. “You should do it Liby.” Scott said. I opened the door a little bit. There outside was Mrs. Rubin, she doesn’t look like what you would think she looks like. 

Her long hair was pulled back into the death bun they called it, her face was horse like but her eyes were like eagles, her teeth like sharks. They say she can’t be human, all the orphans say that of course. A shiver ran down me like a river, my teeth chattered together. “Hello Liby Shunpike.” Mrs. Rubin said falsely sweet. “Hi.” I squekaked, Malory Mrs. Rubin’s cat circled Mrs. Rubin. “Where’s your brother?” Mrs. Rubin asked, my brother Scott shuffled into view, his flaming red hair with sprinkles of grime appeared from the dark room. 

“First of all take a bath Scott. Second Liby, you were on wash duty this week and you didn’t do it right?” Mrs. Rubin asked, I nodded my head wildly.

“Okay, I’ll put you on duty next week and you better do it.” Mrs. Rubin barked, I stepped back a little, bumping into my brother and he bumped his head against the hard wooden door. He moaned, rubbing his throbbing head. “When I was younger our parents trained us to be tough, a hard wooden door is nothing, get up you’ll survive.” Mrs. Rubin said, thumping the wooden door like she would to her best bud.

All the orphans filed out to the front garden which was the most beautiful part of the whole orphanage. “Liby, it’s our chance to escape.” Scott whispered, I nodded slowly taking it all in. Mrs. Rubin was distracted and if she wasn’t, there would be too many orphans. We crept to the gate, orphans shouted at us because we’d bumped into them. Before we made it to the gate we saw a shadow looming over us. “Going somewhere?” Asked the looming figure, we turned on the spot and squinted into the sun. The figure came into view, they were back-lit but we could tell it was Mrs. Rubin, her dirt smelling clothes and her ugly dress looked and smelled like they had not been washed since the Stone Age.

Mrs. Rubin tugged the collar on our shirts as she pulled us to a tabistry I’d never seen. “Orpha.”  Mrs. Rubin said in a whisper, we could hear it of course. A key hole came out of nowhere as Mrs. Rubin put in the key, a pulley popped out and Mrs. Rubin pulled on the rope and the tabistry rolled up, slowly. The bottom of a door came into view. “What is this place?” I whispered, Mrs. Rubin kept tugging on the rope until it couldn’t go up anymore. “My office.” Mrs. Rubin said putting the same key into the door and it opened with a click. Me and Scott gapped opened mouths at the door that was a deep maroon. Mrs. Rubin pushed the door open and inside was the biggest office I’d seen in my life. Rows of books lined the wall, I’d never known Mrs. Rubin read or if she didn’t it was just decoration. A desk that was made out of wood sat in the middle in front of a big window overlooking the grounds. A bed for Malory sat next to the desk and it had a lump of fur which meant Malory was already here. “Whoa, this is awesome.” Scott said, he ran his hands against the rows of books that gave off a lot of dust. “Why did you bring us here?” I asked, Mrs. Rubin organized some papers on her desk. “To find you a home.” Mrs. Rubin says, we look at her and then at each other, we are going to have a home? No way! I thought to myself, this didn’t make sense, she had dragged us here to say that?

“So, I want to say that we have one person in already.” Mrs. Rubin said, a woman with silvery blonde hair came out of the corner where she’d been reading, a girl about thirteen year old followed. “This is Mrs. Watson, and her daughter Grace.” Mrs. Rubin said, we both shook our heads. Not us, we don’t dress up fancy like them I thought to myself. 

“I have a plan to get out of here, I don’t want this family and if they want us we’d be living on the prairie far far away from here.” Scott said, I nodded. I didn’t want this family and Scott knew that, but Mrs. Rubin didn’t, she’s not the type of person to understand people’s feelings. “Hello children, I’m Dora Watson, I want you to live with us, Grace would too.” Mrs. Watson said and she clearly had to nudge Grace to crack a smile, Grace didn’t seem nice at all. “I don’t know.” I said to Scott, Scott was tinkering with something in his hand, I pulled one of his fingers away to see, it looked like a drone or something. “When did you learn to tinker?” I asked him, he kept his eyes on the trinket, he seemed to be blocking all sound out of his mind so he could focus. “I don’t know.” I repeated, Mrs. Watson looked sad but I really didn’t care, because I didn’t want to live with her for the rest of my life, and Grace was probably thinking that too, I knew it. I just did. 

After the meeting with Mrs. Watson and her daughter Grace, we’d decided we didn’t want to live with the Watsons. Scott was still tinkering with the object in his hand, I didn’t know what it was ‘till he told me in our room. “This is a mini drone, it will tell me when to set off my distraction.” What distraction was he talking about? I thought after he’d told me, I knew that it was a drone, but what was the distraction? “What’s the distraction for?” I asked, Scott clicked in the last piece he’d stolen from somewhere in the bazillion things that were in the storage. “It’s to distract Mrs. Rubin so we can escape, of course. Liby, I have a question, do you think this model is a good one to distract Mrs. Rubin for a long time and then we can escape?” He asked, I looked over at what he was pointing at, it was big, big enough to clamp on a stairway, and there was a big bucket filled with vanilla colored stuff.  A rope that was connected to the bucket to tip it. “Where did you get all this stuff?” I asked, he put a thick extra blanket over it to hide it from view. “Storage. You know I always sneak in there every night to get stuff for my projects, I’ve been working on this for a while now. Also Liby can you pass me that leather book over there please?” Scott asked, pointing (without looking) at a thick leather book that looked like it belonged to the Harry Potter series, I leaned in my chair because I was too lazy to get up from my chair, and nudge the book closer to me. I lifted it and brought it to my brother who already had his hand out. “Why do you need this book, it looks ancient, and also how did you get this book?” I asked, Scott rubbed his upper lip thinking. “I did something wrong, the book says that I was supposed to put this piece here and that piece there and I totally switched them, I’m going to have to take this apart again and restart from the beginning!” Scott sounded disappointed, I tell ya. He scrunched his eyebrows together and breathed heavily as he pulled the two pieces out, he then flipped the book open and went to a page that had a thick layer of dust and gave off the smell of lollipops. (YUM!)  It’s stained pages and rubbed off cover, layed peacefully on the ground with my brother’s foot keeping it open. “Where did you get this book?” I repeated because my brother didn’t answer my question. “Mrs. Rubin’s library in her office, I nicked one when no one was looking.” Scott answered, putting the pieces together and putting them in a plastic bag I remembered I got from somewhere, I can’t recall where but I knew it was mine, but I didn’t care of it, it was just a plastic bag with my name: LIBY SHUNPIKE on it. 

When we went to dinner in the Mess Hall, we squeezed to the back to talk where no one was in earshot. “I have set up the drone but not the real deal, I hope we don’t get in trouble. Can you stay up all night with me to mount the distraction?” Scott whispered, even though no one could hear him, he just wanted to be sure, I think, I don’t know. Do you? We made it slowly to the Mess Hall and it was stuffed, we couldn’t find a seat to sit alone although this was like every dinner. We had to talk somewhere, but not the Mess Hall.

“Liby, meet me at our room after dinner, but not in front, inside.” Scott whispered carrying his tray full of gloop to the one of the only seats that were open, I had to sit at another table because his table was full. Stella was there and she flipped her black hair when I came. “Oh, hi Liby. Long time no see!” Stella squealed, I sat silently next to her. “I heard you wanted to escape the orphanage, it’s fine.” Stella said picking some of her hair and twisting it in a coil, Stella let the twist she was making go and it stayed curled because she had curly hair. “No, it’s not fine. Mrs. Rubin is the meanest person, even meaner than Mrs. Watson and her daughter Grace, and Grace doesn’t even like me and Scott, so… we don’t want to be their family.” I said, I tried to take all of my words back but Stella heard it clear as a bell, she covered her mouth and squealed. “You’re getting a new home!? That’s impossible, you’ve been here since you were a baby, and what! I can’t believe my ears.” Stella said cupping her ears to listen better. Stella over dramatizes everything when she’s super excited or she says she can’t hear properly and goes all ballistic and then she starts running around like a maniac and I don’t like that stage at all. “Stella, can you be a little quieter?” I asked between clenched teeth, Stella put one finger in front of her mouth and smiled. “I’ll keep my lips shut, that’s what friends are for right?” Stella asked, I smacked my forehead because Stella always says the obvious. 

Scott and me sat on our cots in our still room. “So Stella basically told everyone in the orphanage that we were going to escape?” Scott asked me, I nodded my head, really why did Stella have to ruin everything? “Well, I was thinking about having Stella help us.” I said after a good 15 minutes of silence. “How is she going to do that, I may ask.” Scott asked, I didn’t know myself but I knew she could help us someway, but I didn’t know how of course. “Scott, I have a question for you, if Stella is so loud and I told her that I was staying then… maybe, I don’t know but it may work, that she would be as loud as she was at the Mess Hall, then kids will believe we’d be staying.” I said, Scott picked his head up from the cot and looked at me eyebrow raised high. “I’m just saying, she could help us.” I said, Scott looked at me not impressed at all. “Liby, have you ever thought about if your plan will fail?” Scott asked, I rubbed my fiery red hair and thought. “No.” I admitted, Scott went back on his cot looking satisfied. “I knew it, I’m the person to make all the plans and troubleshoot them when something goes wrong.” Scott said, clasping his hands together and laid them on his stomach. “Go to bed.” Me and Scott heard Mrs. Rubin bark through the door. 

In the morning, Scott had already clamped on the distraction, and had the rope ready and steady so it wouldn’t tip. “I have a bad feeling about this.” I said after he’d clamped on the distraction. “We won’t get in trouble, and if we do we make a dash for it.” Scott said, keeping the rope steady. “You sure that’s a steady plan to get out of here?” I asked, Scott nodded, he took out a sensor that had the view of what the dorne was seeing. “Ready… set… go!” Scott said, I pulled on the rope and Scott clicked a red button and the sensor turned off. A cry rang through the whole orphanage. We looked at each other. “What was in the goo?” I asked, I’d never thought about it until now. “Oh… some itchy cream and umm… stinky socks that are ground up.” Scott said guilty, I smacked my forehead as I ran, I actually sprinted, Scott tailing me as we made it to the gate. It was all in slow motion, my heart was thumping, or was it just my feet? Sweat poured down my face into my shirt, my hands were shaking and I heard Scott’s feet thumping the ground. Mrs. Rubin’s heavy feet were catching up, Scott was shouting. “Go, Liby! Go!” I turned my head back as I saw Scott go right next to me, we were running like salt and pepper shakers away from the dump. Mrs. Rubin was catching up, I could hear her feet, Scott pulled me faster as I looked back. My heart dropped as we made it to the gate, we didn’t have the key so we’d have to climb it.“Stop.” Mrs. Rubin’s voice said, how did she find out so fast that we did it!? We put our hands up in surrender and turned around like in the Star Wars movies. “Why would you do that?” Mrs. Rubin asked, and she catched up not even out of breath. “Do you want to get another chance at finding a home? We do have one family that is the Fullers. They seem nice.” Mrs. Rubin said, pulling us like before to her office. A shiver ran down my spine as I thought about the Watson’s. “I’m not sure.” I said to Mrs. Rubin, and again Mrs. Rubin opened the door and went inside. A boy and girl stood there in orange t-shirts, their parents stood behind them like they were taking a picture or something. “This is the Fuller family, the mother is Nora Fuller, father Richard Fuller, daughter and son Anna and Josh Fuller. “ Mrs. Rubin said, pointing at each person as she talked, Anna waved and Josh ran up to Scott and hugged him hard. 

After they’d signed the papers, we were off to their home. They drove in a Mazda-5, and it was a homey car with crumbs of snacks, and random books, my favorite was the one on Moths! Anna’s full name was Annabeth and people would call her Beth or Anna. Josh’s full name was Joshua and his parents would call him Joshie, he thought Joshie was the most embarrassing thing in his life his family called him. Anna was reading a joke book to me, as Josh was reading an engineering book with Scott. Nora and Richard sat in the front talking about rooms and space for us, I was kinda eavesdropping. I know that’s bad, but I wanted to know.

When we got home, the space was new to me of course. Anna shared a room with me and Josh shared a room with Scott, the parents shared a room together and every night I would hear the door creak open Anna tip toeing across the room to the kitchen to get a mid-night snack then she would brush her teeth again and go back to our room with the smell of mint in her mouth. She would never tell anyone she did it but secretly we all knew, it was a joke in the family, we’d just hide our smiles as she ate her breakfast. 

Josh on the other hand was always reading comic books till mid-night, that’s what Scott told me, and he would never tell anyone that, and every day since I got to my new home, I would write in a purple notebook about my day and how I felt, and this story took 7 pages up!  That’s a lot!! Ahhh! “Kids, breakfast!” Nora called from downstairs, gotta go bye!