Chapter 2

Early next morning, Dennis was woken from his sleep once again by the ward shook. Unlike many of the other orphans, Dennis did not put any posters onto the walls of his dorm room. He had few possessions and they all fit into a single suitcase he could carry with the strength of one arm. The suitcase lay beside the bed, next to his shoes.

Dennis got up quietly. He slept in his outdoor clothes because the matron had told him to have everything packed in the evening, including his pajamas, he guessed. The ward went out of his room to wait outside as Dennis made his bed for the last time and followed the ward out of his former dorm room. Dennis did not look back before the ward closed and locked the door.

'The matron said you can do without breakfast, so have this.' The ward reached into the depth of his pocket and brought out an orange. He gave the orange to Dennis.

'Thank you, sir.' Dennis said.

'Just thank you is fine, don't call me a sir.' The ward replied.

'Thank you.' Dennis said. He pocketed the orange.

'Good, come along,' the ward led Dennis through the familiar hallways of the orphanage, to the double doors of the front entrance. Outside the front gates, a taxi was waiting right by the curb. 'The taxi’s paid for, it's going to take you to the Central Train Station, you'll have a guide from the academy waiting for you there, make sure you find him, because he has your train ticket.'

'Thank you.' Dennis said again, from his pocket he took out the orange the ward had given him and held it up, Thank you for this too.' He added.

The ward felt rather touched, he gave Dennis a slight pat on the back and ushered him through the double doors of the orphanage.

The early morning breeze rustled the firs and birches lining the street. Except for the taxi parked on the side of the road, there were no other cars on the street yet and the sidewalks were empty. The ward followed Dennis to the tall, iron gates and unlocked them, and Dennis walked out. The ward relocked the gates and stood on the inside of it, watching Dennis get into the taxi and shut the door. Dennis looked towards the ward and raised his hand in a farewell wave. 

The ward did the same, though he couldn't help but focus on Dennis' eyes, even until his face was masked by the light reflections on the taxi's windows, and even after that, until the taxi disappeared around the bend in the street. Only then did he go back into the orphanage to sound the morning wake-up bell.
Dennis ate the orange in the taxi. The taxi's radio was tuned to a jazz station. Hearing nothing but silence from his passenger, and being unaccustomed to this, because orphans all tend to be very talkative when they get adopted, the taxi driver - a middle-aged man with a short beard - turned around in his seat to take a good look at Dennis.

'Hey buddy, you're awfully silent back there, got something on your mind?' The driver asked curiously.

Without looking up, Dennis took out from his pocket the orange and said, 'Do you want to share an orange with me?'

The driver didn't know how to respond to such a strange request, he declined, 'Nah, I ate, but thanks.' He searched for something more to say while Dennis began to peel the orange carefully so not to spill and drops of juice onto the taxi's seat, 'You know, I've drove kids like you from that place plenty of times...to where you're getting adopted to, and I've never met a kid from the orphanage who isn't at least half a chatterbox, you sure are a special case, aren't you?'

Dennis thought about this, he said, 'I'm going to a boarding school, have you drove anyone to a boarding school before?'

'Hoy! No I haven't. Looks like you're a first.' The driver hooted, 'what's school you're getting sent to?'

'It's called the Scholar Academy of the Americas, very prestigious.'

'The Scholar Academy,' the driver exclaimed in surprise, 'Why that's no ordinary school! You need a good load of money to go there, how did you get that amount of money?'

'My mother wrote in her will that she saved some money for me to go there once I come of age at twelve, which I did two years ago, but the matron didn't let me go then, so she's letting me go now.'

The driver's eyes narrowed, 'So you're saying the matron should have sent you there two years ago...'

'Nope, that's only what the matron told me, I don't know what she meant by it.' Dennis replied.

'Well that's what's supposed to have happened!' The driver slammed his hands onto the steering wheel, 'The matron cheated you! You get that?'

Dennis shrugged.

'Don't you see? When your mum's will says you ought to go to this school when you're twelve, that's what ought to have happened! With these schools, you pay your tuition - money - on a yearly basis to the school, so when the matron kept you at the orphanage 'till now she was taking two years worth of tuition from you!'

Dennis nodded. He ate another slice of the orange.

'Tell you what, the matron, that slimy hag, what she did was fraud, you can sue her for that!'

Dennis thought about it, 'I don't think I know anything about suing someone.'

'Yeah, right you are,' the driver sighed, 'maybe someday, eh? Right now, just be glad you're out of that place and going to boarding school, eh?'

'Yeah,' Dennis nodded slowly. He finished the orange and pocketed the peel.

'Well, well, we're here,' the driver stopped the taxi, 'Good to have chatted with you, what's your name?'

'Dennis Raveley.' Dennis said.

'Well goodbye Dennis Raveley, best of luck finding your way.' The driver was about to introduce his name before parting with Dennis when to his surprise, Dennis spoke first. They made eye contact.

'You too. Goodbye, Bruce.' Dennis said. Then, suitcase in hand, he turned towards the endless sea of people moving into the great depot's wide arch entrances and disappeared.

Bruce stayed in a trance until the car behind him honked, snapping him back to awareness. He blinked, shook his head and moved his taxi along.

Inside the enormous station building, Dennis moved with a crowd of people, taking in the grand sight around him. He wondered how he was going to find the guide he was looking for in the midst of so many people.

That's when he noticed a giant white balloon the size of a minivan suddenly inflating some distance away near one of the ticket booth lines. Looking above the heads of other commuters, Dennis spotted the words engraved on the balloon: 'Dennis Raveley, if you see this come over here! –From the Scholar Academy'

Dennis smiled. It was a strange feeling seeing a giant balloon with his name on it, he couldn’t quite place it.

Chapter 1

Dennis Raveley had unique eyes; not many people liked those eyes when they first met him, and thus not many people came to like him, after first disliking those eyes of his.

His eyes were a dark grayish color that suited his extremely pale face. So pale was this face that should he lay down inside a coffin and remained still, an observer could have mistaken him for dead. This appearance caused people to believe he is sick and call him 'a sickly boy'. Dennis did not mind this, because in a strange way he was pleased about how he looked and always possessed a fair reservoir of self-esteem as the result of such positive self image, all in spite of his loveless upbringing.

Dennis had very big eyes and long eyelashes. If he had been born without those gray eyes and if he had been born a girl, those features would have made him quite beautiful. His chin was slight and angular, and a small, sharply pointed nose sat above his mouth, which were framed by two thin, wide and not very fleshy lips. His short, groomed hair was a dull black color; it blew in the wind and would become puffy no matter how much the matron of the orphanage tried to press it down with a comb.

The orphanage where Dennis lived since he was brought there at the age of five was an old, Victorian structure that had never been renovated since it was built. Surprisingly, there was never a rat infestation at the orphanage. Somehow, despite being in the oldest section of the city, rats had avoided this ancient structure. The orphanage was a large building. It had been built as a boarding school, and served as one until it was replaced by a newer school nearby, when it was converted into an orphanage run by the state. The building had fifty rooms in the dormitories. The number of rooms grew as the size of the city grew; the old neighborhood were the former boarding school was built had become steadily poorer, and abandonment was common among young children, these children were ever so often left on the steps of the orphanage, so as more and more children were left in its care, the orphanage divided rooms that had formerly been spacious classrooms into cubicles to create more dorms. Altogether, by the time Dennis arrived at the orphanage, there were one hundred and twenty rooms in the orphanage, housing more than five hundred children.

Dennis didn’t have any friends; no one liked him because they could never stand looking at him in the eye, and neither could any of the forty social workers at the orphanage. They paid no attention to him and didn’t know he was there, and when they did know, they tried to ignore him. When he was seven years old, Dennis found a pair of sunglasses on the sidewalk outside the orphanage. He kept it and wore it around the other children and councilors at the orphanage, so they did not have to look in his eye if they wanted to become his friend. It did not work.

Dennis kept the sunglasses anyway. A lot of women were wearing them because large sunglasses were a fashion trend in those days; Dennis was pleased with himself when he found out that he was following a trend, but more so because large, thick-rimmed glasses looked very nice on him. Four years later, the orphanage councilors discovered that Dennis was nearsighted. Since he sat at the back of the class in school, he had to frequently walk to the front of the glass to read what was on the blackboard because he couldn’t see from the back at all. Getting eyeglasses did not trouble Dennis much; like the pair of bulky sunglasses, thick lenses also looked quite nice on him, especially because his already large eyes were even further magnified, and Dennis developed a habit of looking at himself in the mirror for long periods of time, in silence.

This was precisely what Dennis was doing when one evening he was summoned to the matron’s office. It was a Thursday before the Mid-March school vacations, and Dennis was staring at his reflection in the window of his little dorm room, his chin supported by two elbows propped on his desk next to his bed.

The matron’s ward entered without knocking. Checking the note he had in his hand, he said, ‘Raveley Dennis, the matron summons you to her office, right now, go.’

Dennis turned around in the chair he was sitting in and put on his glasses. ‘Okay.’ He said quietly. Dennis got up and followed the ward down his hallway, past the rows of doors, and into the administration wing of the building.

The administration wing was modeled after the school he attends, two blocks from the orphanage. The walls were newer than in the dorms, and the ceiling had less cracks in them. However, the single hallway of the wing was significantly darker, lit by dangling lamplights from the ten feet tall ceiling. The floor was wooden and creaky. The hallway echoes the footsteps of anyone who passes.

The matron’s office was at the end of the hallway, facing the straight hallway directly. Dennis had only been to the matron’s office on two occasions. Once when he first arrived at the orphanage, which he could not remember, and one other time when another child dumped a bucket of dishwater on him because the boy didn’t like how Dennis looked and had to apologize to him personally in the matron’s office.

They approached the matron’s office briskly. The ward knocked on the wood and Dennis heard the matron say, ‘Enter!’ The ward ushered Dennis into the office and left, closing the door without another word.

Dennis stood inside the doorway of the matron’s office and looked around. The walls of the office were whitewashed. The matron sat at the far end of the long room, behind a wide desk. Behind here hung a life-sized portrait of her, a plump, mid-aged woman with a powerful build, rigid posture, and a hard, steel gaze. The blind were drawn over the windows on either side of the room, and the office was illuminated by two tall lamps behind the matron’s armchair, one on each side, like two pillars. Filing cabinets and bookshelves stacked with books lined the walls, and framed items hung above them.

‘I did not instruct you to look around as you please, Dennis. Come over here.’ The matron indicated for him to move forward.

Dennis nodded. He walked forward towards the matron’s desk, where she was reading several papers clutched in her hand. He took a seat in one of the three armchairs in front of the matron’s desk. The matron looked up.

‘I did not say you can sit down, Dennis.’

Dennis nodded and got back up and stood next to the armchair.

‘Now, say, may I sit down, ma’am?’

‘May I sit down, ma’am.’ Dennis said.

‘Yes you may,’ the matron put the papers she was reading onto her desk and looked at him. She picked the papers up again and held them up for his to see. Dennis adjusted his glasses and looked at them.

‘Do you know what these papers are?’ The matron said.

‘No, ma’am.’ Dennis replied.

‘Quite the simpleton you are, aren’t you?’ The matron said, she shuffled the papers, ‘This is your mother’s will, she had written it shortly before her death and I had witnessed it personally. Do you remember your mother?’

‘No, ma’am.’ Dennis replied.

‘Are you interested in what your mother has left for you in her will, Dennis?’

Dennis thought for a bit, ‘I don’t know, ma’am.’

‘Of course you don’t, I should expect you to know nothing of the sort. Do you wish me to explain it to you in terms you can understand?’

‘I don’t know that either, ma’am.’

‘You’re certainly not like the other orphans, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘So that you’re sure of,’ the matron snickered, ‘well, you’re sure right about that, you’re nothing like the others, you’re less. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am.’

‘Well now you do, because I can confirm it, so don’t think you’re anything special, because you’re not, is that clear?’

‘Okay, ma’am.’

‘Yes. It’s yes, ma’am, not okay, ma’am.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Good, now, I’ve wasted enough time trying to get through to you, so here’s the bottom line, you’re getting out of here.’ The matron searched Dennis for any sign of an emotion other than his monotonous trance, there was none. She continued, ‘shortly before she passed away, your mother had come to this orphanage institution to deliver you. In her will, she stated that you are to remain here until the age of twelve, upon when you shall be dismissed from here to attend the Scholar Academy. Do you know what the Scholar Academy is?’

‘No, ma’am.’ Dennis replied.

‘Of course you don’t, it is the most prestigious collegiate institution in the country, the Scholar Academy of the Americas. It is near the East Atlantic Coast, across the country from here. Your mother, in her will, had left you a large sum of money as tuition for you to attend the academy, though I can’t began to imagine what good a private school education could have possibly serve you.’ The matron paused to sigh heavily, ‘I see no promise in you, Dennis, you are already fourteen years of age, is that correct?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Good, then you can do the math and see that your mother had meant for you to leave here two years ago. Me, I didn’t see how you could have made it out there two years ago, you weren’t ready, and I still don’t even though you’re now two years older, but your mother’s wishes must be honored, so I have no choice but to dismiss you, it can wait no longer.

‘You will leave in the morning, your bag must be packed tonight, and you shall do so immediately upon returning to your dorm.’ The matron finished and looked at him with disgust. Dennis’ eyes were downcast, and the matron was relieved she did not have to look at them.

Dennis looked up, his eyes, magnified through his lenses, locked with the matron’s beady eyes, she froze.

‘May I go now, ma’am.’ Dennis requested.

The matron choked on her words, she quickly recovered and gestured for Dennis to get out of her office. Dennis bowed and left for the door, leaving the matron with a disturbed sensation at having seen something extremely unsettling.

The ward had waited outside the office for him and led him back to his dorm room, where he set about packing his bag for a new life.

Cut! Let's Do That Scene Again.

How many times can an author make a wrong start with a story before hitting a right one?

As many as it takes; as long as the author still considers the story doable.

After a long period of inactivity, I have decided to scrap this new beginning of Dennis Raveley and once again start from scratch-ish. This is the third attempt to get a beginning out here that I will settle with.

The new new beginning will be posted as soon as I get all the stuff at school for this week over and done with.