Chapter 11
I gripped the edge of my desk and kept my head down, enduring the ten minutes recess with my head down.
By evening, all the other kids had gone home.
At the school gate, parents waited with gentle expressions, picking up their children.
And I walked alone toward the boarding building. I was the only boarder in first grade.
In the our dorm, the others were older girls. Within a few days, they had also learned about my situation.
This time, even their parents were furious and came to complain. Before long, I was the only one left in this dorm.
No one from the Millers ever visited me, but they never missed a payment.
So even though I lived alone in the entire dormitory–like some kind of monster–the school never said a thing.
Gradually, even the children in the neighboring rooms were pulled out by their parents, one by one, until I was completely alone.
I had no one to play with, nothing to do, and no home to return to.
All I could do was go over the textbooks repeatedly, learning the same material countless times.
By the end–of–term exams, I had taken irst place.
The homeroom teacher handed me a certificate and said in a flat tone, “Emily has acieved the highest score this term.”
From the audience, many kids shouted angrily. “A kidnapper’s child! What good is being first!”
“When she grows up, she’ll get caught for abducting others just like her father!”
For the first time, I turned my head and quietly defended myself. “I won’t abduct anyone.”
My classmates, burning with indignation, rushed up, snatched my certificate, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it repeatedly.
The homeroom teacher frowned, seemingly considering whether to punish the kids for causing such a scene.
I crouhed down, picked up the certificate stamped with footprints, and sai to the teacher, “It’s okay.
Then I looked at the furious boy and spoke seriously, “I really won’t abduct anyone. I also hate my father.”
If a child could choose their own father, I would gladly accept any number of options–but I would never choose him.
My deskmate spat in front of me again, and the other kids cheered him on.
After afternoon classes, I returned alone to the dorm and looked at myself in the mirror on the wall.
1
It seemed I had grown a little taller. I pushed aside my bangs, looking at the eyebrows my mother had never liked.
Now, their color seemed slightly darker.
In my mind, I recalled that man’s face–his twisted, black, and harsh eyebrows.
I looked at my own eyebrows and felt they weren’t quite like his. But since Mom said they were, they must be like his.
On the desk lay a pair of scissors for paper crafts.
I stared at them for a moment, then brought them to my face, pressing the blade against my eyebrows.
I wondered if trimming them off would allow new ones to grow in a different shape, less dense. But the hairs seemed too short.
The scissors were child–safe ones issued by the school, not sharp at all.
It took me a long time and considerable effort to manage to trim off just a part of my eyebrows.
Chapter 11
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They looked sparser, and the color seemed a littl lighter. I wanted to keep going and trim more.
From outside, someone shouted loudly. “Emily, come down!”
The voice was familiar–it was Ethan. I had been at school for almost half a year, and no one from the Millers had come to see me.
Ethan often sent other kids to bully me, but he himself never came to look.
Whenever he saw me, he would avoid me as if I were carrying the plague.
My heart pounded like a drum as I ran to the window and loed down.
He was too far awayfor me to see his expression clearly, but his voice caried.
“I heard you got first place. Let me see what the first–place certificate looks like.”
Chapter 11
