A room, brightly lit. From outside, the sound of leaves rustling.
"You look like someone opening his eyes for the first time," said the kind voice of an elderly man.
Ranma started, and his eyes snapped fully open, taking in the sight of a beige ceiling. For a second, he layed there wracking his brain, trying to figure out the name to go with the voice, before-
"Father Nathan, that you?"
A small chuckle sounded near him. "Right, right, my boy. It looks like you've managed to get through it just fine."
"So it's over, right?" Ranma asked as he tried to sit up, to face the priest sitting by his bed. The light of the dawning sun came into the warm and decorated room. A different one, he idly noticed, than the uncomfortable hospital-like confines where he had stayed during the exorcism.
The old priest, Nathan, looked at Ranma pensively, as if he were worried about Ranma moving, before dismissing the worry. "Yes, we're finished. You will make it through just fine."
Ranma sat looking out the window at the small garden outside for a moment before abruptly plopping back onto the soft, plush bed again. He puffing out a breath.
"So what's gonna happen now?"
Father Nathan sighed. "Well, we've decided that since we can't send you back to your motherland, we, the Vatican, will take responsibility for your upbringing until another family can be found for you." A moment of silence. "Are you alright with that?"
Ranma, staring at the ceiling, didn't reply. Outside, the sounds of spring continued, filling the silence.
"I know that it won't be so easy for you, here in another country without family or friends, but life isn't always meant to be easy." Father Nathan rubbed his thinning hair with his hand, not too comfortable saying these things to a six-year-old boy. After another moment of silence, and when the boy didn't seem likely to turn his face toward himself for a while, the man simply whispered, "The Lord and His angels are with you, child."
Ranma felt a hand smoothing his blankets before footsteps slowly left the room. Outside, low voices conversed, but he didn't know any Italian, so didn't understand what was said.
A while later, another person, with a heavier step, came into the room. And Ranma was taken to Luke Ferdinand.
"Ranma, Ranma! Stop eating for a second and come take a look at this!"
It was a sunny summer day at the idyllic little orphanage outside of Rome. Kept by a small group of priests and nuns, and supported by the largess of the Vatican, it served as a quaint domicile for the children in its care.
In the mess hall, eight-year-old Ranma looked up from his bowl of spaghetti in irritation. "What is it, Emilio!? Can't you see I'm eating!?"
The thin and waif-ish blonde Emilio, Ranma called him "shrimpy", didn't stop yelling from where he stood with some other children outside. "But Thomas actually got into the Matron's room and grabbed her ledger-book! We can finally find out when the next batch of toys and stuff come!"
"WHAT!? Really!?"
Ranma gobbled up the rest of his lunch in one chew-and-gulp motion and ran out the door to join his friends in the courtyard.
The troupe of kids ran through the complex and gathered beneath one of the trees near the back of the property. Emilio, Samantha, Maria, Aaron, Thomas, Seth. And Ranma, of course. Gathered around an old beat-up book that belonged to the Mother of the orphanage.
"Well, wha'cha ya waitin' for? Open it up and take a look!" said Seth. The rest made little gestures of agreement, while gentle Maria, the most straightlaced among them, proceeded to look around nervously, afraid of getting in trouble like she usually was. Thomas gave one of his goopy little happy-grins, and with a flourish, popped open the book to some random page.
The group quietly stared in awe as Thomas leafed through the pages looking for something interesting, before finally Ranma pointed to an entry with a recent date.
"Aw man! What a ripoff! Next month!?"
And just like that, the interest died.
Sighing, the Japanese boy flopped down onto his back on the lush green grass of the lawn, staring through the leafy canopy above him. "Too bad, I was hoping for something next week, but I guess n-OOF!"
Samantha giggled from her seat, not concerned that she had just decided to sit on Ranma's lower ribcage. "Too bad Tom, I guess grabbing it from the Mother's room wasn't worth it after all!"
Thomas shrugged it off; he and Emilio already looking bored and ready to forget the whole thing. Seth just scratched his head as he looked through the ledger some more, seeing if there was anything else interesting. Aaron and Maria were sort of worried about how Ranma was having trouble breathing from his current position beneath their petite, blonde friend.
"Well, I guess we'll have to put it back soon, or else we'll catch some," Emilio off-handedly remarked as he snatched the object in question from Seth (to a small bit of complaint). "Er, yeah you might want to get off Ranma before he, you know... dies."
Samantha looked down at the boy she was sitting on. "Oh... hi Ranma!" And then she got off.
The look on said boy's face was probably far more eloquent than anything he could have said in words.
"So how are we going to get it back into the Matron's room? Thomas?" asked Aaron, with a small nod from Maria. All eyes (except Ranma, still struggling back toward full consciousness as he was) focused on Thomas, the mastermind behind the whole thing. Thomas scrunched up his face in thought. Finally, an idea seemed to come to him, and he stepped over to where Ranma was lying.
"Okay, well... see... I didn't really think this all the way through, but if there's anyone who could pull it off, it's Ranma, right-erk!"
And he found himself grabbed by the collar as Ranma, faster than any of them could see, jumped to his feet and seized him. "And why would I do that?" Ranma asked in a low, dangerous voice. "You're not trying to pass the blame ta me, are ya?"
Thomas sighed. "Come on Ranma, you know that out of all of us, you're the one with the most experience in not getting caught. Besides, you owe me for giving up half of my servings for the last month. Or didja forget about that?"
Ranma twitched, and then released his hold on Thomas's collar. "Right. Fine. Whatever. How hard could it be?" Walking over to a snickering Emilio, he snatched the book. Then after a moment's thought, thumped it on Emilio's head with a meaty THUMP. It didn't hurt, but it made Emilio stop snickering, which was all he wanted.
"That's my Ranma!" laughed Samantha, "Always ready to help. Or something like that." At Ranma's glower, she only returned a sweet, innocent smile full of sunshine and flowers.
Ranma rolled his eyes and walked off.
Everyone watched him leave.
And then everyone followed him. Just to see what would happen, of course.
"Well ya brats, what've ya got ta say fer yerselves, eh?"
The small group looked down as if contrite. Father Alex wasn't fooled.
It was a common sight at Luke Ferdinand. Courtyard. Evening. Group of children. Father Alex. Sometimes with Sister Dorothy, but not this time. The children standing with bowed heads. Father Alex standing with clenched fists and a mightily throbbing forehead vein.
"I tell ya over an' over ta stop climbing onta th' roof. Over an' over ta stop throwing things down the chimney. Do ya ever listen!? Why do I keep talkin' ta myself!? I know ya know how hard it is ta clean! I know Sister Dorothy keeps making ya scrub it all out! What demons are possessing ya kids ta make ya keep doin' this!?"
"And you, boy!" Father Alex roared as he turned to a pigtailed boy in particular. "What were ya thinkin' when you pulled this again!? Day after day ya keep making trouble, and fer what? What do ya think it'll get you if not another switchin'!? Four years we've kept ya here, ya think ya'd learn some manners sometime! Ta keep outta trouble for good! If it were my decision ta make, I'd have taken ya and tossed ya inta the sea a hundred times by now!"
Ranma bowed his head in shame/boredom/indifference just as he always did. The little group was made up of children of the same age, who had been together for years. None of them really took Father Alex's words seriously anymore. Except maybe the girls, who still thought the priest was a bit overwhelming. Ranma had long learned to tune out the evening rant.
Father Alex growled in the back of his throat before wheeling onto his next target, knowing that he wouldn't be getting any farther with this one anyway, and he had other business to attend to. Besides, yelling at Maria was usually more productive than at that boy, even though she usually didn't deserve it as much as the rest of them did.
The chilly breeze of autumn blew through the courtyard. Ranma mind was far, far away. Like... what was on the tomorrow's menu? Or how was Thomas and Aaron doing in their new homes?
Ranma sighed again.
It was a cloudy day, not that that was really apparent from where he was sitting. Being stuck in a small, confined space as punishment tended to make it hard to appreciate the weather. Ranma sneezed, and pulled his coat a bit more closely around him to ward off the early winter chill.
"So you got 'shed duty' again, huh?"
Ranma peered toward the tiny window of the small shack, where the face of twelve-year-old Emilio, still as thin as he ever was, grinned down at him like some tourist patronizing a zoo.
"Whaddya ya want this time? I took the fall for you guys again. Ya come to tease me for that?"
"Me, tease you?" Emilio reeled in faux-horror. "I would _never_ do such a thing! But since I'm here, I'm just going to eat this lollypop right in front of you where you can't do anything about it." And, taking one from some back pocket, he began to do just that.
Ranma sulked, trying his best to ignore Emilio, who was in turn trying his best to be as loud and annoying and attention-grabbing as possible. Ranma wasn't too successful, while Emilio was doing pretty well, so the confined one tried another tack.
"Seth's gone now. Samantha too. Looks like it's just us and Maria now."
Emilio stopped being a jerk for a second. "Yeah, but what're you going to do? They found a new family. Heck," the boy cast a jolly glance down at his friend, "if you want to get some new parents, you should stop being a troublemaker, and maybe someone'll adopt you! You know, if they don't find out how much of an idiot you are."
"Pff. If that's all it took, Maria woulda left a long time ago. Nah," Ranma sighed once more, his breath a fine mist in the cool air, "I was just thinkin' that if this goes on we'll all get separated. I mean, where'm I goin' ta find a footpad like you again?"
Emilio didn't look offended one bit. "Or I a scapegoat like you? But anyway, don't worry about it too much. If it happens, that's life. Try to enjoy your friends while you can. I think Maria's got a crush on you for a while now, so you might as well take her up on that."
Ranma was just about to give the boy a piece of his mind on the subjects of "what the heck are you talking about" and "mind your own business", when the tell-tale stomp of footsteps reached them. Emilio looked over his shoulder for a second, then turned back to the little prisoner.
"Oops, gotta go. Here comes Father Alex on patrol again. Better not let him see me here with you." The smiling face disappeared. Just as Ranma was going into another sulk, a small wrapped lollipop dropped from the window onto his lap.
Ranma unwrapped the treat as he started to reconsider his friend.
*SLAM*
The door opened.
"BOY! WHERE'D YOU GET THAT!?"
Emilio had better not fall asleep tonight, or else he'd regret it!
Gossip was going around the orphanage.
"Hey Maria, that Ranma's in the library again."
"Oh, again?"
"Isn't it weird? Just a few months ago he wouldn't have been caught dead with a book, but now he's always in the library or reading or studying."
"And he never runs around any more or gets in trouble with Father Anderson. I wonder what happened?"
"Ha ha, maybe the Mother finally managed to whoop some discipline into him."
"No way! You haven't even been here long enough to know what Ranma was like, Richard. Not even Father Alex could get him to slow down the last couple of years. What do you think Christine?"
"Me? Oh I dunno. I think he was so much cooler when he was more of a troublemaker. Did you see the last time when they made him mop the bathroom-"
"And he used so much soap all the adults were sliding all over the place? That was so hilarious!"
"Oh, I don't know, I think he's better like this."
"S-SISTER FRANCINE!? Er, I mean, we weren't, we weren't talking about-"
"Go back to your studies, children. You might even take an example from young Ranma."
"Yes, Sister Francine."
In the orphanage's small library, fourteen-year-old Ranma, still sporting his old pigtail, diligently made his history notes. Unaware of the going-ons around him, and unconcerned about the worries of those who thought his new habits odd.
It was his wish to be something better than he used to be. He couldn't stay a child for much longer. And it had taken him years to remember that again. But remember he did, and he knew that it was time to start a new life.
It was spring again.
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(Posted Sun, 19 Feb 2006 13:39)
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