"Your name?"
"I—uh, um…don't know…?"
Headmistress Lissy tipped her navy beret an inch overhead, watching through her cat-eye glasses the audacious presence of a stinking child soiling the beautiful teal velvets of her wingback chair with her soggy arse. "Peculiar," she worded out with utmost resistance.
Henrik turned to stare at the girl, almond eyes widened as if to say 'it-is-no-time-to-conceal-your-identity-when-confessing-will-let-you-off-with-detention.' In the sophisticated blue and gray palette of Headmistress Lissy's office almost glaring at Henrik's cherry bomber jacket and neon chunky sneakers coordinated over the plaid blues of his school uniform, the small boy pursed his lips with utmost submission, while his mind mused 101 ways to get rid of Kairos Rodrigo without leaving evidence.
Way one: hiding his best friend's body in a trashcan and closing the lid shut.
His murderous reverie was interrupted by the trashcan girl's curious explorations of the stationary placed on Headmistress Lissy's woodcarved tabletop. Her dark eyes greedily took in all curious details, rubbing her fingers over the intricate designs on the table edge and sniffing the fake lilies bottled atop.
To ask Henrik if he felt more embarrassed than betrayed would be too obvious of a question.
"What happened to you?" Headmistress Lissy narrowed her jelly-gold eyes at the form of trashgirl's face pressed against her aquarium. The girl had sucked her cheeks in and pursed the ends of her lips to form a fish pout. She hid the fishes from perspective with her big head and aligned her wiggling lips to fake the sight of blowing out bubbles from her mouth.
"Hehe, look, I'm making bubbles!"
Henrik, in that moment, decided to never acknowledge this strange creation even as an acquaintance. They shall remain strangers, forever.
Headmistress Lissy was taking this ill timed intrusion, rather well, against her reputation of damning a child with detentions at every breathable misconduct.
"How did you reach Crestmoore Elite? I understand that you were found in a trashcan by the East Crest Soccer Stadium, but, how did you get inside the premise without proper identity credentials?" Headmistress Lissy gestured her assistants with her piercing bespectacled gold gaze.
Henrik slithered to a safe side as Headmistress Lissy's assistants gloved their hands with medical gloves. While one of them held the girl's wrists hostage, the other conducted a thorough search of the girl's tattered shirt, brown plaid skirt and ruined socks. She resisted with minor pursuits, but eventually gave up when she spotted a poster of Yasin Hadid pinned next to a door.
He was in his soccer jersey with a headband reading C. E. A. His mouth was pulled in a wide grin as a soccer ball was tucked under his right arm and his left arm was extended in a big thumbs-up gesture.
"Who is he?" the girl asked with bubbling glee, her knees had gotten jittery and dark eyes pooled genuine prying.
"Why do you want to know?" was Headmistress Lissy's crisp reply.
"He saved my life. I am in love with him," was her straightforward clarification.
Henrik, who was sat on a chair with his legs crossed over his knees, scoffed just as audibly as Headmistress Lissy snorted. Disney certainly was not lost to her.
"You don't know your name but you know what love is?" Headmistress Lissy sounded amused, the skin around her small eyes crinkled as she placed her elbows on the tabletop and cupped her chin in her palms. Her thin peach lips stretched to a smirk, intrigued by the person standing before her.
'Is she hiding information to avoid punishment? Or...a spy, perhaps? Intresting, nonetheless.
"Irrelevant. I just needed occasion to use all these words in my head. Decapitated. Why is that in my head? Hallucinogen? What even? I don't know. But, what I know is, that, he is handsome and I want to know him." The girl's index finger pointed sharply at Yasin's smiling face. Immobile. Unaware. Henrik tsked a little sound of pity for the soccer player.
Headmistress Lissy frowned at the girl's odd selection of words. Someone who looked eight could possibly not have the word 'Hallucinogen' in their vocabulary. 'What had happened to this girl?'
Headmistress Lissy's assistants backed away from the girl's body, empty handed. They had found nothing that would not have been visible to a naked eye. Her eyes travelled to Henrik Stratford, son of Jung and Mina Stratford, owners of the biggest Law firms in Crestmoore. Her eyes skipped to the paper in front, reading in bold, the names of Kairos Rodrigo and Yasin Hadid.
The finest kids Crestmoore had to offer.
'Such a strange gathering of elite folks around a trashcan, finding a missing person… with no memory…did they find her…or was it all a scheme?' Headmistress Lissy's brain ran a mile a minute.
Henrik's brown hair were stuck up in an odd angle, curtsy the girl's vomit. His face too was smudged with dirt and he too stank of rotting breakfast and misfortune, just not as badly as the girl. He had an air of nonchalance, as always, he sat with confidence and there was no physical giveaway of him having possibly abducted a girl around his age and having shoved her in a trashcan of his school.
'The son of two immensely successful lawyers would know enough to comprehend it a bonkers plan to begin with.'
'Also, there was no motive.'
'Right?'
Headmistress Lissy pondered in her head as the girl had jogged up to Yasin's poster and tried flipping it over, to check out the back side, all the while Henrik's soul abandoned him slowly for he tried crossing his hands at his wrists, whispering, "No! Trashcan! Don't touch it!" and even fell off his wingback chair to gain her attention.
All of his efforts were vain to her.
His knees rubbed against the rough carpet underneath and tingled with burns. Instant regret 101 by Henrik Stratford. He sucked in an agitated breath, caressing his poor sacrificed knees over the silky fabric of his uniform, while giving the girl a stink eye.
The alleged villain of a girl stood grinning in front of the poster, head empty and all thoughts abandoning self concern. Her eyes only registered the pinned smiling face looking down at her. She in her ragged clothes, he in a uniform that belonged to him. She with no identity of her own, he whose achievements shone as bright as his kind smile. Worlds apart. Yet, for a moment, he had held her whole world in his small hands.
At her moment of eight, spinning controllably like an abandoned ball, he was there to hold her still.
Unintentionally so.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
The door clicked open and in walked the man of her dreams, pulled by his reddening ear, curtsy the chubby hands of Mr. Plod, along with a wave of nasally, "Ow, Ow, Ouch! Why! Ow! Wow! Why?! No! Wow! Ow!"s in tow. Quite similarly, but much calmly, followed the dragged, lanky, form of Kairos Rodrigo with an upturned smile.
The girl's newfound heart almost lurched out of its cage. She may not know much about the world. She may know nothing about herself. Maybe her mind was plagued with random gibberish like, 'Oral,' 'Amity,' or 'Syndicate.' But the only anchor in her memory is the face of Yasin, who helped her. Whom she must be loyal to. Whom she must protect.
"Caught 'em sneaking inside the Main Crest Hall," Mr. Plod announced with his smug, thick accent. With a boy to punish on either side, his heart swelled with pride. Henrik, too, cheekily poked his tongue at Kairos' don't-say-anything-i-have-given-up-on-you face.
The girl, stupefied by the harsh treatment of her newfound idol, rushed to the best, sanest, possible conclusion one could attain instinctually.
She jumped at Mr. Plod like a spirit from the jungle. Like a true descendent of the monkey ancestors. Like a squirrel at its nut. Like a proper wild animal out of its natural habitat. Like a beast hungry for revenge.
And bit off Mr. Plod's hand from Yasin's ear.