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He had only wanted to play in the garden, but She had decided it was his turn to wash the dishes. He had known it was Billy's day instead, and had said so, but She wouldn't listen. She had given him a choice, do the dishes or don't. He had chosen as any boy of seven would, and said he wouldn't, if it was all the same to her.
She had responded with her belt, rigorously applied to his bottom, and set him up to his room. He had sat on his bed for what had felt like hours, choking back the lump in his throat, wiping away the tears that refused to come. Eventually, he swallowed, and listened to the noises is downstairs.
She was chastising Amy for some mistake, and the voices of all the other orphans could be heard elsewhere inside the house. He took a deep breath and went over to the window. Ivy crawled up the walls from the back yard, providing a perfect handhold for enterprising little boy.
He had made the climb a few times before, ever since he had discovered the snake in the garden. It was there now, hiding under a stone next to the fence.
"What's wrong?" It asked.
In a few words, the boy explained what had happened.
"You're special, you know, " it whispered when he was done. "You don't have to do what they say."
"But she hits me if I don't listen," the boy replied.
"You can pay it back, if you want," the snake told him. "If She hurts you, then it's only fair that you hurt Her as well."
The boy hesitated, thinking about the stories he had read in school. Revenge was a Bad Thing.
“You’re special,” the snake repeated. “You’re better than them.”
The boy thought breathlessly of when She had decided he needed a lesson, of Billy, who liked to think that the boy should do all his chores for him, of little Dennis, who always got a little extra at supper, just because his parents had left him something. The boy nodded.
Some time later, She came out into the garden, looking for something, carrots for supper, perhaps. What She found was much different. She screamed and ran back a few steps.
“Put that disgusting thing down!” She screeched, grabbing at a hoe.
“No!” the boy shouted, climbing to his feet. The snake dropped from around his wrist.
“Get out of the way!” She cried, pushing him to the side, raising the hoe, and bringing it down on the snake’s head.
“No,” the boy said again.
She exhaled sharply, staring at the dead snake, then looked up at the house. “Billy!” She hollered. She looked back at the boy.
“I thought I told you to go to your room,” she told him. The boy looked down at his toes.
“Yes Ma’am?” Billy asked, breathless from his run down the stairs.
“Take him up to his room,” She instructed. “Make sure he goes. I need to get supper done.”
Billy nodded. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Together, the boys walked through the back door and into the stairwell. Out of eyeshot, Billy shoved the younger boy. He hit the steps hard.
“That’s for making me do the dishes,” he hissed. He stroked the rabbit valiantly attempting to escape his pocket.
“What? Gonna cry?” He taunted.
For a moment, the boy thought he would, closing his eyes against the burning heat. He promised himself he wouldn't. He never cried, not for Billy Stubbs, not for anyone. He then remembered what the snake had said.
“You are special.”
The boy got slowly and calmly to his feet, his eyes opening to fix on the rabbit half hanging out of Billy’s pocket. Billy was unereved for a moment by the smile playing around the other boy’s lips, but squashed the feeling instantly. After all, what could Tom, the orphanage’s wierdo, do?
He looked up and screamed.