Chapter 412: A Day At The Orphanage
"Toby!"
"Mabel!"
"Did you come to play again?"
"Is Big Sister Eris with you?"
"What about Big Sister Tina and Brother Lucas?"
Some 50 children, ranging in age from 4 to 12, swarmed Toby and Mabel, bombarding them with questions, causing the pair to feel a bit overwhelmed.
Fortunately, this wasn’t the first time they had experienced a situation like this, so both of them were quickly able to adapt.
Setting aside their thoughts about the earlier incident with the strange man at the door, the young boy and girl began answering the questions coming from all around them.
Toby did his best to sound calm and mature, while Mabel was much more cheerful and upbeat, laughing and smiling with all her friends.
This continued for a few minutes until Director Tilly came over and scolded the overexcited orphans, "Hey! Don’t go causing trouble for Young Master Toby and Young Lady Mabel!"
"Yeeesss!!" The kids all drolled, causing a vein to pop on the middle-aged woman’s forehead.
Just as she was about to reach for her trusty wooden spoon to enforce some discipline on the uppity children, Toby stepped in to mediate, "It’s quite alright, Aunty Tilly. Mable and I aren’t nobles. We were also orphans not long ago, so we don’t mind how we’re called."
Pursing her lips, the Director eventually let out a sigh and shook her head, silently acquiescing to the situation.
The children naturally cheered seeing this, pumping up Tilly’s blood pressure once more, but she managed to remain calm this time, her eyes narrowing with a cunning light as she declared, "Very well, but if any of these brats misbehave, just let me know and I’ll double their chores for the next month!"
That got a strong reaction from the crowd, with the kids all quickly wiping the grins off their faces or covering their lips in a comical manner.
Having re-established a bit of order, Director Tilly nodded before heading off to the back of the orphanage where most of the other staff were busy with one thing or another.
Once the oppressive dictator was gone, however, the children rapidly became active again, dragging Toby and Mabel around to play with them.
This carried on for another 10 or so minutes before the most rambunctious ringleader of them all showed up to join them.
Cheers immediately went up when ’Big Sister Eris’ walked into the room.
Seeing the beautiful young girl, with her long red hair still wet from her wash, a faint fragrance of flowers lingering about her, a number of the boys, like Joe, Billy, and Roy, couldn’t help blushing, averting their eyes, then looking back again, only to turn away shyly once more.
Normally, this kind of lovestruck reaction would have earned them a pinch, or a punch from their female compatriots, but all the young girls in the orphanage also had extremely positive views of Eris, so they decided to not mete out any punishment for the daydreaming boys... for now.
Besides, these girls all knew that none of these boys had even a remote chance of catching their Big Sister Eris’ eye; if anything, they felt them drooling over her to be quite pitiful.
The situation was even worse when Christina was around.
Eris was cute, fun to play with, and seemed to get prettier each time she came over, but Big Sister Tina was so beautiful already it was hard to believe she was even real. On top of her naturally noble demeanor and enchanting smile, being a few years older, Christina also had much more substantial ’assets’, ones all of the younger girls were envious of.
Of course, Tina was even further out of these snot-nosed boys’ league, so the girls weren’t worried about them being smitten with her at all.
Not that any of them had a crush on those stupid boys!
Honestly!
After enthusiastically greeting to the crowd of kids, and thanking her little brother and sister for playing with them while she was cleaning up, Eris quickly spotted the girl she was here to see today, ran over, and wrapped her in a tight embrace, "Becky! Happy birthday!"
Like most orphans in the southern district, Becky was a short, scrawny little thing. The young girl, who turned 10 today, was also a bit shy and reserved, but when Eris give her that big, warm hug and wished her a happy birthday, even she couldn’t help giggling out loud and hugging her back, "Thank you, Big Sister!"
Releasing the little girl with short, dirty-blonde hair, Eris smiled widely as she announced, "I brought you a gift today!"
"A gift?" Becky’s eyes lit up, "What kind of gift?"
The other kids also had their ears perk up at the mention of presents.
Every time Eris came to see them, she would always bring them something. Sometimes it would be soap, other times it was meat, but no matter what it was, it always made their lives better, so all of them were extremely grateful to her.
Seeing all of the eager looks around her, Eris flashed a teasing grin as she poked Becky’s nose playfully, "You’ll find out after dinner."
"""Aww...""" The kids booed, but cheerful laughter soon returned as a spontaneous game of tag broke out, with Eris volunteering to be ’it’.
Mabel had no problem blending in with this playful atmosphere, while even Toby was infected by all the merriment and began behaving more like an innocent child than one who had suffered serious trauma all his life.
In a flurry of laughter and activity, the afternoon gradually slipped by and eventually gave way to evening.
The older children also returned around the time the sun was beginning to set, about 20 of them in total aged 13 to 16 years old.
These kids had been out during to day, mostly doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood.
The pay for such jobs could be anything from a loaf of bread to a few Copper Coins, all of which helped keep the orphanage going.
Technically, it wasn’t legal in the Rockwell Kingdom to hire such young children, but hardly anyone followed this law, especially in poorer places where every extra pair of hands earning their keep was essential to survival.