6. Stranger Danger

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A new week began with a new child being brought to the Willow Creek Orphanage. This time, there would be no more black hair (because I say so!). The little one's name is Ross and he is a Goofball with the Whiz Kid Aspiration.

Having been so focused on the children, Jane hadn't had much time to stay fit lately. So, she bought a treadmill. That way, she could use her breaks during the day to get a workout in.

Tiffany paid a visit to the Orphanage, not long after leaving to pursue her Adult life. It made Jane very glad that her children felt like this had been a real home for them and that they still came to visit.

Meanwhile, Bradly had been devoting his time to a new hobby: playing the guitar. He was getting good at it, too!

Jane, too, was trying something new, dabbling at painting.

And Daniela was attempting carpentry. It seemed like a good activity to blow off some steam after an intense school day.

 

Speaking of Daniela, it was time for her to age up and venture into Adulthood, as well. I added the Childish trait and she got the Nerd Brain Aspiration. 

So, the next day, Daniela left the Willow Creek Orphanage to set out on the journey of Adulthood.

  

Bradly followed suit, aging up into an Adult only one day later. He added the Glutton trait to his evil and Genious traits. His aspiration is to have a Big, Happy Family. In two days, the Willow Creek Orphanage says goodbye to two of its orphans. Wishing them all the luck in the world!

What had begun as a great and joyous week at the Willow Creek Orphanage, couldn't possibly get better. But Jane wanted to try. She'd been thinking about it for a while, but there had been so many kids at the Orphanage that she feared she wouldn't be able to manage them all alone. She'd always wanted to take them on a group outing and since the weather was nice, it was the perfect time to plan something like this.

She decided she'd take the kids to the park. Since there were only 4 kids presently living at the Orphanage, it wouldn't be as hard to watch them all. It was the perfect opportunity for her to do something like this, since soon enough more children would surely arrive at the Orphanage.

So, that Friday, after all the children came home from school, she took them to the Willow Creek Park. The Orphanage had every commodity for the children, including a garden with a pool and monkey bars for the children to play, but she thought it was important for them to get out a bit, as well.

 

The trip began as successfully as she'd expected. Even the older kids were enjoying the afternoon spent outdoors. But Jane could never have predicted how that day would turn out.

A desperate lady had arrived at the park. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten there. She had felt numb after coming out of the doctor's office. Deep in thought, she had walked off, not noticing where she was going. But it must have been a sign from the universe. It must have been fate.

Juanita (that was her name) had left her doctor's appointment in tears, in a state of shock and depression. She'd been in to see her fertility doctor. All the hope and effort she'd put in had amounted to nothing. The doctor had told her that her eggs weren't viable and she shouldn't keep pursuing her desire to have biological children. Maybe she should explore other options, her doctor had told her.

And now that she arrived at the park, it seemed like those other options were presenting themselves to her. She noticed a group of children accompanied by a lady who must be about her age. Surely, those children couldn't be hers. She wasn't old enough to have teenagers. Juanita decided to sit on a bench that was closer to where the kids were playing and began listening in.

"Ms. Jane, thanks for bringing us to the park!" Said one of the children to the lady. "I mean, we love the Orphanage, but today has been so much fun!"

She heard the lady who she now knew was called Jane respond happily, but she didn't care to listen to what she was saying. She was focusing on what the child had said. They were from a local orphanage. All these children had been abandoned by parents who surely didn't want them, while she, who so desperately wanted to have a child, couldn't. That really angered her. What could she have ever done to deserve this?

She should have left then, to avoid any more hurt, but she couldn't get herself to move. She kept watching the children.

She'd heard awful stories about orphanages and how the children always hated living in those kinds of places. These kids looked happy. They were so happy to be out at the park, that she convinced herself that they must be unhappy at the orphanage. A child couldn't possibly like living in such a place - they were bound to want a family who would love them and take them in.

 

Engrossed by her depression, she did the unthinkable. She saw the sweetest-looking little girl venturing away from the group to fetch a toy that had been thrown too far. Something took over her and made her follow the little girl into a secluded part of the park, covered by trees and bushes so that the orphanage lady couldn't see her anymore. Before she knew it, she'd grabbed the girl in her arms and was carrying her towards the exit.

But Juanita hadn't thought this through. The child wasn't small enough to be hidden easily and she was kicking and screaming from the moment Juanita had picked her up.

  

By this time, Jane had realized that Margarita (or Maggie, like they usually called her) hadn't returned. She knew better than to ignore it and immediately told the teenagers to look after the younger children. She then ran after Maggie.

Jane's heart began pounding when she couldn't find the girl and she quickly looked around the area to see where she could have run off to. That was when she heard Maggie's screams and she sprinted in the direction of the sound. Jane was getting ready to fight some pedophile but when she finally found the girl, what she saw was a scared-looking Maggie running towards her and a lady standing next to her, crying her eyes out. The woman could only say "I'm sorry" to Jane repeatedly, in between her sobs.

Meanwhile, the police had been called as the other people in the park were alarmed by all the ruckus and the lady was taken away to the police station, still sobbing. She was in shock at her own actions and wasn't able to say much at the scene.

Jane took the children home and the afternoon at the park was cut short by that horrible turn of events. Little Maggie was very shaken and Jane had to calm her down and put her to bed, for she clearly needed to rest after what had happened. The other children were all visibly concerned as well. They had never seen a crime and an arrest happen.

At dinner time, they all gathered at the table. Jane told them that what had happened that day had been awful and just showed how careful children should be these days. However, she also told them that she thought the lady wasn't really dangerous and she must have been having a really bad day, which made her do something crazy.

The children were all wondering what had happened to the lady at the police-station. Had she been arrested? Jane explained everything to them.
"The police called me a while ago to inform me that the lady was sent home. She had had a really bad day and had discovered she couldn't have children so, in a desperate act to become a mother, she tried to take a child home. She wasn't really thinking. She was just so depressed that she did something rash, which is why she was crying so much at the park. She couldn't believe what she had done."

The children all listened attentively and they all felt sorry for the lady, although they knew what she had done was awful and had given them (and especially Maggie) quite a scare.

"So, I believe we all learned a lesson today. We never know what's out there. We can never be too careful and you should always remember what I told you since you were little: never trust strangers. But we've also learned that sometimes good people do bad things when they're having a hard time, so we need to know how to forgive them," Jane told them.

Dinner wasn't the loud party it usually was, that day. But it was a good thing another child was coming to the Orphanage on the next day. That would provide the children with a distraction from everything that had happened as they met the new kid and showed him around. They always loved the day a new kid arrived.

However, Jane couldn't help but think what if little Maggie had been taken away from her...

To be continued....

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