ORC G1RL

Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 About the Author Other Books by Gill McKnight ORC G1RL Gill McKnight Copyright © 2023, Gill McKnight All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording, printouts, information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or to business establishments or events is coincidental. Cover design by Jove Belle For Ramona McKnight Chapter 1 The first snowball catches me behind my right ear. It hurts like hell, so I know there’s a stone in it. The second hits my shoulder and I run. Then it’s raining snowballs all around me. They must have been making hundreds of the bastard things while I was at piano lessons. And there’s something else. A horrible smell. Cat shit. They’ve put cat turds in some of the snowballs. Who sits around putting cat shit in snowballs on a night like this? Would the good Lord please give these assholes a busier life? I’m on East Danube Street and well ahead of them, but I can hear footsteps catching up. I’m sprinting now. Putting my best effort into it. Backpack slapping, feet skidding through slush. A head start is the only advantage I have. If they catch me, they’ll try and make me eat a shitty snowball or something equally stupid, and when I refuse, they’ll thump me which is what they really wanted to do all along. I race down the alley between East Danube and Irrawaddy. It’s overgrown and the branches pull at my legs and elbows. I lose my beanie. Hard breathing and the swish of branches behind means Marco is almost upon me. He’s faster than Denny. He’s on the athletics team and I was stupid to think I could outrun him. I grab at a bare branch. It looks frosty and spiteful. I bend it back like a spring as I run by, then let go. A hand yanks my backpack. I hear the swoosh of the branch whip and a smack, and I hear a yip of pain as it catches Marco full face. I hope it blinds him. My backpack is ripped from me. Marco may be squealing but his grip hasn’t eased. I run out onto Irrawaddy Avenue. It’s a busy street and I’m suddenly aware I’ve lost Marco. Either he’s nursing a sore face or is too wary to come out into the streetlight. Marco is a wuss in bully clothing. A pretty boy who can’t cope with a scratch. “What the fuck?” Denny shouts. Marco’s backup has arrived. I teeter on the curbside, ready to run into the flow of traffic and take my chances. Except that a black van pulls up before me. “C’mon, we can still—” Denny’s ugly little words are lost in the metallic thunk of the side-door yanking open. The van’s bench seats hold several people, all looking at me disgruntled. “Where was you?” The driver hollers over his shoulder. “Ger’in. We’re late already.” “Great start, kid,” his co-driver grumbles. “Do you want this job or what?” I feel the prickle of Denny’s and Marco’s evil intent between my shoulder blades. My backpack is lost. If I hang around, I’ll be ripped apart along with it, especially after whacking Marco up the slimy kisser. My brain and body are stressed out and exhausted. I’m frightened and beyond any sensible reasoning. So, I get in. It’s a mistake. I know it as soon as my ass hits the seat. Perhaps even before then. Perhaps as I lifted my foot to step forward. Perhaps as I weighed one danger against the other. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I’ve been stupid. Very, very stupid. Mom will kill me if this lot don’t. Let me recap, since my life is flashing before my eyes anyway. You don’t need to know my name. It’s hardly used anyway. Among my peers I go by, “Hey, Orc!” Only adults use my real name. It’s Orc to everyone else, and by everyone else, I mean coke spitters, book kickers, head-to-wall slammers, etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam. I mean school bullies. Unimaginative, underdeveloped, tiresome, subspecies bullies. Regular, better-adjusted kids with access to conscionable parenting are more careful how they address me. Using my name can call down bad luck, and to be fair, nobody wants to draw the wrong kind of attention. I may not be Orc to those kids but I’m not me either. I’m basically anonymous. There are good things, too. Not every day is a school day. If it wasn’t for about seventy percent of the people using it, I’d like school. I’m good at it. I’m a cruising A scholar and I’m taking off like a rocket once I can get out of here. What else? I love my family, which seems rare these days, especially for my peer group. My sanity is preserved by my music lessons. Grandma Brenna pays for those. And I have the house to myself most evenings—huge bonus. Mom is a night manager at the port warehouses and leaves for work before I get home from school. That way, I don’t have to avoid her eyes and make up lies about the day I’ve had. I change into sweats, eat whatever’s in the crockpot, and do my homework before curling up with Hulu until three in the morning. I stretch out the weeknights. If I fall asleep too soon, another school day creeps in on me. So. What happened to make this school day particularly burdensome? Well, I got a little intel