Rebel Girl III

“We are never having anything to do with Richard again,” she told her husband in a whisper, as the crowd broke into spontaneous song. “This is his idea of a calm crowd where Rashie won’t get hurt?”

“I think that’s only one of our worries at the moment,” said her husband, staring in horror at the door of the warehouse. Mrs. Milton turned to look to see what he was staring at. The doorway had somehow become filled with police officers while they had been distracted by Rashie’s plight. Of course now they had a larger problem involving Rashie, if she was arrested how would they explain it to her parents? Her parents didn’t even realize the company their daughter had involved herself with. Mrs. Milton jumped from the stage and tried to push her way through the crowed, which was slowly starting to realize something was wrong. When the crowd realized about the police there was going to be mass panic and Rashie wouldn’t be able to protect herself from the likely stampede.

“It’s the police!” a woman near the door screamed. Mr. Milton swore and jumped off of the stage to try and help his wife push through the crowed towards where they had been forced to leave Rashie. People were muttering around them, a couple of them were crying, some others were looking around desperately for an exit. The old warehouse didn’t have any other rooms or windows, Mr. Milton had long since grown used to checking anywhere for an escape route as soon as he entered, and could tell them there weren’t any other then the front door. They were like so many fish in a barrel, to be scooped up at the police’s whim. The Miltons had enough experience to know that there was no point in fighting against the inevitable, they would be arrested, but at least they would see to it that Rashie wouldn’t get hurt while it was happening.

“Rashie,” Mrs. Milton shouted.

“Here,” said a quiet voice right behind her, she turned around at Rashie was standing there, surrounded by the sea of legs and looking kind of frightened.

“Mrs. Milton?” she asked in a quivering voice. “What’s the matter? You told me to stay where I was but some man shoved me out of the way.” This time Mrs. Milton did sweep the little girl up in her arms and then handed her to Mr. Milton, who put her on his shoulders, well away from the increasingly dangerous crowd. The police were shouting something about everyone surrendering and some of the members of the audience weren’t taking it well. Some things were being thrown and the police had already given a few people taps on the head with their night sticks. Mr. and Mrs. Milton pushed back into a corner where they would be safe and could quietly wait for the fuss to either die down or be cut short.

The crushing of the riot of the North Street Warehouse, as it was called later, got a lot of coverage. Even though a lot of people couldn’t read it was passed by word of mouth and grew with each telling. What the people who told the story failed to mention was that the so called ring leaders hadn’t resisted arrest at all, and had been carrying a little girl who they had insisted be well treated. The police had listened to this request and Mr. and Mrs. Milton had allowed their hands to be cuffed without further comment.

The organization, headed by Richard, paid the bail for Mr. and Mrs. Milton eventually. Most of the organizations of their sort had some sort of fund for medical bills and bails for people who had been arrested while at meetings or one missions for the organization. There was also a clause in most such documents detailing these provisions which allowed for money for the family of people killed for the cause, but happily no money had been paid out under those conditions for a very long time. Mr. and Mrs. Milton, having been arrested while speaking at one of the meetings for the organization, had their bail paid even though they didn’t belong to any one organization.

The day after Mr. and Mrs. Milton returned home a knock came on their door. That instantly ruled out Rashie who had become familiar enough with them that she no longer knocked at all. Mr. Milton answered the door and then shuddered. He had known that this visit would come and had been dreading it, but it had come sooner then he had expected.

“Come in,” he told Rashie’s mother, stepping out of the way. “We have a guest,” he shouted towards the kitchen where his wife was making bread.

Once they were all installed in easy chairs awkward silence descended. They all knew what needed to be talked about but none of them knew how to start the conversation that was going to be unpleasant for sure. In the end Rashie’s mother realized that she was going to have to start, as the person who had come over. She was a meek woman, and only slightly more outgoing then her husband, this was not a situation she felt comfortable in.

“Rashie was brought home by the police the other day,” she began and then seemed at a loss how to continue. She had opened the conversation however, and therefore Mr. and Mrs. Milton felt more comfortable in continuing it.

“We are very sorry about that; it was never our intention to put your daughter in the path of danger,” Mrs. Milton said. “However we understand that no matter how accidental, it still happened and I expect that you no longer wish your daughter to spend time with us.” There was only a slight pleading note in her voice. She really didn’t want to hear those words; she had grown too looked at Rashie as her own daughter.

“My husband and I did talk about that,” Rashie’s mother admitted, and both Mr. and Mrs. Milton felt their stomachs sink. “However,” Rashie’s mother continued. “When we told Rashie that we no longer wanted her to come over to your house she told us that she would run away and live with you if we didn’t. She continued that she would hate us forever, that we had no idea what we were talking about, that you had never let her get hurt, that you protected her. My husband and I have decided that on the condition that you never allow something like that to happen again, Rashieka can continue to come over to your house. After all, apparently you make her happy, and she seems to love you and that means that you can’t be bad people.

So Rashie grew up, and got older. She got to think that she was simply the daughter of two sets of families, and though her families had nothing to do with one another, they both loved her dearly. She liked to think that she took a little from both sets of parents. She got her love and the way that she cared for people from her biological family. They always supported her, no matter what she did, and told her to do her best. They would always believe that she was in the right.

Her adopted family gave her knowledge and something to pit her energy towards. When Rashieka gained power over the underground cities and united them, with very little bloodshed, everyone said she was a chip off of the block. She would merely smile slightly, amused that they never said which block she had come from.