"Dee Lemma, would you please pay attention!" Mrs. Collins shouted.

The girl turned an entirely too serious looking face at the woman who towered over her. Dee Lemma was all of seven years old and already had a great contempt for most of the world. The few things in the world that she did love were her puzzles, books, and the stray cats that wandered around the orphanage. She hated the orphanage and all who were in it. From the twittering laughter of the other children, she knew the feeling was mutual.

She stood and looked up at the teacher. "Six times four is twenty-four. Six times five is thirty. Six times seventy-four is four hundred forty-four. Four hundred forty-four squared is one hundred ninety-seven thousand and one hundred thirty-six."

After reciting she fell silent and remained standing. A smirk pulled at her lips as she saw the teacher purse her lips in annoyance and turn away. The sound of calculator keys being pushed filled the quiet of the room. Her smile disappeared as the teacher whirled around anger in her eyes.

"Though you are correct, you will spend the afternoon scrubbing the floor in here for your impudence!" the woman hissed striding to her desk. "Now class, take out your readers and turn to page forty-five."

Sighing, Dee sat back in her desk and turned to the required page. This would be the third time she read this book since she had found it two years earlier. For the rest of the day she struggled though class. It wasn't that the subjects were hard; it was that they were too easy and she was already chapters ahead of the other kids. At the end of the day she cleaned the floors making a mental note of which classmates purposely made a big mess on the floor. Of course, instead of the teacher reprimanding them, the woman told Dee to hurry with the floors.

While Dee scrubbed at puddle of finger paint she imagined herself away from the orphanage. She didn't think life would be so bad there if she could just be left alone. Everyone there made a joke out of her name, thinking themselves clever. Perhaps it would be different if the staff of the orphanage had snuffed the problem early on. Instead, they practically encouraged it, calling her their "little problem" when they thought the children or herself couldn't hear or weren't around.

"I'm done, Mrs. Collins." Dee stood in front of the teacher's desk, a heavy bucket held in her small hands.

Mrs. Collins looked over the top of her glasses at the girl standing before her. She sniffed and made a few marks on the paper she was grading before saying, "Very well. Go get yourself cleaned up. Mind yourself tomorrow and you won't have to go through this again, understand?"

"Yes, Mrs. Collins," Dee said with the right amount of apology in her voice.

Dropping the bucket off in the janitor's closet, Dee quickly made her way back up to her bunk to change. In her clothes chest she found a packet of cat treats and hurried outside to see her pets. On her way the other kids mocked her with meows and hisses.

What do they know? she thought bitterly bursting through the doors and onto the walled orphanage ground. The orphanage might as well have been a prison for all she was concerned. Soon enough she would escape from it and live on her own. Even as the thought of the outside world scared her, the idea of remaining in the orphanage frightened her more. She wasn't certain what she would do if she were forced to stay with another foster family. The last one had dropped her off on the steps of the orphanage, shouting obscenities to her. A few days later she had been taken aside by one of the staff and spoken to about her behavior. It had angered her that she was being blamed for the family's shortcomings. They should've known not to give a chemistry kit to a seven year old. Besides the dog's fur had grown back even if it was a lovely shade of purple.

"Sorry, darlings," she said to the five cats around her. "That's all I've got for now. Maybe I can bring you something else tonight. I hear we're having meatloaf for dinner." Wrinkling her nose at the memory of the dry hockey puck-like slice, she changed her mind. Giving each cat a scratch under the chin and a kiss on the head she went back inside to read before dinner.
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