Baby Be Mine(Spinsters & Casanovas Series Book 1)(5)

Clarice wanted to cry. Right in front of her was a cake, a beautiful, delicious white chocolate and strawberry cake, topped with thirty candles—no more, no less—just thirty straight candles illuminating the entire room that was once shrouded in darkness.

The sound of her family and two best friends, Elise and Whitney, singing that birthday song should have turned those tears into streams of joy, yet the one that came trickling out of her eye right now was of sadness, of a sense of failure, as her entire thirty years of life was reflected right before her eyes, like an open storybook.


*

“Clarice, darling. Let go of your mother’s skirt and come over here.” Her father called her over to him, speaking to her in fluent Khmer, her mother tongue. But she didn’t budge from her spot, her little fingers still clinging to her mother’s skirt for dear life, too afraid to look at all the strangers’ faces staring at her.

Who are these people? she thought, eyeing the many strangers through her small spectacles perched upon her nose. They came to welcome her when she got off the plane. They looked just like papa, with blond hair and blue eyes, the likes of which she had never seen before in the Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand.

“Welcome to New Zealand, my dear.” One lady leaned in, smiling.

Then another one came and crouched in front of her and asked her with a pretty smile, “How old are you, little missy?”

Clarice didn’t know what to do. They were talking to her, but she couldn’t understand them.

Her father came over and translated in Khmer. She held out both of her hands and made the number six to the strangers.

“Does she not know English?” the old lady asked her father.

“It’s my fault. I only taught her basic greetings. We conversed in Khmer all the time in the camp,” her father said.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll adjust and come to fit in school just fine with all the other children,” the young lady said.

School! Now that word she knew. Papa had taught her that word in the camp.


*

“Go back to your own country, you four-eyed monster.”

“Yeah, pancake face. Go back to where you came from.”

“We don’t want you here. Go away.”

Clarice cried when the others at school wouldn’t stop their bullying. She couldn’t understand what they meant, but the physical abuse they bestowed upon her, pushing her and pulling her pigtails, sure hurt her little wee heart. That night she cried on her mother’s lap.

“Chantee, my dear, don’t cry.” Her mother smoothed her hair while she cried her eyes out. “You have to be brave and strong.”

“But they pulled my hair on the first day of school,” she complained. “I hate those people. Why can’t they be nice? I don’t like this place. I want to go back to the camp.”

“Chantee, I know you’ll meet nice people soon. And who knows? You might even be friends with them for life. There are many great people here in New Zealand. And when you meet them, you’ll know how lovely this country is.”

Clarice’s mother was right, because the very next day at school, when she was in the middle of being bullied again, a girl appeared, jumping off the monkey bars and announcing to the whole school that from now on, this little Asian-Caucasian girl would be under her protection. The girl who saved her was named Whitney, a boisterous girl that was like a hot air balloon.

Clarice’s first real friend was a sight to behold, dressed all in black, with the palest skin, like a sheet of paper. She was a little witch, casting deathly spells on anyone who dared hurt her and her little friend. And now that Whitney had taken her under her wing, Clarice was no longer afraid of anyone.