Quiet As A Shadow

• Milly Matheson, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2015

“Cadence, are you awake?”
A voice penetrated the sleep I was in, causing me to leave my peaceful world of dreams.
“Cade, it’s time to go!” The voice came again. This time, though, the voice was not accompanied by a feeling of dread at being woken up, but the startling realisation of what time it was, and what my friend Maggie and I were about to do. Memories of the night before rushed back to me.
“I think tonight is the night,” Maggie had said to me, as we ate our dinner in the dining hall. She had been whispering, keeping her voice down to avoid being overheard by the girls around us. Maggie and I knew that if any of them heard our plans, they would tell one of the Guardians.
“Tonight…..” I had whispered back to Maggie, more questioning than confirming. Though Maggie and I had been planning on escaping for the past month, the idea was still desperately scary. So why had I agreed to do it? After all, the Home was safe and warm: we had plenty of food, a good education, and there were always Guardians around to make sure we were doing nothing wrong.
All the other girls seemed happy in the Home, doing the same thing day in and day out, moving from class to class with expressionless faces, dutifully learning their lessons and darning their long grey skirts. But Maggie and I had always been different.
So, we had started to plan, started to take note of exactly what security measures the Home put in place to keep us in, and where we might find weaknesses in this system. The planning had been slow, as we had needed to be careful that no one detected any inkling of what we were doing and of the nonconformist thoughts we were thinking – but at last, last night Maggie had whispered “I think tonight is the night,” and when I had questioned her she had said, “I think it’s now or never.” And so I had agreed, and now Maggie was shaking me awake in the middle of the night.
“OK, I’m coming,” I whispered back, sitting up and pushing back my thin grey blanket. Taking a deep breath, I looked around me, at the dormitory in which I’d spent every night for most of my life. I looked at the rows of sleeping girls, girls who I had lived with my whole life. I almost envied them for a moment, watching them sleep so peacefully – but then I mentally shook myself. For them, the next several years meant waking up in this same drab room, faced with a day as dull as every other day they could remember; for me, the next several years could mean anything, be it good or bad. And so, taking a deep breath, I rose from my bed and followed Maggie out of the room, moving quiet as a shadow.