Memories (by Cagla)
It was a cold spring day at Pony's Home. Candy was doing the washing-up in the little kitchen of the orphanage. Suddenly she heard some children's voices."Come on! He's running towards the home!" was shouting a boy.
"This time I'll catch him!" said another one.
Candy looked outside from the kitchen's window and saw some children running after Klin and a boy trying to catch him with a rope in his hands. She ran outsite to come to the aid of her friend.
"Hey! Stop! Let him go!"
Klin who was running towards her, jumped into her arms and the children stopped immediately.
"How many times have I told not to molest Klin? He doesn't like to be chased like that..." she scolded them taking in her arms strongly Klin who was out breath.
"We're sorry, Miss Candy," the children apologized.
"Now go and play with something else."
"Ok, Miss Candy," they answered and run towards the hill.
"Oh, sometimes running after them is so tiring... Now I understand how Miss Pony and Sister Maria suffered from me when I was a child," she laughed.
She let Klin on the ground and went to the kitchen.
Since that big birthday party ten years ago, Candy stayed at Pony's Home. With her knowledge as a nurse, she helped Miss Pony and Sister Maria to take care of the children. But Miss Pony fell ill and she had to go to another city for a short time with Sister Maria's accompaniment but later it was necessary for Miss Pony to stay there. With Candy's insistences, Sister Maria stayed with her too. Thus years passed and Candy was still at Pony's Home. Now she was twenty-seven and became a very beautiful young girl. She decided to dedicate herself to orphan children like Miss Pony and Sister Maria did. She took care of the children alone and she was happy with them. But sometimes, she was very tired...
She brought to Klin a bowl of milk. Then she looked to the children who were playing. She remembered her childhood's days passed with Annie.
"How beautiful days they were!" she thought.
Then she remembered Tom, John, Jimmy and her other friends with whom she grew up.
"All of them have their own lives now. Tom sometimes comes to help me but he doesn't have a lot of time because of his work in the farm. Annie often writes me like Miss Pony and Sister Maria do. She is very happy with Archie and their children. Patty is living with her husband in Florida. And the rest are on their own ways. I'm the only one who stayed here."
She looked at the children again. She loved them a lot and she felt that they loved her too. There were even some children who didn't want to be adopted because they didn't want to be separated from Miss Candy, who was kind, generous and exciting. They were all very lovely. Some of them came when they were very little and stayed there for years. Candy, with the help of the elder children, took care of them, as if she was their mother. But she learnt that she might not become attached to them a lot and might prevent them to be attached to her too, putting a distance between herself and them because one day they might be adopted and if they got attached to each other a lot, the separation would be very painful for her and the newly-adopted child. Thus children came there and stayed there until their adoption, and they went, then new children came to go again...
"He's the only one who stayed with me all that time," she thought looking at Klin who was anxiously drinking the milk. "I still remember that day when we found him".
She remembered the rainy autumn day she found him with Tom and Annie almost twenty-three years ago. While they were playing in front of Pony's Home, Tom and Candy wanted to discover the places around and left there without informing Miss Pony and Sister Maria, taking also Annie with them. They went away and they were lost. Then it began to rain and Annie who was afraid began to cry. Candy tried to calm her while Tom was trying to find the right way to the orphanage. Suddenly they heard a strange voice from a tree near them. When they approached the place, they saw a little animal crying next to his dead mother. Candy took him in her hands. They didn't know which animal he was, he looked like a kind of cat, as Tom said. Annie was afraid of it but with Candy's insistences, she touched him with her shaking hands. As she saw that he was inoffensive, she began to caress him. Meanwhile Miss Pony and Sister Maria who were searching the three children for hours came there. They were very worried and scolded them because of their irresponsible behaviour. They quickly brought the children and the little animal home. They were all wet because of the rain. The two women changed the children's clothes and gave the animal some milk. The children insisted a lot on his staying in the orphanage. They said that he lost his mother and he was an orphan like them. Finally, the two women accepted their wish. The children decided to call him Klin. As Annie was afraid and couldn't sleep alone in the nights, they gave him to her.
Thus, Klin grew up with the children who loved playing with him, especially Candy and Annie. Some years later, when the Brightons came to adopt Annie, as Mrs. Brighton couldn't stand that kind of animals, Annie had to leave him to Candy.
Thus Candy stayed with Klin some more time at Pony's Home. Then, he followed her to the Leagons' mansion in Lakewood, where she went to be Elisa's lady companion. She had some trouble because of him but she couldn't let him go as he wanted to stay with her. She suffered there a lot because of Elisa and Neil, and Klin was always there to share her pain. Later, when she went to Saint Paul's college in London, he accompanied her again. They wanted to put him in a zoo, but Candy didn't allow such a horrible thing and he secretly stayed in the College with her. Then when she was in the detention dungeon because of Elisa's trap, he didn't leave her alone and stayed with her in that cold and dark place. She shared plenty of her secrets with him, secrets that she couldn't say even to Annie or Patty; when Terry left the College, she couldn't cry next to them, but she could tell her feelings easily to Klin. Later, she had to leave him at Pony's Home in order to go to study for being a nurse. He was very unhappy and missed her a lot. Then, when she was back and began to live at the orphanage again, he was full of joy. During those last ten years, she couldn't tell her friends that she still suffered because of her separation from Terry and Klin was always there in the nights she cried for that...
There were no need in words to understand each other. Klin could understand perfectly what Candy meant, and even when she didn't speak he could feel her feelings. And Candy learnt to understand him too...
Now Klin was very old and couldn't play as long as he did when he was younger. All his life passed next to Candy and it was sure that he'd be with her the last days of his life.
Candy approached him. He was completely relaxed. She invited him to play like they used to do some years ago...
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I wrote this fanfiction as a birthday present for my friend Kate from Russia. If you have any comments e-mail me.