The Tattered Toy in the Rain
A ten-year-old girl shelters outside the restaurant where someone else is celebrating her birthday, until a geotagged post leads the family searching for her straight to the door.
Fiction. Contains child abandonment, bullying and family loss.Chapter One: A Birthday Taken Away
Today was my tenth birthday, and the third day since my stepmother, Mary, had sent me away from home. Cold rain slipped through the holes in my plastic shoes. I held a worn teddy bear against my chest—the only keepsake my mother had left me.
My father had died after a long illness one month earlier. Mary quickly took control of the house and showed me a document I could not understand, saying that he had left everything to her.
Three days ago, she received a telephone call and told the person on the other end that I had already left with relatives. That evening, she packed my clothes into a bag and ordered me out into the rain.
Before he became ill, Father had reserved a table at a restaurant in the city center for my tenth birthday. After days without a proper meal, I followed the route from memory, hoping the kitchen might have something left over.
Through the tall windows, I saw a brightly lit party. Amy was also ten, although her birthday was still a month away. Mary had replaced my name on the cake and presented the celebration as Amy’s.
Amy came outside carrying a plate of leftover cake. Instead of offering it to me, she set it beside the rubbish bin and used her phone to record me reaching for it. She uploaded the video to social media and added the restaurant’s location, expecting her friends to laugh at the child sheltering beneath the trees.
Mary followed her outside, noticed the teddy bear in my arms and took it away. She threw it toward the storm drain, dismissing it as something that belonged in the past. I hurried after the bear, slipped in the mud and watched the rain carry it out of reach.