Miss Joan said that our orphanage was crowned to be the one with the most well-behaved children in the whole New York City when reading the newspaper this morning, thanks to our good behavior. She was very proud of us.
She said that she was happy because for the first time in forever, our attitudes changed for the better. Approximately since last month – according to her. Otherwise, we were known to have been the naughtiest kids to have ever lived together in one place, excluding the girls. That’s why she was so happy when reading this month’s orphanage ranking in the newspaper, with Juve Hall dominating the first place.
She was also delighted because this means our reputation in the city had improved for the better, and that there would be more people that would come to adopt us.
I exchanged looks with all my brothers upon hearing all of this during this morning’s breakfast. I was pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing we had been thinking about in the last few months.
About our certain ‘problem’ that had caused all of this to happen in the first place, and how we could tell Miss Joan about it without sounding crazy or sounding like a complete idiot. Or worse; sounding like a toddler with overactive imagination! There was no way she would take us seriously, and that’s our main problem beside the literal problem; right there!
We were now standing in front of the biggest window – we called it the main window – in the center of our bedroom, which was facing a huge wall with a scary-looking graffiti on it, right outside our room. It was the picture of two scary hunched creatures; one with bat wings, and the other with angel wings. As far as we knew, it had been there since the end of last year.
Every night, when the graffiti was hit by the moonlight or when the moon shined on it, one of the creature’s eyes would eerily glow.
If the ones glowing belonged to the ‘demon’ one; we were doomed. We would be having nightmares non-stop for the rest of the night, hearing weird, scary sounds if we were happened to be awake, and it’s not even the worst part yet. The worst part was, we would get haunted and being approached by ghosts. Real ghosts! However, if the ones glowing belonged to the ‘angel’ one, then that means we could sleep peacefully for the rest of the night with the most pleasant dreams, so we wanted to keep it that way. For only the ‘angel’ one’s eyes that should glow.
Later, at the beginning of last month, we soon discovered that the ‘demon’ one would only glow if we had been really bad on that particular day or if we did something naughty during the day. Otherwise, the ‘angel’ one would.
The graffiti had been haunting us since then.
“Now what?” Lucas asked, as we continued to stare at that cursed picture. I shook my head.
“No idea.”
“Who the hell painted that thing, anyway? Seriously, this craziness is driving me nuts!” Zach yelled angrily, stomping back to his bed.
“I don’t know, bro. Some magic hobos?” Mitch said from his bed on the right corner of the rectangular bedroom.
“Not helping, Mitch!”
“Whatever that is, this phenomenon is abnormal! Supernatural! This is 1945, guys, c’mon!” Rodrick added, rather frantically. “Who uses magic anymore?”
“Calm down, guys,” Lucas said. “How about we tell the girls?” he asked me.
“Tell the girls?” exclaimed Zach.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lu.” I answered. “They’ll freak out.”
“HI, GUYS!” a sudden voice from the doorway surprised us. It was Macy.
“Hi, Mace…” Lucas murmured. “What are you doing here?”
“Yo, Macy!” Zach called. “Here to visit your favorite big brother, Zach, huh?”
“Err, no?” Macy then tackled me, we ended up on the floor. “I’m here to see my favorite big brother, Gray! Jane said that because we’re friends now, can we have a sleepover with you guys tonight? Please, please, please?” she asked sweetly.
“Err…” I looked up to Lucas, who shook his head frantically. “As much as we’d like that, I think you can’t. Sorry, Mace.”
“Aww, why?”
“Because Zach over here snores really loud! You guys won’t be able to sleep!” Mitch supplied.
“Hey! I mean- Right!”
“But we’re having a ‘sleepover’.” Macy replied, as we both stood. “We won’t sleep!”
“You know we are not good at this sleepover thing, right?” I tried. “We’ll ruin it!”
“Nonsense! We will come here tonight whether you like it or not.” Macy concluded with a sing-a-song voice, as she skipped back to the girls’ bedroom.
“That’s it.” Rodrick deadpanned. “We’re doomed.”
“Let’s just hope that it’s the angel that will glow tonight.” I sighed. “Oh, and don’t forget to close the curtains.”
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“Gray, you got to see this.” Rodrick called, as I approached him quickly. It’s 9 o’clock now, and we’re waiting for the girls.
“What-!” But how could this possible? I could feel my eyes bulged.
“What is it?” Lucas asked, he was beside me in no time. He paled.
Zach and Mitch peered between us.
“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Mitch groaned.
Zach cursed.
Both the demon and the angel’s eyes were glowing!
We tried to stay calm as the girls entered the room. And as surprising as it was, we actually had fun together with them.
There were no scary noises, no ghosts, no anything.
Weird.
What about the four glowing eyes? And what were they meant?
And without us noticing, it was morning already.
“Thanks guys, it was really fun!” Macy said, hugging me.
“I’m so happy that we’re friends now.” Jane smiled at us.
“Yeah, you guys are cool when you don’t spend your time bullying us!” another girl named Rain laughed, as they made their way back to their room.
Then, when we opened the curtains that morning …
… the graffiti was gone?
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“You think they got their lesson?”
“Yup. You know very well how my magic works, Rain.”
“It was really cool, Jane!”
“Thanks, Mace.”
