''Congratulations - the adoption of Bailey King is final--that is what they told Mr. and Mrs. King...however, I did not agree. First of all, my name is Hazumu Hanabishi;not Bailey King. Secondly, I could never be adopted - for I disliked belonging to families. I decided to be a royal pain for the Kings' in order that they would return me to the orphanage.
I loved the orphanage -- I'd lived there for the past nine years and was considered 'top dog'; I knew all that went on, and was in control of most of the ''happenings'' within the city. The happenings, as we called them, were times when three or four bands of orphans would be sent around the city to steal food, money, and whatever else they liked. In planning the 'happenings', we used codes--systems of sounds created by hitting our hands on tables in extremely distinct patterns.
Mr. and Mrs. King had adopted six other children, each I knew. There were Emily, Stephan, Mykal, Serina, Josef, and Aelita--those being the names I had known them by. The Kings intorduced them to me as Krystina, David, Paul, Briana, Christopher , and Megan. And I was called Bailey.
I smiled at my friends as we were being introduced - this would be quite a fun ordeal.
"Bailey", Anita [Mrs. King] asked, "do you know what h appened to your parents?"
"What", asked I, "kind of question is that? They died when my house was burned down." The truth was that my mother had killed father for dating another man...after that she jumped off the Old Craggin's bridge and drowned.
The others knew the real story, thus they looked at me, their eyes pleading for an explination. In response, I tapped the table three times with my left hand and five with the right. It was time to be free from Donnie and Anita King.
Not understanding my signal, Mr. King dumbly asked what hand game I was playing - 'golf' is what I told him. He chuckled and said that he should like to learn the rules to the game. ''Great'', thought I, ''now I have to create rules for a game that doesnt exist'', I nod and smiled at Mr. King.
''To golf'' , says I, ''simple are the rules. One person taps the table in a 3-5 pattern, the next a 5-7, once it reaches a 11-13 pattern, the initiator yells 'golf' and whomever can create a proper 19-21 pattern wins.''
''And what is the proper pattern?"
"This", says I as I tap the table with my left hand palm opened three times, closed on the right six, six open at left, four hits with right plam open. After a brief pause I continued on the left hand, seven hits with my palm closed, righted open-palmed eight times, closed on the left once, and closed at right five times.
Donnie King smiled, "I do not know how you remember those patterns.. Did you enjoy dinner?"
"Y es, the food was made quite splendidly!" That was honest- for once I had more than leftovers ofr dinner. Josef smiled and created the 7-15 pattern of 'golf' -- sending to the orphans the message taht a new happening was in the making.
