Hazel in the Demon's Den

Hazel presented her drawing to Billy a bit shyly when they met up at the same tree as the night before. His eyes widened a bit.

"Is this for me?"

She nodded, blushing slightly. She hadn't smiled since losing her parents but after meeting Billy she had blushed more than once. It was as if he was bringing back some of the emotions she thought were lost. Over the past three years she had been little more than an empty shell.

He examined it closely. "You actually shaded this really nicely considering you only had a cheap 24 pack of crayons. It was really smart using different colors for individual strands of fur so they all blend together. How old are you?"

Hazel held up seven fingers.

Billy whistled, as if impressed. "I've never met a seven year old who can draw like this. You should be an artist when you grow up."

Her blush grew worse and she buried her face in her hands briefly before daring to peek through her fingers at him. He was smiling with all of those missing teeth.

Finally composing herself, she took the drawing back and flipped it over so he could read it. She was slightly startled when he let out a snort.

"Sorry," Billy said between snickers. "I know you tried really hard. That's really not bad for trying to write something like this for the first time. My name actually has two L's in it, not one."

It would be really nice if the ground could swallow her up about now. Hazel's face returned to her hands in shame. She didn't come out of hiding until a gentle hand mussed her hair.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Nobody had messed up her hair since before her dad died. He used to do it all the time when he was teasing her.

"I think I should teach you –ing words today," Billy said as he gently smoothed her messy hair back into place. "Let's get going."

He taught her basic –ing words, but also a few that change a bit such as how "lie" becomes "lying." Then he switched over to words ending in –ed and some exceptions like how "run" becomes "ran."

Hazel's head hurt a bit trying to take it all in but at the same time she was thrilled. Billy was a surprisingly good teacher. Her time with him passed way too quickly.

The two of them snuck out and met up every night for a week before Billy suddenly didn't show up one day. She was terribly worried about him. He didn't show up for the next three days either.

Hazel was so stressed out about what might have happened that she could barely bring herself to eat or sleep at all. To keep from going insane, she practiced mentally sounding out and writing as many words as she possibly could, even ones Billy hadn't taught her.

So when he finally did show up again she angrily pulled out her pink crayon and a piece of paper and scrawled, 'where were you?'

He simply shrugged. "Isolation."

For four days?! The longest she had ever heard of someone being locked in there was two!

Hazel returned to her paper and held it up. 'What did you do?'

His topaz eyes gleamed in the darkness. "I beat somebody up."

And that was really enough to end up in isolation for four entire days? There had to be more to the story.

'Who? Why?'

Billy had taught her all of the Five W's the other day. Who, what, when, where, and why. She wanted to ask more but lacked the spelling skills. It still got her point across.

He crossed his arms over his chest and actually looked angry. His scowl deepened before he spoke. "Some idiot was talking bad about you after coming back from yard time. It made me mad."

Her eyes widened in surprise. She was pretty sure who he was talking about. Some boy she didn't know kept asking her questions and when she couldn't answer them, he chucked a ball at her stomach when none of the adults were looking.

It hurt but she couldn't exactly say anything about it. Not one person ratted the boy out to the orderly on duty so Hazel had to suffer in silence.

But why hadn't Billy been at yard time himself? She didn't have the right grammar or spelling for this but…

'Why you not go to yard tim?'

"I'm not allowed. I'm dangerous, remember?" He said it with his usual grin so it didn't seem at all sinister. "And time is spelled with an E at the end. We should go over those kinds of words today."

So they did, without further ado. Hazel's curiosity about the incident that resulted in four days in isolation didn't really die down but her desire to learn more was stronger. Besides, it didn't really matter. That boy had hurt her first. Billy was only defending her.

Truthfully, it felt a bit nice being looked after. She didn't care that those bad nurses and doctors thought he was dangerous. Billy was the nicest person she had met in a long time.

===

Nearly a year passed and their pattern continued. Most nights, they met up by the same tree and Billy taught her as many words as he knew, sentence structure, and basic grammar rules. After the first few months they were able to converse almost normally, despite occasional spelling difficulties, so they ended up talking instead of teaching.

He smiled a bit wistfully. "I was in second grade when I was brought here but I was already at a sixth grade reading level. I miss books. I haven't read a single one since they locked me up."

'I can buy you books someday if I become an artist' she scribbled down. She wanted to do something nice for him after everything he had done for her.