More about Clare

(For those just joining us, Clare is the girl living in our garden shed and we are currently trying to figure out what we should "hypothetically" do about it.)

Hey, this is Bree. I'm going to write something, and your response is going to be, "Duh, Bree!" Here goes:

There is something up with Clare.

Duh, Bree!

But I mean... something beyond the obvious fact that she's living in a stranger's garden shed as opposed to, say, living with her folks and going to school. She seems really scared, and I don't think she's very healthy. She's very pale and thin. I have no idea what food she's living on, because she hasn't taken anything from our house.

We went to see her yesterday evening, like she said we could. Clare was really specific about that: in the evening, not the day. She said she sleeps during the day so she can get stuff done at night when no one can see. I guess that's when she finds stuff to eat. We offered to bring her food, but she said she didn't need anything and she didn't want our guardian to get suspicious that there was stuff missing from the fridge. (I tried to explain that with nine girls in the house, missing food wasn't exactly treated as a major mystery, but Clare was unconvinced.) I offered to lend her some books, though, and she did accept that, so I took her a nice stack.

Mostly she asked us questions, this time. Our ages, where we went to school, what we did for fun, how long we've each been part of the family. We tried to ask questions too - because we're seriously nosy about her but also because it's more polite - but she deflected most of them. She wouldn't tell us her last name, or where she came from. All she said about her family was that none of them were looking for her.

Then she got kind of a weird look on her face. Distant. She asked, "If someone came and tried to hurt me, what would you do?"

Kirsten immediately replied - and she speaks for all of us in this - "We would kick their butts!"

This was the second time we saw Clare smile. (The first time was when I brought her the books.) This was the first time we heard her laugh. She wasn't mocking us or anything, though. I think she liked Kirsten's answer... although I'm not sure she believed it.

Once again, we got permission to come back the next evening. So we still don't know why there's a girl living in our garden shed. She made us promise to keep her a secret from our guardian. Maybe if we can get her to trust us, we'll be able to help.

Love,
Bree