The Story of V

A year later.

It was still dark and V had trouble sleeping that night. Then an all too familiar yet annoying ringing rang throughout the darkness. V gave a loud groan. With eyes still closed she stretched out one hand feeling wildly around the table beside her. “Stupid alarm clock,” she thought. Finally, the vibrations gave the mechanical ticker’s location away. With a smooth swept motion, V sent the clock tumbling on the floor. Peace again but not for long.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

V gave a loud groan. “Zeebo, can you quit it, you annoying robot!” Wildly she flailed her hand, trying to hit her robotic companion but Zeebo was not some alarm clock that you could just sweep off the table. He hovered off the table and began to shout even louder. V pressed the pillow hard against her ears. The little robot was hovering inches away from her face.

“Ignore him,” V thought.

Then there was a huge bright flash in front of V’s face. So bright even with eyelids shut tight she could see the white radiance.

“Augghhh! Zeebo!” yelled V.

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Zeebo spun around enthusiastically avoiding angry swats from V.

The cheeky robot had turned on its eye searchlight function. With eyes shining like spotlights at full force, V was forced out of her blissful slumber. She cursed herself for programming Zeebo with a wake-up call command. With all her might, V begrudgingly forced herself up. As her toes touched the ground she cringed as she felt its coldness. “Just terrific, of all days to get assign morning duty, I was picked on a cold day” she complained to her still dazed self. The next mammoth task she had to undergo was to be completed in the lavatory.

“Hurry…! Hurry…!” Nebo repeated excitedly as he hovered gently around the corridor. His two rounded flashlight-like eyes lit the corridor.

“Zeebo, wait! Unlike you, I need time to shake the laziness away. I also need to get dressed. Wait a while, okay.”

V gave a loud sigh as she opened the small recycled locker which she called her cabinet. Inside were pants and shirts and everything which would look good on a boy, if his entire wardrobe was made out of outfits scavenged from shelters and goodwill homes.

“The girl who was given the very unusual name ‘V’ also lived a very unusual life; a life of secrecy, in which she was never given reasonable answers but just told to follow along. For a start, for some mysterious reason, she was forced to study at a Rotterford all-boys boarding school which can be rather unfortunate if you are the only girl there and you have to keep it a secret. If you think that V was the kind of girl who chose to wear male clothes and pretended to be a boy because she liked it or had something to prove, you are very wrong. In fact, she enjoyed all the things which ordinary girls do but for some reason her legal guardian the woman whom she called Ma, would never allow that. Aside from her adoptive brothers, Made sure everyone else knew her as Victory Vincent Valor the third. It was the manliest name Ma could think of,”

“Wouldn’t hurt once in a while for Ma, to get me a dress,” she grumbled.

V looked into the mirror.

She began to brush her unruly mess of orange-red hair she had. She had to pull harder at certain stubborn clumps which refused to give way. The brush snapped as she gave it a sudden hard jerk.

“That’s the third brush this month,” she sighed looking at her slow-growing hair which always seemed to stand up, giving her a spiky hair appearance, too boyish for her liking.

“One day, one day when I’m old enough, I’ll get some real shampoo,” V said to herself pointing to her reflection in the mirror.

Then suddenly she noticed something. The edges had been trim again.

“Ma!,” V mumbled to herself with a hint of venom.

“What’s wrong?” Zeebo asked as he buzzed around her.

“She gave my hair trim in my sleep again! At this rate, I’ll never get to keep long hair,”

Zeebo gave a slight robotic child-like giggle.

“Wait a minute, why didn’t you warn me,” she stared at the robot.

“Ma’s orders outweigh yours,” he said as a matter of fact as he spun around in circles.

“Co-conspirator!” She yelled as the robot flew towards the doorway avoiding the end of the broken brush.

She looked grimly at the mirror. V wanted to grow long hair but for some reason Ma never let her do it. Her foster parent had the sneakiness of a ninja and could move around when everyone sleep.

That was one of the many secrets the woman she called Ma had. There were only a few things V actually knew about her. Among those was her Ma worked as one of the teachers at the Rotterdorm School and thought biology. It was only one of the reasons V had thought of, that Ma wanted her to stay in this school. To keep an eye on her, thus disguising herself as a boy.

Ma’s name was Devon Verona. It didn’t even sound like a real name. Then again, the woman did just name her V. Once she found a broken nametag among her Ma’s old stuff, which had the name Dolores written on it. When her Ma realised what V had found, she quickly confiscated it and said it was a gift from a friend. Later that day, she saw her Ma throw the same ‘gift’ onto the school’s furnace. It made V often wondering how she could yet keep so many secrets. Among them was why she wanted so badly to hide V’s identity as a girl. So extreme was Ma’s determination that she bought a rundown mansion a few buses stop away from the school and turn it into a boarding house, where students who studied at Roterdorm could stay for a fee. Those who stayed there were nicknamed “family”.

Apart from her eccentric family, there was another big problem V faced. She had yet to develop any ability at all.