Free Oddfellow's Orphanage by Emily Winfield Martin

A BEGINNING, OF SORTS
    “F LIBBERTIGIBBET !” sputtered the man with the blue-black beard as he awoke with a start.
There is another
, he thought. He leapt from his bed and put on shoes and an overcoat (which were always nearby in case of middle-of-the-night emergencies such as this).
    There was a knock at his bedroom door. A lady’s voice softly called, “Headmaster, there’s been another.”
    The man swung the door open. The faint hall light revealed the owner of the lady’s voice. She was dressed in a nightgown, topped by a fur-collared cape. The lady laughed at the headmaster’s messy hair and his mismatched shoes. Her own red hair was neatly pinned up in a soft bun.
    The man looked down at his feet and grumbled, “This is notime to worry over shoes, Professor Stella!” With that, they both raced down the dark and quiet hallways of the orphanage and burst outside into the cool night air, followed only by their flickering shadows.
    On the cobblestone driveway, a carriage waited. Like everything else in the orphanage, the carriage was rather unusual. Waiting in front of the carriage, where horses would usually be, were two large black bears. A young man stopped fiddling with the bears’ harnesses and opened the carriage door for the professor and the headmaster.
    “There’s been another, I presume?” the young man asked.
    “Yes, Hank, the message just came through,” the lady replied as she and the headmaster climbed into the carriage.
    Hank spoke quietly to the bears. They nodded their great furry heads and padded down the drive. As they got closer to the road, the bears’ pace quickened, until off they bounded into the inky night.
    Hank watched the carriage become smaller and smaller as it wound down the road.
    Inside the carriage, Professor Stella nestled into the collar of her cape, pulled it snugly around her, and closed her eyes. The headmaster looked out the window into the twinkling night.

    WHEN the bear-drawn carriage returned to the orphanage, the sun was creeping over the hills. Inside the carriage with the headmaster and the professor was a lump wrapped in a faded patchwork quilt. The lump shook off the quilt. There sat a little girl with white hair in two braids and pale blue eyes.
    The girl looked around. In the seat across from her was a big man with a blue-black beard, a scarlet overcoat, and shoes that didn’t match. Beside her was a lady with red hair and a fur-collared cape of the deepest blue. Both grown-ups were breathing gentle sleep breaths.

    The little girl peered out of the carriage and saw two bears lumbering quickly ahead, pulling the carriage through patches of twisting trees and over hills dotted with early blooms. The bears slowed to a loping walk as an enormous house appeared.
    The enormous house was made of brick and was surrounded by a garden of monsters. The little girl grabbed Professor Stella’s shoulder and shook her awake.
    “What is it?” the professor asked sleepily, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the light.
    The girl waved wildly at the monsters going by outside the carriage.
    Professor Stella laughed. “Oh! They’re not real, don’t worry. They are made of bushes and trees.”
    The girl looked carefully out the window. She saw that each monster was, in fact, a plant trimmed to look like a creature. There was everything from a sea serpent rising out of the grass to a towering mermaid.
    The carriage came to a sudden stop in front of the steps tothe great house. The bears let out small roars to announce their return. These awoke the headmaster. He stretched his arms and said drowsily, “Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.”
    The door to the orphanage swung open. Hank came out as the professor stepped from the carriage. “Welcome back, Professor Stella,” he said.
    “Thank you, Hank,” replied the professor as she held out her hand for the white-haired girl.
    The girl took the professor’s hand and jumped lightly onto the cobblestone drive.
    “And