If Anyone Can Do It
Shakti Ans had been in a foul mood lately. While she was no stranger to bouts of gloom, this recent irritation stemmed from an entirely different, unmistakable source.
That source was none other than the director of the orphanage, Katejina Jinsky.
To be precise, it was the woman's complete, baffling one-eighty in behavior.
What kind of scheme is that woman pulling now?
Shakti caught herself clutching the new blanket wrapped around her shoulders, scowled at the thought, and immediately hurled it aside. It was one of the brand-new quilts Katejina had purchased for the orphans, having rounded up and discarded every single threadbare rag they had previously slept under.
Nor was that the only bizarre stunt Katejina had pulled recently.
Under the pretext of cultivating the children's minds, she had ordered a mountain of illustrated fairy-tale books. When Rina was crestfallen to find no stories about the legendary Hero in the batch, Katejina had actually sat down beside the girl and told her a tale of the Hero herself. To Shakti, who had eavesdropped from around the corner, the director's version of the legend had sounded distinctly strange—borderline irreverent, even—yet Rina had beamed with pure delight all the same.
Books and blankets were merely the beginning. Chipped dining tables, rickety chairs, warped doors and rattling window frames that never shut right, lumpy pillows worn thin through the seams—virtually every piece of battered furniture in the house had been carted away and replaced with something new. On top of that, actual hired contractors were currently pacing the halls, having been brought in to repair the decaying structure. The steady thud and scrape of carpentry echoing from the ceiling above was their handiwork.
"Why all of a sudden…?" Shakti muttered under her breath.
Every single thing felt deeply unnatural.
It's all because of that woman.
Katejina Jinsky.
The director of this godforsaken orphanage.
Shakti was utterly convinced there had to be an ulterior motive behind this charade. Nothing else made sense. The woman was behaving as if she had been replaced by an entirely different person overnight.
"She has to be plotting something. She has to be."
If no one else was going to stay alert, Shakti knew she would have to do it herself. Ideally, Opindel—the eldest boy and the closest thing they had to a big brother—would have taken the lead, but Shakti knew all too well that he wouldn't dare rock the boat. Memories flashed through her mind of Katejina handing children over to shady, sharp-eyed strangers with cold smiles. If she wanted to protect the little ones, she alone would have to remain on guard.
"First, I should—"
"Whatcha doing, big sister?"
Shakti flinched at the sudden voice and whipped her head around. Rina was standing there, peering up at her with wide, curious eyes. Hovering just beyond the doorway behind her were Katz, Retz, and Kika, lingering like shy little shadows.
"Oh… nothing much."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Shakti felt an absurd pang of guilt, as if she were being cross-examined by a toddler. Refusing to feel outmatched by a pint-sized squirt, she raised her chin and looked Rina straight in the face—only to notice something odd.
Rina's cheek was bulging, working around something inside her mouth. Worried that the girl might have picked up some dirty scrap off the floor and popped it into her mouth, Shakti frowned with concern.
"What are you eating?"
Instead of answering with words, Rina parted her lips to show her. Nestled against her tongue was a smooth, round piece of hard candy.
"The director gave it to me."
Katejina? Handing out candy to the kids?
Rina proudly held out an unwrapped hard candy toward her. Dumbfounded, Shakti took it without thinking. Looking past Rina's shoulder, she saw the trio outside the door chewing and sucking contentedly, their cheeks bulging in identical rhythm.
Shakti looked back down at Rina, her brow furrowed with deep anxiety. Rina, entirely oblivious to the dark storm brewing in her older sister's mind, merely tilted her head in innocent confusion.
Lately, Shakti couldn't fathom why Rina had become so attached to the director. Rina had always been a cheerful, affectionate child by nature, but she had never clung to Katejina back when the woman flew into hysterical rages at the slightest provocation. Now, however, Rina glued herself to Katejina's side at every opportunity, chattering away with sunny abandon while Katejina, astonishingly, played right along.
It was that latter part which terrified Shakti down to her bones.
Rina acting like that makes sense.
Rina was just built that way. She approached everyone with open arms, whether it was the other orphans or complete strangers passing by in the alley.
But Katejina Jinsky without a temper?
A Katejina who didn't lash out in irritation?
When the little ones whined that they were hungry?
When a child tripped, scraped a knee, and sobbed?
When someone asked a naive, annoying question?
When toddlers buzzed restlessly under her feet?
A version of Katejina who endured all of that without exploding into screams and raised hands was something Shakti could neither imagine nor accept. It defied the laws of nature. It was an impossibility.
Which meant Katejina was definitely planning something terrible.
I'll find out. I'll uncover whatever sick scheme you're cooking up, Katejina Jinsky.
For the sake of her younger siblings, she had to.
And her chance arrived far sooner than expected.
"I have an errand to run outside. Keep an eye on the little ones while I'm gone."
With those brisk, casual parting words, Katejina vanished out the front door. Shakti, who had merely crept downstairs because her stomach was rumbling, found herself standing frozen in the hallway after having been greeted by the woman so cordially.
Where is she going when the contractors are still working on the house?
She couldn't begin to guess, but this was undeniably her golden opportunity. Holding her breath, Shakti crept toward the director's office. Just as she approached the threshold, however—
"What are you doing here?"
A strange, unfamiliar voice made Shakti's heart leap into her throat. She spun around on her heel in a panic, coming face-to-face with a young boy she had never laid eyes on before.
"Uh… who are you?"
"I'm Bill. I just got here."
Shakti had never seen this supposed newcomer before in her life.
Did he arrive today?
It was certainly possible. While some children were abandoned at the doorstep by their parents like Shakti had been, there were other times when Katejina brought kids in herself—almost always street urchins who had lost their families and drifted through the back alleys. Many of the orphans here had arrived through that exact pipeline. Of course, Katejina usually turned around and sold them off into adoption almost immediately, or simply left them to rot in neglect if no buyer appeared.
"I'm leaving today, though," the boy added nonchalantly.
"Oh… really?"
Faced with a child she had met literally ten seconds ago announcing his imminent departure, Shakti scrambled to find the right words.
"Ahem… well, take care of yourself out there. And if whoever takes you turns out to be bad news, run away immediately, understand?"
The boy nodded soberly.
"Okay."
Right at that moment, he snapped his head toward the front entrance. Catching sight of something near the doorway, he offered Shakti a quick wave.
"Looks like they're here. I'm taking off!"
"Oh—sure. Go on."
And just like that, the boy slipped away. Through the crack of the opened front door, Shakti caught a fleeting glimpse of several broad-shouldered men standing outside on the stoop waiting for him.
He wasn't kidding.
Left reeling by the lightning-fast entrance and exit of her supposed new sibling, Shakti stood dazed for a beat before vigorously slapping both her cheeks with her palms.
Get a grip, Shakti! Stay sharp!
Turning back to the director's office, she cautiously inspected the lock. The door was usually kept firmly fastened, so Shakti had brought along a piece of stiff wire she had salvaged, intending to pick the tumbler just like the detectives did in the battered dime novels Opindel smuggled in from the trash.
Screeech—
Yet the second her fingers closed around the brass knob and gave it a twist, the door swung open without the slightest resistance.
"Huh?"
Shakti blinked in utter bewilderment.
No, wait, this is my lucky break! Katejina must have rushed out in such a hurry that she forgot to latch it!
Swallowing her doubts, Shakti stepped triumphantly into the director's private quarters.
Now it was time to play the brilliant detective and hunt down incriminating evidence, just like in Opindel's books. Her eyes swept the room and locked onto the most obvious target almost immediately.
The safe!
In every detective thriller she had ever read, the smoking gun was always locked away inside the villain's iron strongbox. Hurrying across the rug, Shakti dropped to her knees before the heavy metal safe.
Sure enough, there was a keyhole beside the dial.
I didn't get to use it on the door, but this time…!
She straightened the tip of her wire, eased it into the keyhole, and gave it a gentle wiggle. The very instant the metal touched the internal mechanism—
Click!
A crisp, satisfying latch disengaged.
Wait… is it supposed to be this easy? The sleuths in the books always took forever…
Something felt distinctly off, but she pushed the nagging doubt aside. Drunk on the sheer thrill of success, her mind was consumed entirely by visions of the dark secrets waiting within.
She swung the heavy iron door wide open. Sitting entirely alone inside the cavernous metal interior was a single, large manila envelope. Compared to the mountain of dark secrets she had imagined, it looked rather pathetic, but the truth had to be tucked inside!
Or so Shakti firmly believed.
Taking a deep, trembling breath to steady her hammering heart, she grabbed the envelope and upended it over the floor. Something slid out with a bright, metallic clatter.
Resting on the floorboards were two shiny five-gol coins—and a neatly folded slip of paper.
Good job cracking the safe. Here is your reward!
Consider it an allowance, so go buy yourself something delicious.
By the time she finished reading the final word, Shakti's hands were trembling with white-hot fury.
Katejina… that wretched woman…!
In the entire orphanage, the only children who could read and write proper script were Shakti and Opindel. Leaving a note like this inside the safe meant one thing and one thing only: the director had predicted her every move and set this whole thing up solely to mock her!
Snapping with rage, Shakti tore the paper to shreds. She cocked her arm back, fully intending to hurl the two coins across the room in defiance, when—
Wait, no.
On second thought, throwing away good money was just plain stupid. Had she ever received a single coin of allowance in her entire life? Not a single orphan in this house had ever held pocket money of their own; Opindel had to sneak out into back alleys just to fish discarded books from garbage bins. Swallowing her pride, Shakti shoved both five-gol coins deep into her inner pocket.
She rummaged through the desk drawers and bookshelves for a few more minutes, but turned up nothing out of the ordinary. It was an utterly exasperating failure, yet there was nothing more she could do. Hanging her head, she crept back out of the office just as stealthily as she had entered.
"Big sister, what were you doing in there?"
Standing directly outside in the corridor was Rina.
"Uh… well, you see…" Caught red-handed, Shakti panicked for a split second before her brain kicked into overdrive to spin an excuse. "The director asked me to run an errand for her inside…"
"Reaaally?"
"Y-Yeah. Really."
Rina simply tilted her head, gazing up at her with clear, unblemished trust. Under the weight of that pure, guileless stare, Shakti's conscience pricked her like a thousand needles. Unable to bear the guilt, she parted her lips to confess the truth—
Clack! Clack!
The heavy iron door knocker at the front entrance struck against the wood with sharp, authoritative force.
"Who could that be?"
The moment the sound echoed through the hall, Rina bolted toward the foyer. Shakti lunged after her to grab her shoulder, but Rina reached the door first. Slower and far less athletic than the nimble little girl, Shakti had no chance of catching up.
The heavy front door swung wide, revealing the man standing on the threshold. He wore an unbuttoned taupe coat, his eyes concealed behind a pair of pitch-black sunglasses. Rina stared up at him, cocking her head in mild intrigue. Shakti, too, had never seen him before in her life.
"Who… who are you?"
At Shakti's trembling question, the man reached into his coat, drew out a small leather wallet, and flipped it open.
Pinned inside was a Public Security Officer identification card, featuring a prominent photograph of the man's stern face.
Decalio Gernhabitz.
Decalio was a common enough name, but the man standing on the doorstep was a complete stranger to Shakti. Rina didn't seem to recognize him either.
What was unmistakably clear, however, was his profession.
A public security officer… Why is the law here?
Shakti cautiously lifted her gaze. Though the dark lenses of his sunglasses hid his eyes completely, she could distinctly feel the weight of his sharp, piercing gaze boring straight into her.
"I'm an officer of the law. Mind if I step inside for a moment?"