Chapter 1
Hey people! Sorry this is probably surprising it isnt Naruto, but please give it a chance! I need some people to see the story i'm writing! I except constructive critisism, and maybe even a title! Thank you so much! Please review!
Chapter 1
"Jenna, could you please come to the front office?" The speakers crackled to life. I put down my cards and got off the bed messing up my game of solitaire. Frustrated I put the cards back in the box. "Haha! Your in trouble!" I turned around to glare at Billy. Even at age 16 he is incredibly childish. He is the only one in the whole orphanage that doesn't know that I know he likes me. "I'm not in trouble Billy, I never get in trouble unlike some people." I said glaring straight at him. His smirk turned into a scowl and he stuck his tongue out at me. Yes, stuck his tongue out at me. I rolled my eyes and went out the door down the corridor thinking. It's strange, even though nobody here likes me, everybody, out of the kids anyway, were just rushing to tell me that Billy likes me. They probably just wanted the chance to embarrass him. Sure, I used to have friends, but they all got adopted. We were never told by who, they would never let us see so we wouldn't get upset. Though, a few times I have seen this same old lady with white puff for hair, a million wrinkles, and always a little smile on her face looking to adopt somebody. ME and a couple other orphans have gotten used to calling her Little Old Lady.
I walked down the corridor and down the stairs to get to the front office. This place is really old, about 50 years old in fact. You can tell its old too. It has an old wood smell, which to me is quite relaxing. Everywhere you go you cant step on the floor without the floorboards creaking or the beds squeaking as you got on them. To rest my case as I walked in the corridor the floorboards creaked. There, sitting in the adopter's chair, was Little Old Lady. She smiled at me as I walked in. I smiled back not wanting to be rude, but to tell you the truth, she didn't look sane enough to tell the difference between rude and kind. I walked to the front desk and asked the lady there, "Yes Ms. Carmichael?" She looked up from the computer that appeared to have adoption sheets on the screen. Hm. I thought. Who is that old lady adopting now? "Jenna this kind lady," she looked over at Little Old Lady, "Ms. Tanners." Said Little Old Lady. "Ms. Tanners," continued Ms. Carmichael, "would like to adopt you." I stared at her dumbstruck. "A-adopt me?" I asked my eyes wide. "Yes Jenna, adopt you." She said slowly as if I didn't hear her the first time. I looked over at Ms. Tanners, old lady, and swallowed, my throat all of a sudden very dry.
I leaned over the desk and whispered, "Ms. Carmichael doesn't she seem a bit, well, old?" I asked. She looked at me sternly and said "Jenna, I would have thought that you lived here long enough to know that an adopter can be as old as 70. She is 65." She said this like I was supposed to know how old this woman was. She looked like she was 95 to me. I looked at Ms. Tanner and saw that she was looking around the room with a big smile on her face. To be perfectly honest, she looked slightly insane. I heard the printer and turned around to see that the adoption form on the computer screen was now printing out. When it was finished she handed it to Ms. Tanner who took it along with a pen and started filling it out. "Jenna," Ms. Carmichael said "why don't you go pack your belongings while Ms. Tanner finishes filling out the paper. Also tell your friends that you'll be leaving." Like I've got anyone to tell. "O-okay." I said still bewildered. I climbed up the staircase numb. I felt my stomach flip, nervousness making me queasy. That Ms. Tanner is freaking me out.
I had always dreamed, ever since I was little, about finally being adopted. I had pictured a man in slacks and a button up shirt with brown hair and a big smile. I had pictured the woman to have on a sundress and blue eyes with brown hair and a wonderful, nice grin on her face that made her eyes sparkle. Of course over the years my expectations of who my adopters would be became real, not a fantasy. But never, ever had I imagined that I would be adopted by an old lady who I was not quite sure was sane or not. I reached the top of the stairs and walked down the corridor. I walked into the big room with all the beds called the Sleeping Chamber. Lame, I know. Anyway I walked in there and Billy was still in his same spot as he was when I left. He heard me as I walked in and looked up. The look on his face was that of triumph. "You did get in trouble! Haha! Hey everybody Jenna got in trouble!" Everybody looked up from what they were doing. I saw smirks beginning to form and this infuriated me. "No Billy," I said in an icy cool voice making him flinch, "I'm not in trouble. I'm getting adopted." The outcome was just what I had been looking for. He looked like he was about to faint. It was hysterical. "You did NOT!" He shouted recovering from what I had said.
"Yes I am Billy." I said getting out one of the orphanage's suitcases from the closet. I wheeled it over to my bed ignoring all of the dumbstruck faces. I got to admit. It was pretty funny. The reason why it was so amazing to all of the people is because I am the one who has been at the adoption center for the longest time. I have been here sense I was born and I am now 18. I had one more year before the center would be forced to turn me out in the streets. It wasn't that all of the adopters didn't like me, it was the fact that I was so old and they wanted a child to take care of. The reason why I wasn't adopted when I was younger was because when I was a baby, there was a terribly bitter cold winter. There were blizzards and snowstorms. It took a while for people to get repairs done on their home and property. That was brutal so it took a while to repair all that, almost a year. Then people were too tired to want to take care of another person so they didn't go to the adoption center. During that winter I had caught the flu that made me incredibly sick so they took me off of adoption for about 4 months. By that time I was four years old and a lot of my friends had been adopted.
About two days after I was put up for adoption again that was when marketing went all haywire and people were losing their jobs left and right, not able to pay for an extra mouth to feed. Sadly, this was going on for many years and it took a while for people to find jobs and get enough money to be able to pay for that extra person. So I slowly got older and around the time when I was 14 people finally started adopting kids. That was when a fresh wave of babies came in. Let me tell you this, I was not getting enough sleep that was normal for people my age. So for about two years THAT went on. Then I was 16 and adopters thought I would be some obnoxious teenager so they went with the younger kids. It seemed that the world and all its karma were against me. And I'm just saying, Karma, you had better come up with something AMAZING planned for me later in life because I would say its time I got a little something nice to happen to me for once.
Anyway by the time I had finished packing I started to here sniffles. Coming from Billy. I turned around, appalled. Billy, a 16 year old, was crying. I mean, he wasn't balling or anything but it was still highly disturbing to see it. Billy must have felt me looking at him because he wiped his eyes furiously and looked up at me from on the floor. Looking at him there, with red eyes, wet sleeves and messed up hair made him look more like he was 8 rather than 16. Honestly, everybody here acts way younger than their actual age. It's strange but for some reason it happens, at least to everybody but me. Billy had looked down again. "Billy…" I said drifting off. He looked up quickly, probably hoping I was about to say that I was tricking him. His bright eyes shone with hope. "I am still leaving." I said gently. The shine in his eyes evaporated. "Come here Billy." I said. He got up and came over to me. He was a foot shorter than me, I just realized there as he was standing two feet in front of me. I walked up to him and gave him a hug. If it weren't for that foot height difference, I don't think I would have been able to do that. Just because it would have been so weird hugging somebody that way if he was the same height as me.
He hugged me back and started crying into my shoulder. Like I said, I know he's 16 but he came here about when he was 8 so, he never really got an older personality. I tried to not think about his age. I rubbed his back quickly and broke away. He looked up at me with red puffy eyes and asked, "Are you really leaving?" "Yes Billy, I am." I answered gently. "Please don't cry, you'll make it hard for me." He looked up at me. "Who is adopting you?" He asked quietly. "That little old lady." I said waiting. He looked up at me, shocked. "Her?!" He asked amazement practically coming off his voice in waves. I laughed, "Yes Billy, her." He looked down again. "Will I ever see you again?" he asked. I replied, trying to keep my voice steady, "I'm sure you will." I said as I bent down and gave him one last hug. I just realized that all of the kids, ten and younger, were gathering around me, looking up at me. "What?" I asked them preparing myself for the last rude remarks I would get from these kids. And get this, all in unison they said, "We'll miss you Jenna!" I swear it was like the walls vibrated the decibel was so high. This really surprised me. I mean it really surprised me.
"What?" I asked totally bewildered. "We'll miss you." Said the youngest, Ami, grabbing a hold of my hand. "Wait", I said, "I thought you guys hated me?" They all flinched at the word. "Well…" said another, Mike, who was eight. "Well, what Mikey?" I said soothingly. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. "We were all so jealous of you." He said in an almost whisper. "Jealous?!" I yelled amazed. "Why the heck would all of you guys be jealous of me?!" The speaker came to life "Jenna we need you down in the office, please hurry with packing your belongings." Another one of the little girls, age 4, Lilly, said failing to say her some words correctly "You were always so pwetty, and aw of de gwownups always wuved you." She sniffled. "I don't see why they would love me anymore than they would you." I said speaking to all of them. "Ok guys, group hug." There were about ten of the little ones and then Billy and I so it was quite a squeeze. Nonetheless it was sweet. I heard footsteps and a gasp and turned my head to see Ms. Carmichael dabbing her tears with a white lacey handkerchief looking at us.
"Ok guys," I said breaking away from the group. "I have to go know." They slowly stepped back and then little Lilly said, "I dwon't cawe what dey say! I am gwowing to go downstaiws wif you!" She grasped my hand and glared defiantly at Ms. Carmichael. All of the other kids started yelling things like "Yeah!" and "Lilly's right!" so Ms. Carmichael just said "Ok everybody, down the stairs we go." All the kids started shouting, including Billy. I felt another little hand grab my vacant one and looked down to see little Ami holding onto my hand like she wasn't going to let go anytime soon. I smiled at the firmness of each little hand holding on to mine. Behind me Billy got my bag. I smiled at him and he smiled back. When we got downstairs the nervousness returned. Ms. Carmichael gave me a clipboard and on the clipboard was the adoption form. "Please sign here Jenna." I looked at the clipboard where she pointed and hesitated. I then signed my name, the nervousness in my stomach building. Ms. Carmichael took the form gave one of the sheet copies to Ms. Tanner and kept one for herself, putting it in the filer.
"Ok Jenna. We go now." I looked up in amazement. Ms. Tanner just spoke. I guess I wasn't really expecting that. It was a weird voice and she still had that big creepy innocent smile on her face. It sent shivers down my spine. "O-ok." I stuttered yet again. I let go of Ami's and Lilly's hands to grab my bag from Billy. He put it down reluctantly. I picked it up and followed Ms. Tanner out the door. I heard everybody following me out into the cool night air. Ms. Tanner opened the trunk of her car and I put my bag in it. I closed it as she got in the driver's seat. Ms. Carmichael came over and gave me a big hug. "You be safe ok Jenna?" She asked. "I will Ms. Carmichael. I promise." I gave her a hug and turned to the car. "Bye everybody!" I called as I got in it. "Bye!" They all called back. It felt like the car shook. Seriously, it was that loud. We pulled out of the driveway and I looked in the review mirror to see that all the kids were running after the car and Ms. Carmichael wasn't doing anything about it, just staring after the car dabbing her cheek with the white lacey handkerchief. It was really depressing that finally I know the kids like me and I'm adopted by some insane grandma.
We drove around the bend and I didn't see the kids run around it so they must have slowed. I looked at Ms. Tanner and asked timidly, "So where are we going?" "We are going to my house." She said still smiling, not taking her eyes off of the road. I didn't ask her any more questions, for not wanting to hear her queer voice again. I looked outside the window and saw as all the trees passed by. Slowly they began to blend together as we began to gain speed. I looked over at the speedometer and saw that we were going 80 miles per hour when the speed limit was 45 miles per hour. I leaned back at my seat my heart thumping in my chest and spoke loudly to Ms. Tanner, "Why are you going so fast?! Your going to get us killed!" She didn't say anything but just looked at me with that creepy smile still on her face. "Don't take your eyes off the road! You are trying to kill us!" I was sure of it this lady was senile. "I'm sorry lady, you might want to kill yourself and not have that much time left, but I mean, for crying out loud, I'm only 18! I would like to live to 21 at least if you wouldn't mind!" I screamed at her, scared out of my mind as the speedometer went up to 100 miles per hour. "Oh my gooooooooooooooood!!" I screamed as I saw a house quickly getting larger in front of us. "We're gonna die!!" I covered my eyes and then all of a sudden BAM! The car stopped. I jerked forward in my seatbelt, feeling it dig into my skin.
I opened my eyes to see that we were about ten feet from the house. I sent a prayer of thanks to god as I rubbed my shoulder. The old insane lady was already out of the car by the time I got out. "What the heck was that?!" I asked my breath coming in ragged gasps. "We are home now." She said in reply with the same creepy smile on her face. I was on the verge of screaming by tried to stay calm. Instead I asked her, "Um, lady, did you just get out of the insane asylum or something?" Smooth, I know. Cut me some slack though, my life practically flashed before my eyes. Crazy lady just smiled at me and said, "This is the way." and walked up to the front door, which she opened and went inside. I got my bag out of the trunk, closed it and went up the steps to her front door. I took a deep breath and went inside. I put my bag in what I figured was the living room and went into the kitchen where crazy lady was. She was getting out a huge cast iron skillet that I was surprised she was able to hold with the ease she was showing. "You need to sleep." She said still smiling at me. "Ok. So what's the pan out for?" I asked genuinely confused. "You need to sleep." She repeated again still smiling coming towards me with the pan. I was getting a little freaked out and asked "W-what are you doing?" She was even closer now and was slowly bringing the pan up. "You need to sleep." She repeated. "Ok I understand-" but I never got to finish what I was saying because she swung the pan back and hit me in the head knocking me out cold.