The clock struck one. Right on cue, the big door at the end of the hall swung open. All the children immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to see who would come through the door. First in was Mr. Stannard, the owner of the orphanage. Next were two young adults. The man was tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a black suit and a green tie. The woman was also tall, though not as tall as the man. She had long blonde hair and green eyes. She wore black jeans and a purple shirt. Her hair was tied back in a plait that hung the entire length of her back. Their names were Emily and Michael Cassidy. The three people walked down the length of the hall. All the children tried to look their most needy of a home. They all put on puppy eyes and their cutest smiles.
The adults were nearly at the end of the hall when two children caught Hazel's eye. They were a boy and girl. They were leaning against the wall reading. The boy was tall, with brown hair and brown eyes, and the girl had red hair and black eyes. The boy was wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a skeleton on it and the girl was wearing jeans and a red t-shirt.
The children were called Ben Thompson and Ellen Connolly. They were best friends, and had known each other since they came to the orphanage. Although they weren't related, they looked exactly like each other. They were both fourteen, and the oldest in the orphanage.

Emily walked over to them.
"Hi! What're you reading?"
They looked at her and said in unison,
"Jigoku Shoujo."
"Manga? I LOVE manga! My favourite's Furuba, do you like it?"
They both nodded. They each had a huge collection of manga in their bedrooms.
"Emily? Come on, we still have to talk to Mr. Stannard before moving on to the next orphanage!" called Michael. Emily rejoined them and they went into Mr. Stannard's office.
Immediately Ben and Ellen were surrounded by the other children, who were asking what the lady was saying. The two just ignored them, because they liked to be left alone. They just went on reading their books.

In Mr. Stannard's office, Emily and Noah were discussing the children they had seen. Michael had liked the look of Daniel Campion, a little baby with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"But Michael, do you really want to be kept up all night every night changing nappies and cleaning up? Because I sure don't!" said Emily, "I liked the look of those two kids at the end. What were their names, Mr. Stannard?"
"Ben Thompson and Ellen Connolly," he replied.
"Yeah, them, I really liked the look of them!" said Emily to her husband.
Michael had to agree, because really, Emily was the boss in this relationship. So it ended up that Ben and Hazel had to pack up their stuff and leave with the Cassidys. They had so many books that they filled three entire suitcases each with them.

The Cassidy's house was in the countryside. It was big, with a huge garden and fields all around it. They had two pets, a dog called Sooty and a cat called Rowena. Ben and Ellen had a large bedroom each, with an en-suite bathroom. They felt immediately at home. The best part of the house was the library. Two entire walls were dedicated to manga. Emily seemed to have everything, from Bleach to Naruto, and beyond. The other two walls were fiction, all arranged by author. The centre of the room was filled with chairs and beanbags to sit on while reading. There was a water machine and a coffee machine in the corner. Ben and Ellen immediately made this their favourite room. Their other favourite room was the study, which had every art and craft material you could think of. There were shelves full of drawing paper and pencils, and a huge desk to work at. Emily loved art.
She loved to express her artistic talent through her food. All her meals would look and taste absolutely amazing. She made cakes iced with pictures in incredible detail, of animals and flowers and trees. Her homemade pasta had drops of food colouring in it to make it green or red. There was nothing bad about Ben and Ellen's new home; they thought it was perfect.

A week after they moved in, Ben and Ellen had their first day at their new school. The term was already half over, so it wasn't the best time to start. Luckily, they were put into the same class. Their first class was Art, which they both loved. The art teacher was very nice and understood that they didn't really want to be announced to the rest of the children, so she just gave them seats and paper and told them to get to work. The theme of the class was "what I did over my mid-term break." They each had to draw a picture illustrating this sentence. Since all Ben and Ellen had done was read manga and get adopted, they chose manga, to keep a low profile. They each drew loads of their favourite manga characters all over the page. After the class the teacher highly praised their work, and she said it was showing great initiative. Ben and Ellen didn't know, or care, what that meant, but they didn't want to be late for their next class so they excused themselves and went in search of the classroom.
Compared to Art, maths was like Hell in a 6x6m room. First the teacher announced to the whole class that
"We have two new pupils here today! And guess what? They're ORPHANS! HAHAHA!"
Ellen and Ben decided he was a bit crazy...
Then, to make matters worse, he put them in seats completely across the room from each other, so they couldn't communicate at all. They both hated maths with a vengeance, so they didn't make an effort at all to learn anything, they just sat back and relaxed.
The rest of day was uneventful, until their last class, Home Economics. They sat together at a cooking station, because they REALLY didn't want to share with anyone else. In class they were making muffins. Everything was going awesome until Ben felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and saw Stephen Everfat. Everfat by name, ever fat by nature. He was not a thin boy.
"Yo, Cassidy, whatcha up ta?"he whispered.
"Nothing," replied Ben, and turned around again.
"Hey! Ain't NOBODY turns their back on the Everfat!" hissed Stephen.
"Please," said Ben, "leave me alone."
Stephen sneered.
"Oh, whatcha gonna do? Go crying to your mommy? Oh, that's right, you don't have one!"
He laughed, and went back to his own desk. Ellen strode over.
"Hey! You did NOT just diss my best friend! Outside at break time, you had better be there," she said, and rejoined Ben at their table. Stephen stared at her in disbelief, while his muffins burnt to a crisp.

At breaktime, Ellen met Stephen outside on the green. He was waiting for her. As she walked over, he laughed at her. He stopped as soon as she punched him in the nose. There was a crack, and Stephen fell over, clutching his broken nose. Ellen walked away, and went back inside. When she went to her locker, she saw Ben packing his bag.
"Um, Ben? School isn't over yet, you know."
"I know, I'm leaving," he said.
"What! Why?" she replied, utterly confuzzled.
"I'm not staying somewhere I'm gonna be reminded every day that I have no idea who my Mom is, that's why," he said, pushing past her. Thinking for a minute, Ellen made up her mind. She packed up her stuff and followed Ben out the door.

When they got home, Emily was waiting for them with muffins.
"A girl from your school called me to tell me what happened in Home Ec class, and she told me that she'd seen you head out the door with your schoolbags." she said. "Now, why don't you take these muffins and go read some manga. And Ellen, try not to break any more kids' noses, will you?"
Ellen grinned at her and took the plate of muffins to the library with Ben. They spent the afternoon reading manga. In the evening, they took Sooty out for a walk, and talked about who they thought their real moms were.
"I think mine's a famous artist, who had to give me up because I was giving her headaches and she couldn't work to make money," said Ellen, "what about you?"
"I think my mom's the author of Jigoku Shoujo, whose books were in such high demand that she couldn't write them and take care of me at the same time," said Ben.
"You know what?" said Ellen, "I think I'm gonna go to the adoption agency tomorrow and get my birth certificate, I know they'll have it and I want to know who my mom is. Are you gonna come with me?"
"Sure," grinned Ben, and they ran back to the house with Sooty.

The next morning Ellen and Ben didn't have to go to school, as they'd told Emily they wanted to do something in Town and she'd called their principal to tell him that they were sick.
So Ellen and Ben walked into Town and went to the adoption agency. Ellen asked if they could possibly see their birth certificates.
"What's your names?" asked the receptionist.
"Ben Thompson and Ellen Connolly," said Ellen, as Ben was a bit shy.
"Alright, gimme a sec and I'll find 'em for ya," said the receptionist, and shuffled off into the back room. Ellen and Ben sat down and waited. After about five minutes, the receptionist came back in clutching two brown paper files.
"Here ya go, the files of Ben Thompson, fourteen years of age, and Ellen Connolly, fourteen years of age," she said, and handed them the files. They went and sat down again. They looked at each other for a moment, then they both opened their files. On the top of the pile of papers were their adoption certificates, showing that they had been adopted by Emily and Michael Cassidy, next in the pile was their orphanage file, showing when they had arrived at the orphanage. They had both arrived on the 5th of July, which also happened to be both their birthdays, and the middle day in the year.
They knew what would be next in their files, their birth certificates. This was it. They began to fold back the paper from the top. Ben looked down, he could see the words "Birth Certificate." Then he looked over at Ellen. She had stopped, and had a look of utter shock on her face. She held up her file. There, at the top of the file, instead of the words "Birth Certificate," were the words "Adoption certificate. She had been adopted before! Ben put down his file and leaned over Ellen's while she took off the orphanage file. Then they both stared at her first adoption certificate.

Name: Ellen Thompson

Age: 1yr 2months

Adopted by: Adam and Eve Connolly

Date: 5th September, 1997

Ben and Ellen stared at each other.
"Thompson?" they both said at the same time. Then they both took out their birth certificates and looked at their real parents.

Temple Street Children's Hospital
Name: Ellen Thompson
DoB: 5th July 1996
Mother: Hazel Thompson
Father: Noah Thompson

Temple Street Children's Hospital
Name: Ben Thompson
DoB: 5th July 1996
Mother: Hazel Thompson
Father: Noah Thompson

Ben and Ellen stared at each other. They were brother and sister? This was AWESOME!
"COOLIO!" they shouted in unison. They threw their files over the counter and raced back home. They burst in the front door and were about to start yelling their news at Hazel when they stopped in their tracks. There were two strange adults standing beside Emily. The woman stared, then came over to Ben.
"Hi Ben, you probably don't know me. I'm Hazel Thompson, I'm your-"
"MOM!" yelled Ben, and threw himself into her arms. Ellen did the same. She explained how she knew that Hazel was her mum. Then her and Ben ran over to the man. They looked up at him.
"Dad?"
He nodded, and they threw themselves at him. He laughed, and they let go.
Then everyone sat down to some tea, and Hazel and Noah told Ellen and Ben the good news. They were taking them home so that they could be a happy family again. Emily looked sad, but she hugged them both and told them that she'd already packed their things, and they were ready to go. Then she told them that she'd say goodbye to Michael for them, and handed them each a book. It was the first volume of the very newest manga that was out, Moe Kitties. They hugged her, said goodbye, and got in the car.
In the car, they found out that Hazel was actually the author of a famous manga called The Cuddly Age of Alcoholic Pandas. She was also a famous artist and her paintings were in galleries all over the world. Ben and Hazel grinned at each other. So they had been right, after all.

Life was great for those two after that. They moved into a huge house in Leitrim, which also had a huge library filled with manga, so it was just as good as the Cassidy's . They also got to go to the petstore and get whatever pet they wanted. Ellen got a dog and called it Sooty, and Ben got a cat and called it Rowena. So life was beautiful all the time after that, and they lived happily ever after.

The end