Chapter Three: Guess What...KATRINA!
The door to the office creaked loudly. So much for sneaking in un-noticed, I thought. Every single person in the office turned and stared. It was well-known throughout the school that no orphanage kids ever got called to the office for a dismissal.
"Uhh...Miss Weatherbiew?" I asked the blue heron behind the office counter. Miss Weatherbiew closed a folder she was reading and peered through the glasses perched on the end of her nose at me. A tiny gray bun was piled onto the top of her head, and her glasses were bright, blindingly neon yellow with little orange reflectors, strung around her neck by a fluorescent pink chain. I tried not to stare. Miss Weatherbiew regularly lost her glasses every week, so maybe her doctor had these specially made.
"The orphanage called. There's a family called the Daylilies looking to adopt you," Miss Weatherbiew squawked in a scratchy voice that sounded like nails covered in cheese grating on a blackboard. Quite a remarkable sound.
"Dalylias," trilled a soft voice from the corner. I spun around, just in time to see a beautiful black cat melt from the shadows underneath a large artificial plant. Her eyes were almond-shaped, and the irises were a deep ocean blue. Around her neck was a necklace of black pearls, subtly glimmering in the lights of the office. She wore a rippling purple dress spangled with blue swooshes that created the strange effect that she was gliding as she walked. My mouth nearly dropped open. This cat was looking to adopt me?
"Marina Dalylias," the beautiful cat trilled again, extending a paw. I meekly took it, shaking it lightly.
"Katrina Talview," I managed to say. Mrs. Dalylias smiled, something that filled the room with sudden light, or so it seemed to me. Her beauty was somewhat dampened by the blinding white fangs that all cats have, but the enamel was so well-polished I didn't mind. The light sparked off them, and I smiled back, slightly conscious that it was after lunch, and I dearly hoped nothing was stuck in my teeth.
"Please call me Mari. Now, I'll just sign you out, and we'll pop over to the orphanage to fill out the final papers. Oh, and I should warn you: I have three sons, so you'll be the first girl in our household besides myself." Mari smiled again, and inside a little warm and fuzzy glowed. I don't remember having any siblings. I think I used to be an only child. Now I'd get three brothers!
We, to use Mari's term, "popped" back over to the orphanage and collected my belongings, which weren't many, and were soon on our way to the countryside. As the city skyscrapers were left behind, and rolling hills took their place, I finally realized that I fit in again. I had a true home. A family.
Maybe it was a drop of rain, maybe it was something else, but my eyes felt damp as we pulled into the driveway of a little cottage.
