A/N: Hi, everyone. Thank you for the follows, and the comments. Now, to answer some (without giving too much away):
* no, twins aren't Cinderella's
* I haven't calculated August's love interest in (yet? :)), but I have a very nice scene about him and the persons who failed to properly take care of him
* Anna will be making an appearance, and I've already written that part - you'll have to wait for it, though...
As before - let me know if you see any failures in my English - just write a comment, I'm not one to get offended by someone pointing out a spelling mistake (or a misuse of some specific word). I LOVE concrit.
Growing up, bit by bit
Being nearly identical gave girls a lot of opportunity for mischief, including, as they grew up, discovering the various chances of cheating the school system by replacing each other during chosen lessons. On the other hand, teachers were obviously on a lookout against such antics, so the situation balanced itself out and sometimes the girls won, but sometimes they were caught and paid the price. Still, even with the reports from school underscoring their pranks and attempts of cheating coming in, Annabelle Hanners felt that putting them together and making them all sisters was one of the best ideas that she had ever had.
She still remembered the episode with separation anxiety in the first grade, and she observed the connection between them strengthening - fortunately, as they grew, also maturing and allowing them some distance from each other. They were quite happy to split up at school, and by the third grade, they could even safely leave on separate class trips, if the situation demanded it. Still they stayed in the same room and took visible comfort from their own company.
Even the usual woes of children in the system - lack of entertainment, scarcity of interesting clothing and the perpetual hope of being placed with a proper family - seemed to touch them less than other children.
She could only hope their bond would sustain them after they grew out of the system and she could no longer support them. She had seen enough good kids get lost in the real world once they left the relatively safe confines of the group homes.
Being friends with the senior P.E. teacher - Mr Sully - had the unexpected outcome of all three being more carefully taken care of than any other random kids. The downside was, once the real P.E. started, they were running ragged and barely crawled home after every lesson.
Mr Sully made it his personal challenge to make them finally let go of each other, logically posing that if they learned to stay a bit apart, nobody would be able play with them again like the psychologist had.
On their first lesson they got assigned to different teams, and no amount of Emma's whining, Elena's tantrums or Elsa's silent tears could make him put them in the same group. They were in the same room, he explained, that should be enough.
And, in time, it worked. His dedication to the task made them both more fit and more independent from each other - able to leave the room where the other two were for much longer time than ever before, so giving them the freedom from the crippling fear they felt before whenever one disappeared for more than five minutes.
And P.E. was good, finally letting them blow off some of the excess energy that could not have been used up at home. It also gave them vital skills needed to deal with the rare bully at school, including the most obvious, of running away, and the less obvious, of kicking the bully where it hurt. Mr Sully was a great believer of girls practicing martial arts, starting with the schoolyard self-preservation moves.
"Madeline got adopted" Emma sighed gustily. "And we're still here..."
Elsa shrugged, trying to get Elena's braid under control.
"Triplets ain't easy to adopt" she repeated the same thing that they'd heard for ever and since they could remember.
"I know, I know..." Emma's forehead touched the wood of the windowsill. "I just wish there was someone out there who would want us. All. And we could leave and go to proper big school and see actual real world..."
"We will. Mrs Hanners says she's sending our papers to some foundation that pays for tuition for underprivileged kids. And as we're orphans and unadoptable, she says we have good chance."
The foundation did not even visit the group home. Mrs Hanners was fuming for days when she received their reply that her wards did not "show sufficient promise" that would make it reasonable to give this amount of money to one specific family.
She angrily threw the papers into her desk drawer and sat there, blinking the tears away. Then she picked up the phone and started making calls.
Three days later Elsa, Elena and Emma were packed into a waiting taxi and taken to a huge office building in the middle of Boston.
"There is a lady here who wants to meet you. I decided if nobody is willing to help us with your school fees, well, we have to earn you some money. The lady is the director of marketing and if she likes you, she will hire you for the whole campaign."
"So you want your wards to earn money for school?" the lawyer was frowning somewhat angrily. "Why can't you apply for a stipend? Or a tuition reduction?"
Anna Hanners sighed. The same question yet again. Why did they care what she wanted to pay for with their money?
"There are three of them. Most schools allow only certain amount of "charity cases" and I can't risk two of them getting approved and one not. It's better if they can raise the needed money themselves. This way their choice is much better when it comes to picking the actual school."
The lawyer seemed unimpressed and Annabella suddenly wished for Elsa to give up her dream about law school - she wanted her girls to get good jobs, but is being a corporate lawyer made a human being into this kind of creature, she didn't want to see Elsa become one, ever.
Still, she kept her peace and smiled tightly at the man, as he finally pulled out a draft contract.
Elsa hated the lamps, but stood there bravely, with her smile firmly affixed and her brain counting how much of the next year's tuition in their new school she was - they were - earning with every single minute of the photoshoot.
Teens wear was not something she was very knowledgeable about. Usual clothes in the group home were "whatever we could buy in bulk" so girls were used to monochrome t-shirts, one model of trousers and not much variety in the chequered shirts department. Suddenly they were faced with choice.
Fortunately nobody asked them to make the specific decisions, and they served as perfect dress-me-up dolls for a group of enthusiastic women, delighted with such occasion. They were dressed in identical things, things varied in colour, things varied in model (but with common colour theme), things from one line (all sporty, all dressy) and so on and so on. This session was the last, with Elsa wearing a blue sundress, Elena in blue jeans and striped blue-white t-shirt and Emma in a blue leather jacket matched with blue-black trousers and black top.
"Perfect" someone said from the crowd and the director of the shoot started posing them in front of the camera.
Their faces were everywhere in US. Or rather, almost everywhere. Few tiny spots on the map were missed by the billboard companies.
They were flooded with propositions for a TV shoot, for another photo session and even for an interview. Quietly all these were archived and they ignored the fashion world until next summer.
Two more contracts with the same clothing company gave them enough money to pay for all the college education they may wish to ever have, with surplus.
