Bartleby and Loki exchanged glances and walked up the steps. As they walked in to the house, a rather severe looking woman walked up to them. Bartleby jumped in before she could say anything.
"Our sister is thinking of adopting, but she couldn't get here, so she sent us over to look around."
Bartleby could feel her decompressing. She gave what she probably thought was a warm smile and lead them around. The younger kids were on the bottom floor and the older kids on the top. As they got to the top floor, Bartleby realized there was something missing on this floor than on the others: sound.
The Headmistress opened every door, and all the rooms were empty. She started to apologize when Loki held up a hand for her to be quiet. The faint strains of music came up the stairs. Loki and Bartleby walked all the way down the stairs to a large family room. Every single child in the orphanage was sitting somewhere in the room around two people.
One, Tiffany, was sitting on a bar stool, playing a guitar. Darren was sitting on an identical stool next to her and singing. They were doing the Glee version of Over the Rainbow.
Once they were done, everyone was smiling and clapping. That is, until, the Headmistress snapped at them all to go to their rooms.
As they passed, the kids all gave them hopeful smiles as they walked by. Tiffany and Darren were lagging behind, and she looked about to yell at them, when Bartleby held up a hand, she stopped.
"We'll make sure they get upstairs."She left to boss some kids around, and Bartleby and Loki walked into the room. Tiffany looked over.
"We were wondering what took you so long."