We were driving for a few hours and seemed to find ourselves in front of an expensive looking space.
It reminded me of our old orphanage, but much more stunning. I was confused on why we were here, the gates were made of solid steel and pained gold to give it that foreboding sense and the walls were covered in stone that stretched on farther than the eye could see. The walls were naked. The stone, unpainted, gave me a sense that only the wealthy come here. The building behind the wall and gate looked like a castle. Its walls were a pale cream, and it had a lot of windows, some open.
It was sunset and this made the building more imposing. I shook my head and started to look for the old man.
He seemed to be busy removing our bags from the boot. He seemed not to notice our shock. He placed our lounge next to the gate, smiled to himself, then moved away.
He moved towards us with a big smile, I was a bit suspicious of him. His demeanour was a bit too off. How could an old man that age move so well.
"Well girls, this is where we part ways, I will be back in a week to pick you two up." he seemed to sing out. I suddenly did not like this man.
"Can I please ask why we are here?", Kim seemed to chime in.
"Well since school starts next week, and you would be dining with others of higher status than yours, the principal thought it would be better for you two to learn how to blend in with your new environment, at the same time bond with the local orphans in the orphanage in front of you and make some friends here.", he said sweetly.
Kim still looked confused, and I seriously wanted to slap this man.
He started to walk back to the car and then suddenly stopped. Without looking back, he said with a bit of curiosity," Are you too twins?"
Before Kim could say yes, I chimed in," Why do you ask?"
"You're right, my curiosity got the best of me, well let me be on my way."
I now felt chills go down my spin.
Kim and I looked identical, only because of our skin colour could you tell us apart. Kim is white and I am brown. No one knows why, but growing up, we were treated like twins, and we grew up accepting it. WE never questioned it, not even once. The orphanage did a blood test, and we came back positive.
We have been adopted separately, but always managed to get back to the orphanage at the same time. Even when we were adopted together, we were returned together. They finally decided to remove us for adoption when we were 15 and ever since then we were never allowed to be adopted by anyone.
I looked at the gates, waiting for them to open. As my thoughts went to the word open, they started to crack.
The doors started to open and a saw a few kids our age come to greet us. There were four of them. Two went for the bags, while the other two came straight for us. At first, they were shocked then confused and finally welcoming. It was fun to watch the expressions on their faces change.
They were excited to see us, some of them were white, others Indian and the last as dark as me.
"It is nice to meet you, my name is Shaun, the boy holding the blue suitcase is James, the one with the pink one is Jack and last but not least my bother Jacob.", as they were being introduced they held up their hands and waved at us.
They hugged us and ushered us into the huge orphanage. I thought they would dress, exotically, but they were in some normal blue jeans and a plain coloured shirts. They were normal children like us, without parents. They seemed to be happy, then why was there an emptiness inside their eyes. As though they were not happy. It was as though they were acting.
We quickly went inside. The house was spotless. Everything inside it looked expensive and untouched. There were some kids playing outside. They seemed so happy and carefree that I forgot what I saw outside and acted as though it was just a bad angle.
Our rooms had king-sized inside and large mirrors in front of them. They were a pale, soft peach. They had a large space for clothes and a large desk drawer for other items. The bedsheets were flowery and a large window lay beside the bed. There were curtains on the bed for privacy.
I seriously loved this room, although I have a few thoughts on the flower printed sheets. Kim seemed to love her room. We were assigned to different rooms. This was nice.
On the following day, we started our lessons, and I was a bit sceptical. How was this fancy school that needed me to learn manners. Something was off.