The plane ride wasn’t too bad. It was only a three-hour trip, and the weather was perfect. To AJ’s chagrin, there was no snow. They arrived at the orphanage and met Miss Haselton, the headmistress of the orphanage.

“We are so happy you decided to participate in the program,” she said smiling.” I love the children, but we are running out of room. Please, have a seat.”

AJ sat down and looked around the office as his mom and Miss Haselton talked. Well, at least this place is nicer compared to the one in Annie. There were some awards hanging up, as well as many pictures of the orphans. He noticed though that most of the pictures were of those who were adopted or fostered; he could tell by all the letters from both adults and children.

Miss Haselton noticed AJ wasn’t paying attention. “Alex, if you want, you can wander around and meet some of the girls. “ She took out a map and handed it to him. “ Pretty much, the bedrooms are off limits, but you can go anywhere else. We will meet you in the cafeteria in a half hour.”

“Cool,” AJ said, happy he could explore. He kissed his mom on the cheek and left.

It was dark out. Felicia was back at the JCC, still waiting for her parents, and it was still raining. For some unknown reason, she walked over to a nearby bridge. Once she got there, she is at the bridge at the orphanage. All of a sudden, there are so many people surrounding her. But their faces are all blank. Not like a blank stare, there is just nothing there. No ears, no eyes, no nose, no mouth. And everyone was gray. They all looked like faceless clones. They all reached out to her, but she didn’t know whom to choose. Suddenly, two more faceless people show up, but they are in color. Felicia decides to trust them and goes with them. All of the others start to disappear. The sun comes out as these new people start to have faces…

Felicia awoke with a start. She had the dream again. But this time it was different. This time she felt that she had hope. She looked around for Corky, her sister’s teddy. Corky was on the ground, like she usually was when Felicia had a tough night. Felicia picked her up and tried to understand what her dream meant. She knew what the grayed out people represented. She saw them every night since the accident.

After the funerals, the state was trying to figure out what to do with her. She wasn’t allowed to live with her grandparents because of their age. Her mom didn’t have any siblings, and her dad’s siblings didn’t want her. She was all alone. After selling many of her family’s possessions to start a trust fund for her, she was moved to the state orphanage. She has been there ever since. It was almost her 2-year anniversary, something she was not proud of. Sure, there had been people who were interested in her, but they always went to adopt the younger ones. It didn’t help that there weren’t many Jewish couples that wanted to adopt. She wouldn’t care who she went with though, as long as she had a real home.

The only friends she had here were the staff members, Miss Haselton in particular. They were the only ones who seemed to care if she was having a bad day or not. She was the only 12-year old there. She couldn’t find any common interests with the younger girls, and the older girls resented her. They claimed it was because she still has family and is not a ‘true’ orphan, but she thinks its something else.

Felicia was still trying to figure out the dream. She looked over to her roommate’s bed and saw she had left. Then she looked at the clock, and saw it was time for breakfast. She sighed. “Another lovely opportunity to ‘mingle’,” she sighed. She got dressed and brought her journal with her.

AJ walked into the mess hall. It looked just like the cafeteria at his old school. Everyone seemed interested in those around them, no one else. Some things never change he thought. He saw one girl in the corner by herself. Her brown hair was in a bun, and she looked very concentrated on whatever she was doing. “Well, if I need to mingle, might as well start small,” he mumbled, and headed over to her. He got all sorts of stares from the girls along with many comments.

“Is the orphanage co-ed now?”

“He looks pretty young to be an inspector.”

“I wonder if he’s single.”

AJ had to chuckle at that last one. He made over to the loner. “Hi there. Is this seat taken?”

The loner looked up from her book, taken aback by him. Not the fact that he was a guy in an all girls orphanage, but because he noticed her. “Um…. s-sure.”

AJ could tell he would need to be the one to break the ice. He figured that since one of these girls might become his sister, he would whomever he talks to his real name. “My name’s Alexander, what’s yours?”

“Felicia,” she said, slightly blushing.

“How old are you?”

“I’m 12.”

“That’s cool, I have a friend who’s about that age.” He noticed that she started writing in her book. “What are you writing there?”

“Poems…. this is just one of my journals of them though.”

“How many do you have?”

“Um…. about six I think. But all of my journals include normal journal entries as well as my poems,” she stated, feeling happy someone other than the staff was interested in what she did.

“Wow, you could have like, a library with that many.”

Felicia giggled. For some reason Alexander looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” AJ said, pleased he wouldn’t be the only one starting conversations.

“What are you doing here? I’ve never seen guys here before.”

“My mom wants to adopt. We are actually from Florida, but the adoption agency down there suggested we go up here because of the overcrowding.”

“Florida? I guess you’ve never seen snow.”

“Actually, I was hoping to see some here.”

Felicia started to laugh. “I’m sorry, but it’s almost summer now. I’ve lived in Ohio my entire life and I have yet to see snow at this time.”

“That’s what I tried to tell him,” Denise chuckled. “Hi, I’m Denise.”

“I’m Felicia,” she said smiling. She thought Denise looked familiar as well. “Hi Miss Haselton.”

By this time, most of the cafeteria had looked at what was going on. Felicia could feel the stares and looked down at her food, playing with her scrambled eggs.

Miss Haselton was shining with joy. “Felicia, we need to talk, can you come with us?”

“Um…. sure. Let me just put my tray away,” Felicia got up. “I’ll meet you in your office.”

“Sure, we will see you there,” Miss Haselton said and started to walk back with Denise.

“I’ll talk to you later Felicia,” AJ said before he ran to catch up with the others.

Felicia took her tray to the dish washing area, being sure to say hi to the ladies back there. She went back to the table and finished writing her poem. Felicia, we need to talk. The last time she heard something like that, she heard the worst news of her life. She had a feeling it would be good news for her this time. She ran off to her room to drop off her journal and went to Miss Haselton’s office.