JSM - Edition Two

L ove I s T hicker T han B lood - continued “Oh you mean Mrs Veral,” Abbey said pointing to the office room, still with a big fake smile on her face. “Hello,” said a sweet voice as Barbara entered the study. “You must be Mrs Veral, how very nice to meet you,” Barbara said in her most posh voice. “How nice to meet you both too. Please sit down if you wish,” offered Mrs Veral. “Thank you,” Barbara replied sitting down and shaking hands with Mrs Veral. “As you both already probably know there are a lot of standards that have to be met to adopt a child,” stated Mrs Veral. “Yes we do, so where should we start,” pushed Gary reaching into his wallet and pulling out their driver’s licences and their passports. “First of all, have you ever fostered or adopted a child or even had a child of your own,” asked Mrs Veral. “Yes we have, we fostered a child from America then after a few years we decided to adopt him, his name is Buddy,” explained Barbara. “Well, so I presume you’ve been through all of this boring paper work and you seem very capable of having another child, so I’ll just get you to sign here and here and then you can choose which lucky girl will come and stay with you,” explained Mrs Veral handing them the thirteen paged document. You could see Barbara’s eyes concentrate deeply on the pages in front of her. “No point to read it, just sign.” Mrs Veral urged. Barbara ignored her and kept reading. Mrs Veral wanted to scream at her but took a deep breath and held it in knowing her job was on the line. After a while Barbara finally finished reading it. “Done,” she whispered, signing the document and handing it to Gary. After they both finished reading and signing they finally went out to meet all the different girls. “Sam is 13, Abbey is 10, Betty is 16, Olivia is 8, Sara is 8, Alana is 12, Mia is 6, Lily is 9 and the new girl, Keira is 4,” Mrs Veral explained pointing to each girl as she stated their names. She then told Barbara and Gary each and every one of their stories and handed them their birth certificates. After a good long discussion, they both made up their minds. But who did they choose? Chapter Five: Birthday Wishes “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to Lily, Happy Birthday to you. Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!” Everyone sang throwing their hands in the air at the end. “Blow out the candles!” yelled Lily’s best friend, Masie. Barbara wrapped her arms around Lily as she made her wish. “I can’t believe my little girl is already eighteen!” she whispered, kissing Lily on the forehead.

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JSM Edition Two