Adopted by my teacher

Chapter 23 Sophie's Project

SOPHIE

"With all this talk about family trees, I've gotten an idea," said Mr. Newton, "For today's assignment I want you all to complete and submit a diagram of your own family tree."

"Em, are you coming to the Berry Bar after school?" Alicia asked, ignoring the piece of paper set on her desk.

"Yeah," Emma said, twirling her pencil in her fingers. "After we pick up Jonathan from kindergarten."

"You may start on your projects," said Mr. Newton. "When you're finished, I want you to bring them up to me."

"What are we doing, anyway?"

"Weren't you paying attention," said Bri, filling in the blanks.

Alicia picked up her writing utensil from the table, swatting her messy cinnamon hair away from her eyes. "No, not really."

"We're working on a family tree." I sat back, pulling my worksheet from the table and showed it to Alicia. It was a strange, twisted tree with big, green leaves, and on each leaf was an empty box with a title below, labeled in big, block letters. "We're supposed to fill them out for parent night," I sighed, staring at it but made no movements to start it. To me, this was yet another reminder of the loss of my birth parents. After I was adopted by Ms Morgan, I allowed her to take up both roles. Her family soon became my family.

I bit down on the metal cap of my pencil, scraping my chair forward as I stared at the blank titled 'mother'.

So who do I decide?

Before I could start, the bell rang. "If you haven't finished, you may take them home. If so, please place them on my desk on your way out."

The other kids jumped from their seats, stuffing pens and pencils as well as their paperwork in their bags, overturning their chairs in a scramble to get out.

I frowned, hiking my bag higher on my shoulders, and followed the girls as I strode out of the classroom. We wandered down the narrow halls, shying away from the big kids who crowded around us.

"This is so exciting!" Alicia exclaimed as we walked down the hall, meeting up with Charlotte.

"Yeah it is," Bri agreed. "I've been meaning to ask my parents about our family."

"Actually," Charlotte said, stopping by her locker to exchange books. "If you want to know more about your family you can go to the school's library and look up your family's history on the new computers."

"I don't know much about my real folks besides their names," Emma told us. "So it's worth a shot."

"I'm in," Alicia exclaimed before suggesting, "We should go after class."

"Soph?"

"Er...I-um, have some other homework to catch up on, but I think I'll be fine on my own."

"Ok," said Emma. "We'll see you girls later then."

We agreed and went off in separate directions.

Austin stopped by to pick me up after school and later agreed to take up mom's offering and stay for dinner.

I kicked my legs under the table, staring down at the clumps of chicken and pasta on my plate. Austin sat across from me, shoulders squared as he cut his chicken into square pieces. To my left, Mom propped her head up on the heel of her hand, staring between me and her brother.

"So...Austin," said Mom, "how was work?"

"The usual," he told her before popping a piece of chicken in his mouth. Then sparked up a grin, staring at me. "How about you, Soph?"