Outcasts

Chapter I

******* KATIE ********

I

My name is Katherine, but people call me Katie, three years ago my life got turned upside down. My mum died in a car crash, and dad had left us years ago. She left both me and my brother behind without anyone. My brother and I got put into care and my brother got adopted, however I being seven years older than my brother was not wanted by anyone, I can understand, I mean who wants a 13 year old to take care of when they could have a six year old. I was left all alone, that was until I found this article on the internet. It read:

MISSING CHILDREN OF 2000:

ROBERT MOORE

SOPHIE TAYLOR

LUCY KATHERINE HILL

LEE PARKS

INDIGO JAMES

I was looking through the names on the web page when I saw the name Lucy Katherine Hill, could this be me? No way! For one my surname was definitely not Hill, and for seconds my first name is just Katherine not Lucy then I clicked on her profile, I was just curios and I figured it wouldn't hurt, then I saw something that shocked me, she was born on the same day as me. My mum had told me a few days before she died that I was adopted myself, my mum had had leukaemia as a child so could not have children of her own, now it struck me. This could be me.

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I live in the adoption house, the adults call it Smiths Brooke, and we call it 'The Dump'. I only have one really close friend, she's called Abbey, and I first made friends with her when I came here three years ago.

"ABBEY" I yelled.

"Come look at this," I showed her the website.

"So you think this is you?" Abbey said.

"I don't know, suppose it could be," I replied

Then I looked at the photo, just as Abbey had told me to. It sort of looked like me. I hadn't seen any photos of me before I was three so I didn't really know, I mean she had the same coloured eyes as me, I suppose that's was a start! There was a button that showed a picture of what she should look like now. I pressed it. There was a photo of a girl in front of me. She looked about 4 inches taller than me, and she had a much pointier face and nose, apart from that the girl could be me. There was a contact button at the bottom of the page, it asked you to fill in your age, name and gender. Then it wanted you to describe what you wanted to contact the web page about. I put:

I am Katherine Dickens.

I am sixteen

I am female.

I think I am Lucy Katherine Hill.

I need more information on her.

I pressed the send button, and then waited in anticipation for a reply. Finally a reply came after about two hours of waiting. It read:

I am very sorry but we cannot give you any information about Lucy Katherine Hill without the consent of a parent or guardian.

Well, I was totally and utterly screwed. I didn't have any parents and my guardians definitely wouldn't approve of what I was doing. Still I was going to get answers, whatever it took me. I never used to care about finding answers or solving problems, but now it felt like if I didn't find an answer then I would die. Literally.

"Steve" I shouted.

Steve was my social worker, he knew everything about me.

"I need your help."

"What do you want?" Steve replied.

"Look at this" I said.

Steve came over and looked at the web page, I obviously didn't tell him that I had contacted the people who made this web page. Steve told me that it was a bad idea for me to try and contact the web page people. He said that I couldn't be Lucy and he said he had my adoption certificate to prove it. Steve told me that he helped my mum find me, via an adoption agency; therefore I couldn't be the missing child in the picture. For most people they would have just accepted that it wasn't them in the photo, but it was as if there was someone telling me to dig deeper. I had a gut feeling there was something that Steve hadn't told me, the way he hesitated when he showed me. I told Abbey that I had told Steve and that I had contacted the web page people and told them that I thought that I was Lucy, and how I couldn't get any information without any consent. Abbey told me that she thought it was insane that I couldn't get any information without consent and the way that she looked at me I knew that she was thinking what I was thinking. I turned and said to her,

"Abbey, I need to visit the original adoption agency that gave me to my mum,"

She said:

 "I know how much this means to you, but that is stupid, you can't surely expect to be able to go there. Where is the original adoption agency?"

"America" I replied.