Her Heroes

Chapter Three

He took a deep breath before meeting my eyes. "They have been arrested for possession of drugs and drug trafficking on six accounts." I balked at him. They were arrested. Arrested. Arrested. But then it dawned on me, if my fosters could no longer care for me, I would be returned to the system again. I closed my eyes, shivering before I heard the sound of heels coming down the hall with two female-sounding voices accompanying them. "Ah, perfect. They are right on time." The principal stood up from where he was perched and went to greet whoever was about to pass the door. 

When the door opened, I made sure to stare straight ahead but keep my ears listening to anything that would tell me where I would be going next. "Nadia, I just need to step into the hall for a moment, I will be right back in." I felt the principal's eyes glance at me before he reluctantly left the room.

I tapped my fingers against my elbows, counting, as I waited for the principal to return.

When the door creaked back open, I sat up with my spine straight and my legs posed to run before the principal's voice graced my ears. "Since this was an unexpected, and unusual, occurrence, your former social worker could not make it here quick enough. However, she was kind enough to get in contact with your new social worker, Mrs. Hark." I watched the principal resume his position and gesture for a lady with a thin nose and heavy makeup to sit down in the empty chair next to me.
"Now that we are all here, Mrs. Hark would you like to inform Nadia of her current, situation?"

The lady, Mrs. Hark, pivoted in her seat so she could give me half of her attention, but keep her ample cleavage in the face of my principal, who only was looking at me with pity. 

"Yes, well, as you are well aware of by now, normally you would be sent back to the system and be matched with a new family." I sucked in a low breath, hoping neither realized that the tapping on my elbows had resumed steadily. "However, like your kind principal here said," she gave him a look that made me internally shrink away, "this is an unusual circumstance." She peered at me before opening a bag that was sat on the floor next to her. "When your former social worker and I talked earlier, we came across an interesting set of information that was sadly never seen, until now that is." Mrs. Hark looked at me again, her dark eyes glaring into my soul. 
"As I said, it is under unusual circumstances, and we're not sure exactly how this slipped past us, but..." she paused and looked at my principal before turning back to me. "We've found your brothers Nadia, and they want to bring you home." A word I never used to describe anything, home, not just a place to sleep and store things, but a place to live and grow in. It took a second longer for me to realize that she had said another word. Brothers. For as long as I had known, I had been an only child of my parents, Viviane and James Russel. Never had anyone mentioned the fact that I could have brothers; or even siblings for that matter. I heard momma say before how she was infertile too.

I looked at the principal and scribbled in the air. He looked for a second before quickly nodding his head and producing a notebook and pen for me to write in. Quickly I scribbled down what I wanted to know: why was I only just learning about them? How old were they? Why would momma and dad hide this from me? 

The social worker glanced at my scrawled words before sniffing, "I can't answer any of those questions right now, I'm afraid."

Nothing was adding up and it was quickly causing my breathing to heighten, my fingers tapping faster against my elbows to keep up with my racing heart.

"There's something else too..." the lady looked at me again and took a breath, continuing. "They live in France." I balked. My eyes must've been the size of saucers. I had never left the country. No, scratch that, I had never left Tennessee... never. A small chuckle left my mouth and before I could stop it another flooded out. The principal and Mrs. Hark looked at me like I was insane but I just couldn't stop laughing. 

When I finally did Mrs. Hark shook her head and looked at the diamond-studded watch she wore. Her eyes bulged out of her head, "Right, we must take our leave now, it was a pleasure meeting you." She picked her bag up off the floor and flounced over to stand next to the door. I stood up more slowly and gently hefted my bag over my shoulder, before meeting eyes with the principal. 

"It was a pleasure having you in my school Miss Perkins. I hope you have a good rest of your life." He gave me a soft grin which I returned with a whisper of a smile and a nod of my head.

"Nadia, we need to leave now if you want to pack up your belongings." Mrs. Hark tapped her heeled foot as I made my way over to her before she turned and left the room. Looking back at the principal once more, he smiled at me and nodded his head off to the hall, where my social worker had disappeared. Ducking my head, I left the office and Delview High for the last time.