ABANDONED || Me and my Evil Cousin

I - Wool's Orphanage

The disheveled woman walked through a street in London, desperate for somewhere to leave her little toddler - so she could get rid of her for good. The little girl looked so confused. Eventually they came up to a huge building. Wool's Orphanage. The woman dropped the girl off, with a note saying who she was. The woman rang the doorbell and left without another word.

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Mrs Cole, Martha and all the other staff at Wool's Orphanage knew that me and Tom were cousins - but we didn't look alike at all. He had dark brown hair, which was almost close to black, and dark brown eyes. He was also more good looking than I was. However I had dirty blonde hair and greyish-blue eyes. But it was clear that we were different from the other children - since there had been many strange incidents which linked to both of us - and just us.

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For instance there was the time when I was sleeping in my bed, but I woke up right on top of the roof, and I had no idea how I'd got there. We had to get some firemen to get me down from there.

There was another incident when I'd managed to turn Amy Benson's hair green by accident which left her in tears for a few days.

However, the things that Tom did were a bit, let's say, darker. Tom had a habit of terrorising the other children, and once, we went to the beach during a summer and I saw him take two other children into a cave. They came out looking scared for their lives and nobody knew what happened but them. I tried to help the kids and ask Tom what he did, but neither Tom or the children told me. Also, according to rumours Tom sadistically killed a boy called Billy's rabbit after they were in a fight. I was horrified by what my cousin had done and I wanted to confront him, but was also scared that I'd be his next victim, so I kept my mouth tight shut.

One of the other huge incidents was when me and Tom were about 9 or 10 years old and a small grass snake randomly came to the orphanage. The other children were scared of it and backing away, but somehow, the snake was speaking in a language I could understand. I don't know how, but I could make out a few of the words in between the hissing. How on earth could I be understanding a snake? Tom was there with me, and him and the snake seemed to be in rapid conversation. I tried to talk to the snake and tell it to go away and stop scaring everyone. I knew it understood me, but it only really liked Tom. The snake ended up biting Mrs Cole in the end. I'm guessing Tom told it to do so - that's the sort of thing he would do.

Other than all those things, life in Wool's orphanage was the textbook definition of boring. I'd always had dreams of leaving this place, leaving Tom, and starting a new chapter in my life. So far I haven't even got close to that. But one day, this all changed.