Adopted By Zach DeWall

A Stranger and a Savior

*when you realize Dan isn't in the picture*

Terrence and I followed Carrie down the stairs, where we found the other orphans standing around in a rough semicircle pattern.  Ms. Lazaro was standing by the door, a smile on her face.  "As you all should know by now, today is the day when some of you are going to be adopted! I wish you all the best."

An unspoken, but obvious, final thought trailed after.  And if you aren't, hey, at least you're in good hands here! We definitely were, but that didn't mean it wouldn't suck to not be adopted.

I had a feeling I was going to be one of those people, left behind.  It wasn't that I was rude or anything, it was just a pattern I'd noticed over the years.  All the people wanted younger kids, which was understandable -- they wanted to watch them grow up as much as possible, as any parent would.  Why I hadn't been adopted earlier, then, was still a mystery to me, but that was just the way it had worked out.

Either way, the parents were here.  Ms. Lazaro had let them all in.

Immidiately, a nice-looking young couple approached me.  "Hello!" the woman smiled.  She had wavy brown hair and kind eyes, but just a bit too much makeup on, especially for such a relatively casual event as this.  Her husband stood by, looking me up and down, and I tried to not feel awkward.

"I'm Kathryn," the woman introduced herself, "And this is my husband Lloyd."

"I'm Tyson," I waved.

"Alright, Tyson... Lloyd, do you have the, erm..." Kathryn leaned over and whispered something in her husband's ear -- it turned out she was horrible at whispering, so I heard what she said clearly.

"Do you have the questions?"

Lloyd reached into a satchel -- okay, I was starting to get even more confused now -- and pulled out a plastic orange clipboard with some papers attached to it.  Clearing his throat importantly, Lloyd read, "What are your hobbies?"

"Oh,  um..." Why was it always this question? Why did people care? They should love me, whatever my hobbies were.  Okay, maybe not if they were clean freaks and my hobby was something like bug collecting.  But still.  "Well, I love to paint."

"Paint? Interesting," Kathryn took the clipboard from Lloyd and wrote it down.  Are they both illiterate? Lloyd only knows how to read, and Kathryn how to write? I knew it was highly unlikely, but the thought still caused me to laugh.

Kathryn and Lloyd looked up at me, confused, then Lloyd continued with his questions.  "Do you have allergies? Such as pet hair, certain foods, et cetera?"

"Well..." I paused to think about it.  "I might be allergic to almonds.  I remember having an allergic outbreak when I was 7 due to eating almond butter on toast."

(Side note: that wasn't really something I felt I needed to explain earlier.  Now you know!)

Kathryn and Lloyd exchanged a glance.  "Alright." Once again, Kathryn snatched the clipboard from Lloyd and wrote something down.

"Thank you for your time, we're going to interview some of the others now," Kathryn explained.  As she walked away -- towards Terrence, who gave me a look; he'd seen everything -- it suddenly dawned on me why no one had adopted me yet.  An unlikely possibility, but one all the same.

No one wanted a child with an allergy.  "Too much work", probably.

It went like this for a while -- a couple, or sometimes just a lone adult, would approach me, ask questions, and go.  None of them were quite as... odd... as Kathryn and Lloyd, but they all didn't seem interested in adopting me.