Mute | A New Beginning

Chapter 5

Mrs Moore led both Holly and Scarlett up the stairs and to the left, towards the younger kids' side of the upstairs floor. Throughout the whole climb, from the first to the last step, Scarlett was practically trembling with anxiety and her mind was overcrowded with pressing thoughts, ranging from fears of not ever being able to find the right child to never being allowed to adopt a child at all. By the time they all reached the top step, Scarlett had broken into a light sweat underneath her shirt.

"So, I suppose we'll start with the babies." Mrs Moore spoke, breaking the silence that had fallen upon them "As you may or may not know, typically the babies tend to get adopted quickly, so often we don't have many staying in our care. Currently we only have two baby girls who haven't already been adopted by other families."

With that the woman led the two to the very end of the long corridor, painted a clean white with forest green wainscoting, halfway up the wall from the floor, complementing the cleanliness of the top half nicely. Some parts were covered in brightly coloured decorations, adding life and joy to what otherwise would have been an extremely formal wall. Inside this room was several wooden cribs, all arranged neatly and orderly against the wall opposite the door, a gap between each to make tending to the babies easier.

"The babies are all napping at the moment so it's not going to be the most thrilling of interactions, but they sure are cute." Mrs Moore whispered leading them to the only two cribs with babies in them.

Just as the caretaker had said, the slumbering babies were as adorable as they came, peacefully existing in this strange world. Although Scarlett knew she wasn't looking to adopt any child as young as the two in front of her, she still took in their innocent presence. However, after spending 5 minutes with them and whispering with the other two women Scarlett was ready to move on to the next room.

"As lovely and calm as this experience is, I wasn't so sure about adopting a child as young as these two, I just don't feel like I have enough experience for that." Scarlett explained, feeling as though she needed to justify why she wanted to move on so quickly so as not to hurt the babies' feelings.

"That's perfectly fine." Mrs Moore reassured, "Babies are pretty high maintenance, in the nicest way possible," she chuckled, smiling down at the bundles of joy, "especially if not properly equipped for them."

"Maybe we could go straight ahead to the 3-year-olds." Holly suggested to the group, politely trying to move the process along, in an attempt to not waste too much of the organisation's time.

"Good idea Holly! The three-year-olds are the youngest awake right now, so we can go take a look at what they are up to now." Mrs Moore agreed.

Scarlett silently obliged, thankful that she wouldn't have to figure out more ways to leave the next room of babies, without seeming awkward or cold.

Mrs Moore guided the pair to two doors down the corridor and opened the door to the sight of another caretaker playing a group game with 5 little ones all sat in a circle. The opening of the door caught the attention of the young-looking caretaker, who introduced herself as Miss Brown. The three-year-olds all looked up at the trio with excited eyes, happy to have a new person to play their game with. Miss Brown invited them all to sit down so they could take part, but before that could happen, she explained the game they were playing and its rules.

"Who wants to explain to Miss Johansson here the game we are playing?" Miss Brown asked the group, receiving a raised hand from a little brunette boy. Scarlett internally cringed at the formal moniker but didn't have time to offer her first name before the young woman called upon the boy. "George?"

"The game is called 'Who has the button'! It's where you have to – where one person has the button and – and everyone in the circle has to close their eyes and hold out their hand," he explains in a broken-up fashion, demonstrating by squeezing his eyes shut and reaching his right arm out as far as it would go, "and then the one with the button – they have to give it to someone but they have to touch everybody's hands so that – to pretend that they are giving it to them and then when they are done everyone has to guess who got the button and the person that guesses right first has to – they win and they get to give the button to someone." George finished, having taken a maximum of two breaths throughout the whole entire speech.