Bonding with Marty wasn't as hard as it seemed at first.
He screamed and cried.
'Do you want some ice-cream?' Ellie asked.
'Uhu...' He nodded miserably.
They let them eat as many sweets as they wanted -so they didn't actually want that many.
There were also no bedtimes, just times when they "should" be sleeping.
Ellie got her own room, Marty had one too but he still slept with his parents.
They treated her like family, and so did she (after a while).
One of the downsides of living there were the mirrors she feared looking into at night and the creaking stairs.
According to Sam they creaked at night because of the hot water pipes underneath. Yeah, Ellie wasn't convinced.
*
'My tummy doesn't feel good.' Marty whined.
'Could you take him outside for a bit? The fresh air will do him good.'
'Sure.' Ellie put on her shoes and helped Marty put on his. It was dark now.
She took him by the hand and led him around in the garden.
'Oh, the trampoline! No, I don't think we're here to jump, are we?'
Marty giggled as they changed direction.
She stopped at the bench. 'Hm, we don't want to sit down either.'
*Direction change*
'No, we don't need anything from the shed either.'
*Direction change*
'So~ the swings. No. I don't think we'll play on the swing now.'
By now, Marty was laugh-crying and had completely forgotten about his stomach.
'How about the play house? Should we play in there? No, I don't think so either.'
'You can come inside now, it's getting cold!'
They came in laughing.
'Well I can hear you two had a good time.'
*
Ellie was lucky enough to have gotten there just before school started. And in just the year when the students went to different schools, so only a few of them knew each other.
They visited "their" grandparents every school break. They pretended to like Ellie but she could sometimes feel that they disapproved of the idea of adopting an unknown child.
The new baby arrived a few months later
Rose was her name and her favourite hobbies included screaming for hours without any regard to the time of day, and pulling, tearing and eating Ellie's hair.
One time her mother just carried her past Ellie. Rose reached out and tore out some hair with her surprising strong hands and shoved it into her mouth before anyone could comprehend what had just happened.
This, of course, had the effect that Ellie cried a lot. Having your hair torn out (or being bitten) is something that you can't get used to.
The family had its ups and downs. Over the years the children had to face that their "loyal and honest" father wasn't as loyal as they had thought. Twice. But their mother just didn't learn and after about half a year of arguing and suffering, accepted his apology.
Ellie kept in touch with her friends back at barcrows, sometimes they even came to visit, but her parents weren't all too happy that she was friends with people who were so much older than her and that the one closest to her age had the look of a complete rebel.
Nonetheless, the years passed.
YOU ARE READING
Barcrow's: Codename K9
Adventure"How do you expect to live? Death is part of life. Get over it." A young boy leaves home to find his parents -and accidentally joins a criminal organisation. Eight years later a girl sets out to find the place where she belongs. Wonder how their jo...
