Mute | A New Beginning

Chapter 12

Much to everyone's surprise, Arlo had somehow managed to stay awake throughout the entire car journey back to Scarlett's house. In the backseat, the girl enjoyed the voices on the radio, although not as much as the one she had heard earlier, and she was content to just ignore her surroundings. Occasionally, she would tune in to the adults' conversation, however every time she did this, she was met with nothing but boring chatter about everything and nothing.

The fact that Arlo was not paying attention at all, meant that by the time they reached Scarlett's house, it felt as though no time had passed since leaving the store. The only thing to break her out of her trance-like state was a pair of hands reaching for her underarms to lift her out of the car seat. Arlo was glad when she realised who the hands belonged to, not quite having been finished with her hug with Scarlett earlier.

Walking inside Scarlett's house, the girl was pleased to see that everything was exactly the same as she'd last seen it. There was nothing new or weird to throw her off.

"Arlo honey, can you sit right here? I'm going to go help Mrs Moore bring everything in from the car, okay?" Scarlett asked, placing the child on the bottom step of the stairs, only turning to leave once she had received a nod from the girl in front of her.

It took around 5 minutes before the car was empty, and by that point, the front entryway was almost completely blocked with boxes, bags, and packages, all with varying contents which were going to take a few minutes to sort out.

With Arlo mostly just watching, the two women got to work on separating the different categories of items they had just bought. The first pile, and the one that was furthest away from the stairs, was designated for things that wouldn't live upstairs, like plastic dishes and water bottles. The next mound was clothing, which didn't need to make its way upstairs until the room had been completed and there was somewhere for them to go, otherwise, they would simply get in the way. The last two piles were made for the furniture, which would need to go up the stairs first, hence why the pile was directly in front of them. The first pile held the larger things, like the bedframe, and the other one was the decorative pieces.

Unfortunately, being so little, Arlo wasn't quite able to be of much use, especially if they were aiming to get this done quickly. The girl was offered the opportunity to watch something on the TV, however, she declined, not overly comfortable being alone just yet.

So up the stairs, they went. Since Arlo had gone up the stairs first, she was leading the way down the corridor. When she went to turn into the guest bedroom she had stayed in before, a voice stopped her.

"Oh, not that one sweetheart! I was thinking of this one over here." Scarlett redirected, leading them a little bit further down the hallway, to the room opposite Scarlett's bedroom. "Is this one okay with you?" she asked, looking down at the little girl, who nodded whilst surveying the room in front of her.

Currently, the room contains a minimal amount of furniture, which was another reason that it was perfect to transform. Although Scarlett knew that had it been absolutely packed with things, she still would have chosen this one to give to Arlo, wanting her room to be as close as possible. By placing Arlo's room opposite her own, Scarlett felt much more comfortable, and confident in her abilities of being able to get to the child's room as quickly as possible, if it became necessary.

Throughout the development, Mrs Moore allowed Scarlett to take complete charge, mostly considering it was her house, but also because it could be seen as good practice. When making up a bedroom for a child, quite a few things need to be considered, and so, it was best if Scarlett learned them on the job, so that she could apply these new skills later on if needed.

Thankfully, having planned this all out in her head for weeks now, Scarlett knew exactly where to put the remaining things in the room. Truthfully, she had been clearing things out of here bit by bit over the past 2 weeks in order to make today as easy as possible for Mrs Moore and herself. She would have had this room cleaned out completely, had she known that it was today that they were going to be decorating, however, when double-checking her schedule, Mrs Moore found that they were able to move the day much earlier than originally intended.