The lady who collected me from my school, I learned was my social worker. She is really friendly and my time at the home might not be as bad as I thought, but I was miles away from Manchester, not that I have any friends there anyway but I will miss Mum and the people who were fractionally nicer to me. Carrie talked to me about my situation and told me about some of the other young people in the home, "Most of the kids will be younger than you, but there's Emily, Sam and Louise who are your age." I was starting to relax a bit more, at least now I knew there were some children I could be friends with. Carrie asked me about the things I like doing in my spare time and I told her I didn't really have much free time because I was constantly doing chores and homework, but I told her I liked One Direction, like a lot!
The strange lady I mentioned at the beginning was Gemma, who introduced herself as the head care worker. As she walked me towards the big grey building that I was to call 'home' for the time being I was really scared. Many thoughts ran through my mind. Then I realised, all of the children here would've been through similar things, trouble with families. I also realised that if I try and make friends with some of the children my time here may be more bearable. All of the kids knew I was coming, but they didn't know what to expect of me. It would be strange having someone totally new, from out of town coming to live in your house and maybe share a room with. As all three of us entered, the place was silent. Gemma led us to the living room where everyone was waiting earnestly to meet the 'new girl'. We walked in and I was shocked at how many children were in this one home, at first glance I thought there were like fifteen, but as they introduced themselves it turned out there were only eight, nine if you include me. It was still quite a lot. I noticed the three teens that Carrie said were around my age. They came up and introduced themselves first, "Hi!" A beautiful girl with golden brown, shoulder length hair, a tan and delicate features greeted me, "I'm Emily, but everyone calls me Em! This is Sam and Louise." She said pointing to a tall blonde boy with blue eyes, and a short, stunning pale girl with long wavy auburn hair and emerald eyes. They both said hello, being slightly embarrassed I looked down, shyly and noticed Sam and Louise's intertwined fingers, looking up confused, Emily laughed, not at me but at the look on my face, apparently it was 'priceless'! She explained to me that yes, they were together ever since 'Louise arrived a few months back, she had him under her spell' they both laughed in a friendly way as if it was some hilarious past memory. It was sweet and they both looked so happy, they were adorable together. The other children, who were considerably younger than me introduced themselves as Lucy, Conor, Sasha, Becca, Alex and Annie. Lucy and Conor were twins, and as soon as you saw them, you could tell that they were. I really hoped that Emily, Sam, Louise and I could be good friends and as I was sharing a room with Em and Louise I thought that it would be a good start.
We went up to our room, Sam too seeing as there are no guys his age in the house, and he wanted to be with Louise [awwh]. They had already set up my bed and even though I knew that they were told to, it made me feel welcome. As I was unpacking and putting my clothes into the spare wardrobe the others assured me was mine, we started to talk about our interests to get to know each other better. I found out that Emily was a massive One Direction fan like me, but bigger! And Louise thought we were crazy, she liked some of their music, but she's not a mega fan. Then there was Sam, who liked a couple of songs, but only because they were Louise's favourites and she 'always' goes on about them. "OMG!" Em exclaimed, "For the past year I have been saving up for tickets to their Take Me Home tour, and I finally have enough. So me and Louise are gonna go see them at the O2 in about a month!" She sounded so excited and I was pleased for her, but I was upset, because I knew I would never be able to afford to go. Emily noticed my wistful look, and she realised I wanted to go. She apologised sincerely, I assured her it was fine, although inside I was so jealous. Changing the subject, I asked for all of the gossip about Sam and Louise, "I mean, I can't live with you guys if I don't know the inside details!" I teased. I found out a lot from that, they got together almost immediately, as Louise was brought to the home, four months ago. The staff of the home found out almost instantly, it was hard to keep secrets in a house full of hyper active tell-tale kids, so I'm told. "Oh, those two are absolutely inseparable! you can't tear them apart, even at night she sometimes sneaks off!" Em got a friendly whack from Louise for that! I found out that me and Emily are born only two days apart, and Sam is three weeks older than Louise, but they are both 14, while Em and I are 15. We are 16 in two months. That means we have to move out of the home, either if my Mum is better, or to a flat or place of our own. It would be really cool if we could all buy a flat together, but I don't know if we're going to be that good friends yet, I hope we are though.
Sam and Louise went downstairs to sort out dinner, Em wasn't lying earlier when she said they were inseparable! Emily and I continued talking about the One Direction boys, "So Anna, who's your favourite?" She asked me.
"Erm... I really like them all cuz there wouldn't be One Direction without any of them, but I've got a soft spot for Niall! What about you? Hmm?" I laughed.
"For me it has to be Louis. He's been getting blanked by the media too, and it was really upsetting and annoying me." She said.
"Yeah, agreed. That was out of order!" I confirmed. We continued to talk about the boys for ages, I totally lost track of time until Louise came up to tell us that dinner was ready, "Hey, what are you talking about?" She quizzed. In unison we replied, "One Direction!" She gave us this really funny look as if we were total loonies, which all Directioners are really. As we were walking downstairs to the dining room, she said, "It's great to have another Diresctioner in the house! We can fangirl together!" I agreed, "Definitely, I've never talked to anyone about my love for One Direction before." Louise joined in, imitating us, saying "Oh yeah, I love Louis (drool drool) he's the only one I wanna marry!" She said it as a joke, but Sam didn't hear that part and the look he gave her was hilarious! We all cracked up laughing. I was so much more happy here in London than I was in Manchester.
