Adopted by Felix and Marzia

New Neighbours

The week in Italy was amazing! My grandparents were lovely and I absolutely loved Italy. But now we had to go back to England.

"Have you got everything?" Marzia called from down the hall.

"Yes!" I yelled back. I dragged my bags to the car and Felix helped me put them in.

"Wait! Wait!" Maria came tottering over to me before I got in the car. "I have something for you." She handed me the sketchbook. "Keep it."

"What? But it's yours!"

"I want you to have it, I know it's going into good hands!" This left me speechless. She gave me a big hug and I got into the car. I wound the window down and passed her my drawing.

"If I can keep your drawings, you can keep mine." She blew kisses as the car pulled away.

"Well, did you have a good time?" Marzia asked me.

"Yep! I loved it!" I fell asleep soon after.

"Ellie... wake up, we're home." Felix whispered to me. I yawned and slid myself out of the car. "And it looks like we have some new neighbours!" He told me.

"Yay." I said unenthusiastically. It was late at night so we took the bags inside and went to sleep.

The next day, it was really sunny so I decided to go into the garden. Our garden was quite big. It had a big willow tree in the middle and a patio and a BBQ at the back on the left hand side. I ran across the grass to the willow tree and sat underneath it. I closed my eyes and thought about how much my life had changed since being adopted. I never thought life could be this good.

"Hello?" I heard. I looked around and no one was about. "Over here!" I heard again. I followed the voice and saw a pair of brown eyes looking at me from over our garden wall.

"Hello?" I asked, puzzled.

"What's your name?" The mysterious person asked me.

I hesitated. "Ellie. Yours?" I stood up and went closer.

"My name's Sam. So, um, I have just moved here... how long have you lived here?" Sam asked.

"Not long. It's really nice though." I shuffled a bit closer to Sam. "Where did you live before here?"

"I lived in Manchester. We moved here though... because my dad got a new job." We stood in science for a minute, his eyes still hovering over the fence.

"Sam! Can you come here?" A woman's voice called in the distance.

"I have to go, it was nice meeting you Ellie!" He hopped down off whatever he was standing on and disappeared behind the wall. I sighed and went back inside.

"Who were you talking to, Ellie?" Felix asked me when I got back into the kitchen.

"Oh, just one of our new neighbours. He seemed about my age and he's called Sam."

"Oh, maybe you two can be friends. Why don't you invite him over?"

"Yeah, good idea. I will in a bit."

A few hours later, I went round to Sam's front door and rang the door bell. After a minute, a woman with short, dark brown hair answered the door. "Hello!" Her voice was high pitched and joyful.

"Hi. Is Sam there, can he come around to my house next door?" I asked shyly.

"Of course, I'll just go and get him."

A boy a bit taller than me with deep brown eyes and chestnut coloured hair came out from behind the ajar door. "Hi!" He said. He smiled at me really sweatly. "So, am I coming over to yours then?"

"Yeah, if you'd like."

"Of course!" He closed his front door behind him and stepped out in front of me.

I turned from him and lead him to my house.