Adopted by Dan and Phil

Orphanage bullies and sweet revenge.

"C'mon, wake up already! Ugh, I swear to god your useless!" Screams Amanda at me as a pillow makes contact with the side of my head. I groan. A simple 'Good Morning, Lori' was apparently to much to ask for.

With a final whack to the head from Amanda Grace, Miss Hattie's Home for Orphaned Girls' resident jerk, I surrendered and began to get ready for the morning. I flinch as Amanda slams the door behind her as she storms out of the room. Out of all people, I had to be roommates with Amanda Grace?

I straighten out the bedding on my sad metal frame bed. The metal is staring to rust around the corners, I see. I tuck in the corners of the faded blue quilt into the lumpy mattress. I toss my also faded violet pillow onto my bed and prop up my Totoro stuffed animal.

With that being done I go to my wardrobe. Well, it's not exactly my wardrobe. It's also Amanda's. Since we are the 2 oldest in the orphanage, her being 14 and me being 13. There's one other 13 year old girl at the orphanage, but since I'm 4 months away from being 14, Miss Hattie, the orphan caretaker, insists that I bunk with Amanda.

When you open the wardrobe door you are immediately greeted by Amanda's collection of stylish Forever 21 outfits and fancy shoes. Like, calm down. You only have 2 feet, explain to me why exactly you need 10 different pairs of shoes. Not even mentioning her box of jewelry given to her by many foster parents over the years. She gets adopted a lot, but she always ends up back here. I guess those poor adoptive parents just can't handle that little brat.

Then there is my side of the wardrobe, which may I say, is quite the contrast. Having never before been adopted, I have received far less clothing than Amanda. The stuff I do have consists of 1 pair of worn black converse, 2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of sweats, 5 different shirts, each consisting of a different nerd thing, and 1 black sweatshirt. Let's not forget to mention my collection of beanies, designed for the most introverted internet nerds of all time. Calling my half of the closet an actual half would be ridiculous. It's more like a drawer with some ratty clothes and an old iPhone 4s. Living the dream. (Note the sarcasm.)

I pull on my Legend of Zelda long sleeved black shirt and some light ripped jeans. Slipping on my converse, I walk out the door and down the stairs to the cafeteria, putting on a burgundy beanie to cover the light brown mess that is my hair.

I walk towards my designated table that I always sit at only to end up being tricked by Amanda's friend, Taylor. I flip her off, only to earn a smack upside the head from Miss Hattie. How come she shows up as soon as I do something wrong?

She gestures towards my table and I sit down quickly, not wanting to get in more trouble. She signals for silence and it stops abruptly. Nobody wants to get on her bad side.

"As you all know," Miss Hattie begins, "This upcoming Friday is adoption day. A selected group of you will be excused from your studies for the remainder of this week to begin the clean up process of this place. The group of girls will be Margo, Elizabeth, Christy, Lilian, and Lori. You may eat your breakfast now and I expect the selected few to begin the clean up process as soon as they are finished." With that she leaves the room.

I groan as I get in line for my breakfast, or at least what Miss Hattie considers breakfast. The kitchen worker plops a heap of brown mush onto my tray as I move forward in line. The other kitchen worker hands me a nutrition bar and I head to my lunch table with the other clean up crew girls.

We sit in silent as we try too hard to digest what I'm pretty sure shouldn't even be considered food. It could be worse though. After 8 years of living in this place I've gotten used to the crappy food and the girls assigned to clean aren't that bad.

Margo is 8 and she just arrived at the orphanage about a month ago. I can see her trying to swallow the breakfast, as she knows that there will not be any food available until 2 o'clock. Elizabeth and Lilian are both 10 years old. Christy is 11. They are basically the only people that talk to me, probably because we are forced to clean the entire orphanage together once a month before adoption day. But do you every see little Miss perfects like Amanda, Taylor, and Jenna on the clean up crew? Lemme think about it-NO. The systems rigged, I'm telling ya.

The bell rings signaling that all orphans should be leaving for school in about 5 minutes. That is, all orphans except for me and the rest of the clean up committee. We all report to the supply closet and grab the cleaning materials. We will be working like slaves for the next week, making sure the floors are so clean, the adopters won't even notice the run down-prison vibe the orphanage possesses.

For the next 5hours I scrub and scrub, sweep and wash, spray and wipe, and dust and polish the entire orphanage. As part of the clean up crew, I'm required to clean for at least 6 hours a day. Unfortunately, I still have an hour left of cleaning before I can retreat to the solitude of my room. Even more unfortunate, school for the other orphans only lasts for 5 hours, meaning Amanda and her gang of jerks is back at the orphanage got torment me.

"Look at her. So ugly and so weird. No wonder no one will ever adopt you, but hey, who knows? Maybe someone will acknowledge your amazing cleaning job and adopt you as their personal slave," Amanda taunts, hitting a little to close to home, "then again, maybe not. Looks like you missed a spot." I stare in shock as Amanda pours leftover brown mush front his mornings breakfast all over the carpet.

"Well, clean it up, stupid." Amanda sneers in my face, "might as well do something useful for once."

And that's when I snap.

Before I even know what happened, I'm on top of Amanda. She's clutching a bleeding nose and she looks like she's about to cry. Usually I'm not one for violence, but today I don't care. Well then again, Miss Hattie's probably going to make me care.

Miss Hattie grabs me by my ear and drags me along towards my room. She tosses me in and I land on the floor. I look up but all I see is the door slamming behind her. I her a click and a lock and sigh. My stomach growls but I choose to ignore it. I'm not coming out of this room for a looong time.