Adopted by One Direction

The Car Ride

Trust me to sleep for barely five minutes before waking up again. I mean, people, my life was changing! Of course I was feeling giddy! I cleared my throat nervously, wincing because it reminded me of the office lady. I found five pairs of eyes staring at me. 

"So, um," I began. "Can you repeat your names again?"

They did, but the one with messy brown hair said he was called Lucy. I was nodding my head along, trying to get their names in my mind, then it hit me:

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!?!

The boys all laughed at me.

"Nah, I'm just kidding, I'm Louis The Tommo Tomlinson." He said, grinning widely. I felt calmer. It was comforting not to have a male family member called Lucy. 

During the car ride, we exchanged questions. It took them a little urging to get me out of the shell and talking, but I felt comfortable around them quickly enough. 

"So, what do you like doing?" Harry asked me.

"Nothing in particular. I like writing stories when I have nothing else to do."

"Cool!" said Zayn, "Then do you like reading?"

"Well, yeah, but I rarely come across books."

"Why?" asked Liam.

"My parents never bothered buying any books for me, and they never let me go out of the house, let alone the library."

"Oh." The boys were quiet for a moment, sharing weird glances with each other.

"Where are we going?" I blurted out, breaking the silence.

"Just back home." Niall replied, while holding out his packet of crisps. I took one after hesitation, mumbling a thanks. 

"You could've done better than that," Niall said. "You're the first person I've ever shared a packet of crisps with."

"Wow," I stuttered. "Seriously?" 

"Yeah, Ni's never shared as much as a crumb with us before. He's certainly acting weird today. Zayn, check his pulse, he must be close to dying!" Liam replied, pretending to be gobsmacked.

"Well, thanks a lot then." I said, smiling.

The questions continued. We told each other about our hobbies, pet peeves and embarrassing moments. After half an hour, I already knew them better than I had ever known my parents. Then I asked the boys why they adopted me, and the reason was kinda surprising.

"So," Liam started, "The first thing you should know is that we're famous."

"How famous?" I asked, feeling intrigued. It wasn't every day that I met famous people, and to think that I would be living with five!

"Quite. We're in a boy band, called One Direction."

"Never heard of it, are you good?" I enjoyed listening to music. My roommate from the orphanage had an iPod, so I sometimes listened to it late at night when I couldn't fall asleep. Music helped me drown out my sorrow and pain. I've never heard of One Direction though.

"Of course we are!" Exclaimed Harry. "If you were any other girl, you'd know that we're brilliam, extraordinharry, phenomenal 

"Yeah, yeah, she gets in it, back to the main topic." Zayn cut in. "Anyway, we started this band some three years ago, and the five of us are almost as close as brothers."

"Recently, we wanted to do something new as a group." Continued Louis. "All of us lads had always wanted to care for someone. We all have sisters—"

"Except me, I have a brother." Niall piped up.

"Yeah, aside from Niall, we all have little sisters, but we really wanted to take care of someone together. We did some research, and found out about your orphanage."

I fell silent, thinking. "Why adopt a child, out of the blue?"

"The thing is," Niall replied. "We went to see kids who worked knee-high in trash earlier this year, in Africa. We realized that many kids were living tough lives.The idea of adopting started floating around then, but what with recording the new album and other stuff, we kinda forgot about it. It just came back to us a few weeks ago. We came to your orphanage to look around, and well, it struck us how even kids here in London desperately needed our help."

"Understatement of the century." I muttered under my breath, but Harry caught it. 

"The orphanage wasn't really that bad, was it?"

"Do being hit and kicked and spat at everyday count as 'that bad'? If yes, then it was that bad. And don't even get me started on what it was like with my parents." I sighed, all that just bursting from me. I clamped my lips back together, already regretting saying it.

Again, the boys exchanged weird glances. Hating the tense atmosphere surrounding us, I asked the question that had been in my mind for quite some time.

"Why choose me, then? You didn't even interview me or anything..." 

"No reason. We thought that you needed a family and somewhere to love you." Louis said, patting my hand. It took me some courage not flinch away. They're not going to hurt me. "It was just love at first sight, I guess. Except that in this case it's adopted at first sight." He joked.

"I guess I'm pretty lucky then, aren't I?"

"You definitely are."

"And one last thing," Zayn said. "Our boss doesn't agree with this plan. He warned us that adopting would affect our careers, but we really wanted to do this."

"Wow." I said, "So you've basically just ignore your boss and adopted me right under his nose?"

"No." Liam sighed. "The truth is that nobody knows about this, nobody except us. And we've got to keep it a secret."