AfterParty

Chapter 1 : Adoption

My name is Tanner Larson, I'm fifteen years old, and I have been in a foster home for the last three years with my four year old brother Reid. Last week, we got the news that a family has decided to take us in.

    "Tanner, Reid the new family is here to get you." Mrs. Katie said as she left the room.

    I got my bag filled with what few belongings I had left, then me and Reid exited our room to catch Mrs. Katie as she went to meet the new family. After a moment, we arrived at the front entrance of the foster home.

    A woman approaches me. "Hey there Tanner." The woman says with a big fake smile. She is wearing pearls around her neck and earrings to match. However, her waves of chestnut hair covered them. Her eyes are light blue and she is wearing brown eyeshadow to accentuate the color. She is wearing a light yellow dress that reached a point that was just below her knees.

    "Hello m'am." I say as I give a small smile.

    I look over at Reid as he watches me and the woman making conversation. Then a man, who was likely her husband, walks up to Reid.

"Reid, Right?" The man says to my brother. Reid is very shy, I'm the only person that he'll talk too. I watch as Reid gives a small nod to him. The man is really tall, his hair is jet black, and he has the same eye color as his wife. He seems a lot more laid back than his wife, and dressed a lot different than her as well. The man has a Hawaiian pattern shirt on, with some casual shorts that come above his knees.

    "Well, here's all there important paperwork." Mrs. Katie says as she hands the woman some papers.

    "I'm sorry, we never formally introduced ourselves." The man says as he walks over to his wife.

    "I'm Ben Nickelson & this is my beautiful wife Kim." Mr. Ben tells us as he puts his hand around his wife. Mrs. Kim didn't even seem to notice the hand around her, as she was to distracted looking at our paperwork.

    "Well, thank you!" Mrs. Kim says as she gives Mrs. Katie a fake smile. "Honey, are you ready to go?"

    "Yes, we have much to show the kids." Mr. Ben replied to the question.

    "Bye boys, stay out of trouble." Mrs. Katie says as she holds her hands out for a hug. Reid and I made our way over to and we all shared one last embrace.

    "Lets go kids." Mr. Ben says as he and Mrs. Kim walk outside the foster home. Reid and I followed closely behind. We walk across the parking lot for about 5 minutes, before actually finding their car. Mr. Ben pulls a keychain out of his pocket, and clicks a button. It makes a sound as  the car doors unlock. His car was purely white, I couldn't figure out the type of car it was. I'd never seen such a luxury vehicle.

    I open the back left door and took a seat in the car, I look over and see a blue and black car seat. I knew it was for Reid, who else would it be for? Mrs. Kim opens the right side door, and places Reid into the car seat, then slowly buckles him up. After Reid is comfortable, Mrs. Kim shuts the door and takes her spot in the passenger seat.

    Mr. Ben starts the car. I could hear the engine, it sounded so good, that was how I knew this car was brand new.

    "Are you buckled up Tanner?" He asks.

    "No sir, I'll do that right now." I say as I grab for my seat belt. I pull it over me and fasten it. "Good to go."

    "Safety first, right?" Mr. Ben says as he backs out of his parking place. We drive out of the foster home parking lot, coming to a road.

    "Bubba." I hear Reid whisper.

    "Yeah?" I question.

    "I forgot my toys." Reid responds in a whisper.

    "Son don't worry, we will buy you plenty of new toys." Mr. Ben smiled.

    "Yeah!" Reid says in excitement. I start to wonder how Mr. Ben heard us talking, we were so quiet.

    I look at the town that me and Reid have been stuck in our whole lives, even before the foster home, I lived with my mom and dad in this town, it was kind of sad leaving it behind.

    "How far is our house from here?" I ask.

    "About thirty minutes out I would say. We live in the middle of nowhere, so we don't have any neighbors, but feel free to invite friends over after we enroll you in school." Mr. Ben answered.

    I look out the window as we pass by dozens of trees. I haven't seen any houses since we left the town, thought it was kind of strange. After about twenty minutes of driving we passed by this old abandoned house, it was two stories tall, and all the windows were boarded up.

    "Who lives there?" I ask.

   "A man named Mr. Smith used to live there until he passed away." Mr. Ben answered.

    "Why are all the windows boarded up?" I ask another question.

   "To be honest son, Mr Smith's oldest son went sort of insane after he died. His son came to visit the house the day after his death and he went bananas, then next thing you know, the house looked like that." Mr. Ben responds in a kind of weird voice.

    "What happened to the son?" I ask as I started to actually get interested.

   "Nobody saw him after what he did to the house." Mr. Ben replies as he turned down a road.

    It's been about thirty minutes and we still have not arrived at our new house. Finally, Mr. Ben pulls off onto another road. He drives down the road for about three minutes and we approached a gate. The gate opened automatically, and he drives past the gate. We continue down the road and finally came upon a house, not just a house, the biggest house i've ever seen. It was a mansion, it looks as it is at least five stories.

    "Welcome home kids." Mrs. Kim says as she exits the car. I got out next, and looked around at the big house, they had so much land. They had enough to build a basketball court, baseball field, even a football field all at the same time. It was so huge that it overwhelmed me.

    I watch as Mrs. Kim takes Reid out of the car. He runs over to me and grips onto my leg.

    "Follow me inside, we'll will show you your rooms." Mr. Ben says as he signals for us to follow him.

    We followed him up the driveway until we reached the front steps of the mansion. As we walk up the steps to the door, I count them, there was a total of fifteen. Mr. Ben unlocks the door and pushes it open.

    He and Mrs. Kim walk inside, Reid was still gripping onto me, I bent down to pick him up so I could go faster.

     "Reid it'll all be okay." I say as I smile at him. Reid nods his head at me and I made my way into our new home.