Mute | Adopted by Scarlett Johansson

Arlo

Arlo assumed today would be no different than average.
She wakes up. She has breakfast. She goes to her first lessons.

However, after those first couple of lessons, they were all excused from going to the lessons after this so that they had time to get everything in order. Arlo overheard that apparently the visit was scheduled for 11:00 AM. It was now 10:00 AM, leaving her a whole hour to make sure her bed was tidy and her clothes were neatly put away. Seemed a bit excessive but ok.

Obviously this didn't last Arlo the full hour and so by 10:10 AM, after she had smoothed out all of the many crinkles on her sheets, she was sitting down reading her book, probably the third one this week but she wasn't sure, it could have been more or less. 

The other little girls that shared her room were all fussing over their clothes and their hair, wanting to look their best for the visitor. Arlo stole quick glances over at them, curiously wondering how they could care so much about these small things, when she felt that it would barely alter their chances of finding a family.

Just as Arlo was starting to spiral down that rabbit hole, a caretaker burst through their door, studying each of the girls faces, probably making sure that none of them looked scruffy or looked as if they had been dragged through a bush, although Arlo felt that, after most likely running up the stairs and flying down the corridor, that the caretaker herself could use this preparation time to change her wind swept appearance. This made Arlo chuckle a bit internally, but not outwardly, otherwise they may start thinking that she's crazy.

As quickly as the caretaker came, she left, hopefully satisfied with the way the kids and their room looked. Although she didn't actually say anything, so it was anyones guess really. By this point Arlo had lost her place on the page she was on and had to start all the way at the beginning of the paragraph, making her internally roll her eyes at the caretakers lake of consideration towards her reading. Even though she had probably read this one more than five times in total and could most likely recite the whole thing from memory if she tried hard enough.

Arlo stayed like this for the rest of the time, half reading her book, half listening to the other girls' conversations, partially wondering what it would be like to get adopted but then quickly snapping herself back to reality, understanding that it would probably never happen, even in her wildest dreams.