The Girl Who Was Adopted

Chapter 6 - I Suppose We Should Get Right Down To It

"Ada! Ada, wake up!" Alex shoved me. I peeked open an eye, hating that I was awake. Alex's dark hair fell over his blue eyes, but his excitement was visible in his six-year-old face. "Please wake up!"

I pushed my long hair from my face as I sat up in bed, feeling the effects of the late night. It was freezing and Alex stood in front of me in a pair of track suit pants and a thin tee. "What?" I asked, sounding grumpier than I felt.

"It snowed."

My heart skipped a beat of excitement as Alex darted off down the passage of the small cottage in which we were staying. I followed him, and we rushed to the living room window and pressed our faces against the frosty glass. The entire front lawn had been covered with snow, and the mountain in front of the house looked as though it had had the colour drained from the dirt, making the trees' trunks look a brighter brown than they were.

"Should we wake mum and dad?" I asked him, keeping my face against the glass. My nose was getting red at the end, the cold was a reminder that this was real – we were finally seeing snow!

Alex moaned, "I want to see it. You know that they'll want us to eat breakfast and then put on twenty layers before we're allowed out." He hadn't yet grown out of his childish attitude, but it was my job as his big sister to make sure that seeing snow was the greatest experience he'd ever had.

"You're such a baby," I rolled my eyes, pretending to be more than just a year older than him. "Fine, we won't wake them, but we have to at least put on our gummies with warm socks."

Alex hesitated for a moment, weighing his options. I was the safest bet, and a second later he dashed to our room and I could hear him fumbling around in search of his socks. I ran after him, I couldn't stop the smile – finally, the snow was here.

Alex was seated on the floor, trying to pull on a sock, but his hands were shaking from excitement, and I laughed as I took it from him; I helped pull the sock on before handing him his gumboots. Alex didn't wait for me as he stood up, running towards the front door.

I laughed as I slipped my feet into my gumboots before running after him. I stopped at the door and pulled on my jacket before hesitating; on second thought, I stuffed the gloves, that we had bought on the drive here, into my pockets and slipped Alex's coat off the hook before running out after him.

He was far ahead of me, trudging through the snow with pure bliss on his face. He stopped and looked back at me before the cold reached his senses; he wrapped his arms around himself and looked at me helplessly.

"Your jacket," I laughed, holding it out to him. Alex ran over and pulled it on before taking the gloves from me. We shoved our hands in before stretching out our fingers. "Better?"

"Better," he smiled. "Let's get mum and dad out of bed," he giggled. Together, we reached into the snow and picked up a handful. As we patted the snow into even balls, Alex flashed me a devious grin. "Go!" Alex and I threw the snowballs as hard as we could at the window of our parent's bedroom.

It was less than a moment later when their faces appeared, their smiles bright.

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Alex sat across from me at the coffee shop. I didn't have anything to say to him, and I was too tired to be dealing with the awkward silence that was suffocating me. I had no idea what Clare expected me to say to him, and it was obvious that he too did not have anything to say.

He looked at me, looking a few years older than he was. "So..." he sighed.

"Right," I rolled my eyes. Surely, he would have put some thought into what he wanted to say to me? He'd agreed to meet me here, after all. Besides, he'd promised me an 'explanation', and the silence had not yet given me any answers. "I suppose we should get right down to it."