The story I am soon to tell deals with an orphan- no not an orphan, I’ve always hated that particular term, so lonely and frail.  She is not an orphan, but rather a missing girl, with no memory of her family,  who’s just simply waiting for them to find her.  Oh by the way, the name’s Lizzy and this is my story. …  

It all begins many years back when I was just a thriving young girl in the dumps of New York City.   Within the grime and filth of the streets, there is vile steam wafting around the ground, and right in the center of it all was the cramped local orphanage. The orphanage was never really a happy looking place inside or out.  With it’s windows shattered and grey siding peeling off,  it certainly fit in with its surroundings.

“Lizzy!” I internally cringe as Ms.Campbell screeches out my name.

“Yes?” I warily return, silently praying she doesn’t come upstairs to ‘chat’ with me again.

“Where’s my dinner you ungrateful juvenile?”  She practically seethes, bits of her saliva spraying everywhere. 
“I-I I'm sorry miss, but it's Callie’s turn to make dinner tonight.” I try to reason, but I already know the outcome of what is to happen. You see, Ms. Campbell is anything but a nice generous lady watching over the poor orphans of New York, but rather a cold hearted individual who was forced to take her job.

“Enough of your excuses. Go make me dinner and stay out of my sight!” She bellows and storms off back to her grungy office. As soon as she is finally out of sight, I run to the kitchen, the curls of my blond hair bouncing with every step I take. Once I arrive, I see none other than the big brown eyed Callie.

Callie is 15 years old and the best friend I have ever had.  Actually, the only friend I’ve ever had.  She has been in the orphanage since she was 5 years old.  Her parents both died in a car accident and since she had no other family, there was nobody to take care of her so she ended up here.   Which is fortunate for me because if she wasn’t here I wouldn’t have any one.  

Callie was supposed to be making dinner, but instead she was screwing around.  She was reading through Ms. Campbell’s text messages.  Ms. Campbell had left her phone in the kitchen and since she was afraid of forgetting her pass code, she never had her phone locked. 

“Lizzy! Come here! Get a load of this! Ms. Campbell has a date tonight. Can you       believe it? A date! Who would date her?” Callie jokes.

“Callie? Why do you have Ms. Campbell's phone?” I warily question, not wanting to get in any more trouble today.

“Oh she asked me to hold it for her.” She states in her ever sarcastic tone.

“Callie stop. I'll have you know, I got in trouble because YOU didn't make dinner tonight.” I scold.

“Sorry.” Callie responds not meaning a word she says.

After our little dispute, Callie and I go off to do our horrid chores assigned by none other than Ms. Campbell. Once my chores are finally complete, I head up to the old worn down attic, which unfortunately for me, happens to be my bedroom. As soon as I lie down on my lumpy excuse of a mattress, I am out like a light where I have no troubles and just sweet dreams.

“Gahh!” I scream as I get shoved out of my bed. The second a noise comes out of me, a hand clamps over my mouth stopping me from screaming for help, not that it would do much good anyhow.

“Be quiet will ya!” I hear Callie whisper in my ear.  I immediately calm down as I realise I was not being kidnapped, but rather assaulted by Callie.

“Come on let's go. She’s not here right now. We can finally find your parents!” She explains ecstatically.
“What? Go where? What are you talking about Callie?” I fire my range of questions at her severely confused.
“Ms. Campbell isn’t here for the first time in ages. Now is our chance to finally go and find your parents like we always talked about! We can leave and never come back to this real life purgatory.”  She reasons.
It is true we have talked about this multiple times before but was I really ready to just up and leave with no clue as to where we’ll go? Then again, was I really willing to stay here and be Ms. Campbell’s own personal slave?  No. I will leave tonight. I can’t stay here anymore. So without any further thought, I say “Let's go.”
After those two words leave my mouth, we both venture off to gather all of our personal belongings, and eventually head off away from the place we were both raised.

Among the excited streets of New York and the constant running of cars, we find ourselves within an area we have no knowledge of.  In the distance, I can make out the faint hue of green that can be none other than the Statue of Liberty.

“Woah! Callie look, it’s actually the Statue of Liberty!” I exclaim.  My whole life I have lived in New York but I’ve never really ventured out past the orphanage.

“Let’s go see it!” Callie states excitedly. So we do just that and spend the rest of our amazing day exploring the wonders of New York.

As we babble about the fun we had today, we are both suddenly brought back down from our excitement induced high that we appeared to be on, and realized that we have nowhere to go. No money, no food, nothing. We were utterly and completely alone in this big city. 

“Callie?” I question.

“Yeah?” She quietly hums.

“What are we going to do? We’ve wasted our whole day, all our money, now what?” I ponder becoming quite scared.

“Uhh… well…?” She says showing lots of hesitation, showing she clearly had no brilliant plans. As we were trying to figure out what to do, I suddenly felt eyes on me. Now quite alert I gently and calmly turn and find a lady watching us. Clearly overhearing our troubles.

“You young ladies need a place to stay?” The mysterious woman questions.

“Oh yeah actually we do, ya think we might be able to stay with you?” Callie boldly asks clearly not considering the fact we don’t know anything about this woman, not even her name!

“Oh well sure, come with me now if you’ll be staying with me we must get a move on.”  She announces. “ Oh by the way my names Beth, and who might you two lovely ladies be?” The lady who now I know as Beth asks us and we tell her our names.  On our way to her house, we tell her our story and surprisingly she decides to help us find my parents. You’re probably wondering why exactly we decided to just go with a random lady, well as it appeared we really had no other option, the city tends to get quite cold at night and we wouldn’t make it through the night on the streets alone.

After about thirty minutes we finally pull up to a very expensive looking home. Much, much, better than the vile orphanage in which we were raised. The lady, Beth chuckles as she notices both me and Callie ogling the wonderful home.

“Well don’t just stare c’mon in now” Beth tells us.  So we do just that we enter her lovely house with pearly white furniture and silver walls with the most amazing gold detailing. The windows big and clean, and from the foyer we entered we saw a large grand staircase leading to the upstairs of her wonderful house.

“Holy crap!” Callie exclaims clearly just as amazed as myself.

“Now I know it’s not very clean right now but do make yourselves at home while I go make us some supper, oh and my husband should be home soon.” She says as she walks into what I assume is her kitchen. Clearly overwhelmed with everything that has happened a mutual silence falls between both Callie and I. 

Lost in my head my thoughts suddenly wander to the white fluffy couch, then  to the walls where I notice there happens to be pictures of Beth and what I assume must be her husband. There’s a picture of her on her wedding day with her, from what I’ve seen, crazy red hair tamed into a neat updo, and her green eyes shining brightly, next to a burly man with chocolate colored hair, who looks as if he just won the lottery! Along with their wedding pictures there are pictures of other people whom I would guess is her family, yet I don’t see any pictures of any children which doesn't make much sense considering their house seems to be designed just for a big family.

Suddenly my thoughts are cut short by the loud rustling of the door, and the same burly man from the photos walks in clearly glad to be home when he notices me and Callie and stops.

“Oh there you are Sam! This is Lizzy and Callie they're going to be staying with us for a day or two.” Beth states then proceeds to explain to Sam our situation and why it is we’re staying with them. Not long after she informs us it’s time for dinner, and she has prepared the most amazing meal I’ve ever seen. A real home cooked meal sits on the dining room table. Steak, chicken, green beans and so much more wonderful food!
After dinner Beth shows us each to a room but still a bit warey of the strange lady offering us kindness, we decide to sleep in the same room rather than separate. The following morning I awake to find myself within the sheet of the most amazing bed that awarded me the best sleep I’ve ever had. 

After awhile of just laying in bed, I finally decide to get up.   I look over and Callie is still sleeping with one arm across her forehead.  I walk downstairs and smell the most mouth watering smell. Bacon, I think it is. I wouldn’t really know as I’ve never had it before.You see back at the orphanage  Ms. Campbell never made us bacon.   If anything we got dried up sausage links.  But this was real bacon.  I quickly made my way into the kitchen to see the table all set, with flowers in a vase in the middle. 

“Good Morning” Beth said as she delivered a huge pile of bacon on a plate.  She set it right next  to some fluffy pancakes.   “I hope you're hungry” she says.

Before I could respond, Callie came whipping around the corner and replied, “I am!”.  

We all sat down to the most amazing flavorful breakfast.     

“So Lizzy, I was thinking of what exactly we could do to find you your parents, and I’ve come to a solution.”

Beth paused clearly for a dramatic effect. “I’ve taken it upon myself to hire a private investigator!”

“Really! Well did they find my parents? Can I finally go live with my family?” I rant out the excitement bubbling out of me at the chance to meet my family.

“Well not quite, he hasn’t returned with the information yet, in fact he should be arriving any moment now.” Beth states, and as if on cue the doorbell suddenly rings, and in walks a stoic, scary looking man, with eyes so dark they could be black.

The anticipation clearly killing me I ask where my parents were, but nothing could have prepared me for what the man said.

He informs me that my parents we’re killed in a house fire just days after I was born, due to the fact I was born premature I was still in the hospital. The one night my parents decided to go home to freshen up, there was an issue with an electrical outlet causing a housefire. A fire that they never made it out from, a fire that took away my only family, a fire that destroyed my hope. The man also gave the name of the cemetery they reside in, although I hadn’t really heard as all I could feel was the happiness in my life slowly draining out of me.

Beth decides that It’d be best to take me to see them and so we do just that. Finally once we arrive where my parents lie, I can’t hold it in any longer and suddenly I’m bawling my eyes out. All the hope I had that they were just waiting for me to find them, I was so sure of it, but now I don’t know what to think. Beth and Callie try to console me but it doesn’t help much, so eventually they just let me cry until there are no more tears left.
After the new revelation, both Callie and I have no other choice but to return to the orphanage, after everything we’ve gone through we’re ending up right back where we started.

We soon head back to Beth’s house with nothing but sorrow. Quietly explaining that we have to go back to the orphanage we get ourselves cleaned up and Beth calls us a cab with dread, I know it’s silly that I’d just met her yet I felt attached to her. The cab soon arrives all too soon and Callie and I return back to the filth of where we grew up. Once we arrived there we got an earful from Mrs. Campbell and I’ll probably never go outside again until I’m eighteen and even then I doubt she’ll let me leave.

Our lives went back to how they were before, nothing but chores and food scraps. Then one day there was a knock at the door of the orphanage. Now I must say, we never have anyone come to the door, ever. This was big whatever it was, then I hear a voice I know all too well.

“Callie? Lizzy? C’mon now get your things, were going home.” Beth says as if it was the most casual thing you could say…

Then was when I realized I didn’t need to find my family, because they’d already found me!