"Luke, Brian, time to wake up!" The sound of Matt's voice broke the silence of the small room. The two children in question slowly opened their eyes, greeted by the soft light of the early morning shining into the glass window in the side of their room. The light struck across Matt's head, giving the 11-year-old's face a slight glow to it.
"Matt?" Luke asked, the eight-year-old slowly sitting up and yawning. "Ugh, what time is it?"
In response, Matt said, slightly irritated, "It doesn't matter what time it is. Look at the calendar; that's all that's important right now." He gestured to the left side of the mid-sized window. Squinting at the calendar, Luke could make out the date: July 2nd. Underneath the 2, there was small text written out in the semi-orderly fashion of Matt's handwriting: "Adoption Day". Luke stopped for a second, registering the text in his mind. Soon after, he let out a small sigh.
"Do we really gotta go through this again?" he asked the eldest of the trio. In response, Matt nodded.
"I know it sucks, but we still have to do it." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Who knows? Maybe today'll finally be the day." Looking over at Brian and seeing that the six-year-old had fallen back asleep during the conversation, he let out an exasperated sigh. "Luke?" he asked his younger brother. The boy looked at him expectantly. "Can you please wake him up?" he continued, gesturing to the sleeping soon-to-be first grader. Luke nodded in reply, and Matt walked out of the bedroom to brush his teeth. As he walked, he couldn't help but think of the long day they had in store.
At about 2:00 in the afternoon, the adults began coming in to look at the children around the orphanage. See, normally, you had to adopt a child in advance and make sure it was okay with the orphanage before picking him/her up, but a couple of times a year, the orphanage held these "adoption days" to maintain a supportable amount of children within the building. Was it an old-fashioned method of doing things? Perhaps, but hey, it always seemed to work... for the four-year-olds, at least. This time was no exception. As expected, the youngest children were picked up first. Matt, Luke, and Brian were checked out by a few people, but no one wanted to adopt all three, and as the brothers had made it clear from the start, it was either all three of them or nothing. The day ended at around 6:00, and shortly after was dinner. The brothers retired to their rooms after eating. It was then Matt noticed that Brian looked even more dejected than he usually looked after one of these days. They had gone through several during their two-year stay at the orphanage, so this struck Matt as rather odd.
"Brian?" he half-called to his youngest brother, a look of concern on his face as he walked over to him. As he sat down, he said in a low voice, "Hey, today wasn't a big deal, all right? We'll get adopted eventually-"
"But what if we don't?" Brian interrupted in a soft voice. "What if we sit here for, like, a million bajillion years before we get parents again?" Despite the gravity of the topic, Matt couldn't help but lightly chuckle at his brother's exaggeration.
"I'm sure it won't be that long," he half-joked with a small smile on his face. His expression quickly sobered, though, and he turned serious once more. "Look, I know you're wondering if it'll ever happen. We all are. I know it sounds weird coming from me, but have hope," he advised Brian. Fortunately, that seemed to do the job, as Brian half-smiled at his oldest sibling. "Okay," he responded, but it was only as Matt was turning away that he saw the hint of tears beginning to form in his brother's eyes. Sighing mentally, he went out of the room, bumping into Mrs. Millers along the way.
"Oh, Matt! I'm so sorry!" she apologized.
"Oh, no, no, it's fine," Matt assured her, waving his hands in front of him dismissively. "In fact, I was just about to go looking for you." This caused a confused look to spread across Mrs. Millers' face.
"You were? What for?" she asked.
"Well, you see, I was wondering if I could go for a walk outside." Seeing Mrs. Millers' look of disapproval already forming on her face, he quickly added, "Just for a little bit? Please, Mrs. Millers, I just need to clear my head for a bit." The caretaker's expression softened slightly.
"I'm sorry, Matt, but rules are rules, and I can't let you go out all on your own." Matt deflated at this. Hanging his head, he trudged away from the woman, not bothering to stick around for whatever else she had to say.
At about 10:00, long after curfew, Matt snuck out of his room. He knew Mrs. Millers would still be awake at this hour, though, so he made sure to be extra quiet on his way out. It was surprisingly easy, and he silently cheered to himself as he closed the front door softly behind him. Walking down the street in his pajamas, he let his mind wander back to when it all began: the night his parents died. They had been involved in a bad car accident, and they hadn't made it out alive. He was only nine at the time, so it came as quite a shock to his system when he and his brothers were stripped away from their home and put into an orphanage. He had eventually learned to cope with his parents' deaths, but it still saddened him every time he thought about it. A sudden blur of light moving across the sky jolted him out of his thoughts, and he realized what exactly the light was just seconds after: a shooting star. Smiling sadly to himself, he thought of his two younger brothers and how much they needed their parents again. They had never said it out loud, but he could tell just the same. He had stopped believing in magic years ago, but hey, what the heck? Might as well give it a shot. And so he closed his eyes and wished. What did he wish for, though? Well, that's for you to decide.