Before opening the big red door to the lounge, she placed her ear beside the door and searched for some voices.
She desperately wanted to know what these people thought of her.

"Going already?" Ivan's familiar voice came out.

"Yeah, I have this project to complete so I have to get to work earlier." It was a boy's voice, too, though she didn't know who he was.

"At least finish your tea, Adan, and you still haven't met that girl-" Continued Aleah's 'I'm the boss around' voice, and Glory took a moment to realise she was talking about her.

"Oh, I completely forgot it? But we can hang out later, can't we, I'm just so busy and-"

"But Ad, that's rude, she is all new!"

"I know, but- , oh, okay, I'll hang in for some more time, if that works."

"Now that's something, good."

There was a minute pause, along the clatter of a plate with a fork, or maybe a knife, and then another all new female voice added in,

"Who of you have met the new girl yet?"

"Aleah and I." Said Ivan.

"Oh, so Giselle, I and Ad are still leftovers; as usual." She was quite grumpy at the dialogue, if anything.

Before the arguments enhanced, Glory mustered the courage to open the door and slide in.
All faces turned towards her. She responded with a wobbly smile, and immediately turned it into a confident one, making sure they didn't get a wrong impression out of her.
Ivan sat with a guy who was sort of leaner and taller than him, sipping through his tea.
Aleah accompanied two girls, one quite younger, maybe fourteen, the other the same age as Glory.

"Oh, back already?" Asked Aleah.

"Yeah, it isn't really early, is it? I had a really peaceful sleep, thanks to the lovely mattress." Glory replied, trying her best to sound grateful, because the mattress actually had given her bad cramps and the sheets were so very uncomfortable, plus she was lazy enough to change them, so that's how it went.

"That's so good of you! Why don't you come and meet the rest of them?" Then she stood up and came towards Glory, took her hand and made her follow her towards the table, where the others sat.

"This is Adan," She said, pointing towards the guy with Ivan, "And you have already met Ivan here, haven't you?" Glory nodded in response and Ivan gave her a light wink, and she waved back. Adan smiled at her, too, and mouthed a small hello.

Then Aleah moved towards the other side of the table and placed her hand on the shoulder of the older girl among the two, "Here's Giselle."
Giselle was quite too rough. Glory remembered her from the photo she had seen upstairs, however she never expected to meet a girl in a rough white T-Shirt with an old brown skirt, along long knee high boots. Her black shoulder length hair were cut in irregular edges from the bottom and a red streak ran down from one side.

Giselle left her seat and stood up. She shot forward her hand and greeted her, then smirked. She then mouthed "Welcome" and ran out of the room.

Glory stood shocked at the strangeness of this, and blinked several times to blow away he surprise.
What was that?
Was she some psychopath or something?

"Oh don't mind her, she gets these hallucinations and then acts so abnormal, ignore her behaviour." Said Adan, who was, by now, getting his books sorted in his grey bag.
Glory nodded.

"Adan, going? I won't be coming to college today, mind writing down an application for me please? I don't want any charges, I'm already out of job." Aleah pleaded, and Adan gave her a thumbs up, waved good bye to Glory and told her he'll talk to her later and followed out of the door.

The last, younger girl, who was by now devoid of an introduction, said, "Glory, I'm Valerie. Call me Vana though, please, I so loathe my name, Vana seems so cool, doesn't it? I've always had this thing for names which ended up with 'a' or even 'y' but this dumb name Mama chose for me, I cannot possibly change it, can I? I already have the old name on my Certificate, anyway, I'll see if I get it changed on my Driver's License, oh, how cool that would look along my photo from School's Student Book! Aleah, you remember that photo, don't you? It has been my favourite since so long!"

Glory stood in mere disapproval. First, Valerie was a pretty good name. Second, what a wrong logic for hating her name. Third, she spoke too, too much.

Ivan sighed aloud, "Don't mind Valerie-"

"It's Vana!" Valerie,- Vana, interrupted.

"Oh no, it's Valerie!"

"No Vana!"

"Valerie!"

"Vana!!"

"Whatever!"

"Vana, Vana, Vana. Glory, I'm Vana Dalton, and Ivan is my pretty useless half brother, so you can ignore him 79% of the time, because all he does is interrupt. That's what he has been doing all his life."

Ivan sighed. "Never mind, Glory, that's how she is."

Vana made a face at this.

"Enough of you both." Aleah, who carried an exhausted expression, shouted.

The two of them then zipped there mouths, and Glory was much too sure Aleah was the boss around. Vana excused she had a painting to finish before she went to her school, which as reported by her was "A fabulous artistic piece for someone her age" and went upstairs.

So, it was Glory, Aleah and Ivan left in the spacious room.
"Why don't you eat something?" Asked Aleah.

"I had tea early this morning, I'm fine."

"Oh, that's good." She replied.

"So, what are you thinking to do with the money? Getting a job?"

"Maybe." She hadn't thought about this yet. She may find some work here though, Zac had told how the streets were full of places to work at.

"I can help you with the job. The coffee shop in the other town I work at, they are looking for a new hire, you can come with me, they give a handsome amount of wage, and it will surely work, what do you say?" Said Ivan.

Glory sort of found it funny, working at a coffee shop, but then realised this was what a normal life was, without any glamour, riches. Maybe that was how it went for normal people, not hiding from the cops. That's when she realised people may recognise her from the TV. She was a run away. Had Zac told these people? Well, however it was, she would deal it. Sooner or later, she would.

"What do you think?" Ivan repeated.

"Cool, I'll love to."

"So, you are free tomorrow? I have college today so I cannot go, and I normally work on the weekends, anyway, I'll take a day off school tomorrow-"

"Yeah, always finding excuses to take off a day at college, yeah?" Aleah snapped.

"What is it to you? So, Glory, I was saying I'll take a day off, then I can show you the place, you can start the job on daily basis, and we could go together on Saturdays and Sundays. Sounds good?"

"Yeah." Glory replied. That really sounded good. And ... normal.

So here she was, living an ordinary life with ordinary people who wore ordinary dresses ordinary manners.

Good.

"So, excuse me now, good to meet you!" He winked and went out, too.

Aleah sat silent at the table, clashing her fork with the spoon.
She then got up and said, "I'll go check Giselle if she is okay, you'll be okay by yourself?"

"Of course." Glory answered, and Aleah went out of the room. Glory noticed, instead of going up to Giselle's room, she went out of the house.

Well, proved checking on Giselle was solely an excuse.

Glory rolled her eyes at this and took out her iPhone from her pocket and dialled Zac's contact number.
He answered on the first ring. "Glory?"
"Yeah. Hi."

"Are you okay?"

"Of course!"

"Oh, good. Everything fine? Met your mates?"

"Yes."

"Good, liked them?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"That's good. Don't go far in the markets for a day or two, okay? I'm trying to get you a fake passport of yours on the Plane list, so they think you have flied to Venice, and then I'll take care of some fake dead body to show you died in a car accident there, just so you can live a normal life-"

"What!" She screamed. Was he ... mad? And, was that even possible? Were the Police that stupid? But he was Zac then, and he could do anything.

"Yeah, trust me, it'll go perfect. Just go with the flow, okay?"

"Oh well, sure." She hesitated, but agreed. Anything to make things normal would work, anything.

"So, the house is good, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I love it."

"Am I invited on December the 8th?"

"What's so about that date?"
And then she realised, it was the day, the very day alright, when she came to this world. In short, her birthday. Her eighteenth birthday!
"Oh my God, it skipped my mind! How many days is it-, seven, my God, I'll be eighteen in a week! And of course you are invited! All of you. How dumb of me to forget it!"

"Ha ha, it's okay, and we'll come, of course."

Glory smiled.

"Okay so talk to you later? Say hi to the others from me." She said.

"Sure. Bye, call me soon."

There was a click from the other end, and Glory pocketed her phone.

So it was now a year since the Hamiltons kicked her out, and she liked how it had progressed so far. Oh, so far, so good.