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sure it looked straight.
     She took all the felt junior varsity letters that she had received from her soccer, tennis, volleyball and dance teams, and hung them on the wall beside her bed. She had four letters, and she hung them in a square shape. As she stepped back to look at them, she felt a sense of pride. She had earned each and every one of those letters.
    Rachel also had received a certificate for the math league at her old school. She had won first prize for the article she’d written for their Pennsylvania school newspaper about the school Book Fair and had won an award for the work she had done on her biology plant study in 9 th grade. Not to mention, Rachel was on high honor roll each semester and had four high honor roll certificates that she hung all these on her wall as well.
    She stepped back and looked at the display. Her wall was now a shrine to her many talents and for a moment, as she stood impressed by herself, she forgot she was in a new house and starting a new life.
    She took another step back and tripped over a small folded up JCPenney’s bag. She opened it up and was delighted to find her new boyfriend jeans. She lifted them out of the bag and started thinking about what to wear with them to school the next day.
    As she walked over to her stack of graphic tees, she heard her mom’s voice yell, “Kids, time for dinner! Come on down.”
    She heard Mark and Sarah’s door slam shut a few seconds later and the sounds of their feet racing down the hallway.
    Rachel opened her door to the smell of roast chicken filling the air. Rachel loved roast chicken, one of her favorite meals her Mom cooked.
    When Rachel got downstairs, she saw mashed potatoes, corn and gravy, too. My favorite , Rachel thought to herself.
    She didn’t want to let on that she was happy about the meal, though, and sat down in her hard wooden chair without cracking a smile.
    Rachel sat there scooping food onto her plate, quietly eating as Sarah and Mark raved about their first days. Listening to them blissfully describe their day in detail, Rachel wondered if they were at different schools. She couldn’t understand how Mark and Sarah both had picture-perfect days.
    “So, Rachel, how was your first day? her dad asked. “You’re awfully quiet over there,”
    Rachel looked up from her plate, swallowed her bite of corn and said, “Fine.”
    “She didn’t make any friends, she’s a loner,” Mark said with a laugh from across the table.
    “Shut up,” she retorted.
    “Honey, is that true?” her mom asked in a sympathetic voice.
    “No. Mark doesn’t know anything.”
    Rachel’s mom changed the subject and turned towards her dad and said, “So how was your first day at the office, love?”
    “Couldn’t have been better. I unpacked the office, and started right into it,” he replied.
    Rachel’s dad was a computer IT guy who worked for IBM. Basically, he fixed broken computer systems. He had been transferred to the IBM headquarters in Armonk, New York, because of the bad economy. His office in Pennsylvania had gone bankrupt and he either had to be transferred or was out of work. It was an easy decision for him, because he couldn’t be without a job, especially with three kids and a wife at home-- not to mention, the three looming college tuition fees that lay around the corner. So, the family had all packed up and moved to Bedford with only a few weeks’ notice.
    “Oh good, I’m so glad it was an easy transition,” their mom replied.
    As Rachel heard all the positive remarks coming from each of her family members, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was really related to these people.
    Are these really my mom and dad? Are those two balls of excitement my siblings? Rachel thought of all the various possibilities to explain this. Maybe she was adopted? It would only seem right. She was nothing like these people she called her family.
    Despite these feelings of alienation, Rachel knew she wasn’t adopted. She had been