Chapter Four

After her bath Sarah was terribly hungry.

"Cameron I'm hungry!" She announced coming as she came down the stairs proudly in her new clothes.

"Yeah I am too; let's see what's in the kitchen. Brigette left a list so we'll have to go shopping for food later. How about a sandwich? I think I can make that."

"Okay, did Brigette go home?" Sarah asked as she climbed up onto one of the tall barstools across the island.

"She said she was getting tired and wanted to go to bed. Do you want turkey or pastrami?"

"What's pastaramee?"

"Beef."

"I want that! We used to have icky turkey sandwiches in jail on Tuesdays."

"Well I can't guarantee my sandwich isn't going to be icky but I bet's it's better than jail's." Cameron said and he spread mayonnaise on some bread. He added some slices of meat on one half and then a slice of tomato.

"Here you go, one pastrami sandwich." He said sliding the plate across the island. Sarah pulled the plate in front of her and took a bite.

"If tafts goob." She told Ron as she chewed.

"Glad to hear it. What do you say we go watch something on TV while we eat?"

"Okay, do you have 'The Little Mermaid'?"

"No I don't think I have that one."

"Cinderella? Beauty and the Beast?"

Ron shook his head 'no' each time.

"Do you have anything good!?" she cried in frustration.

"I have plenty of good movies thank you very much. Maybe we'll skip a movie and watch something on TV." He took his plate and led Sarah out of the kitchen and down the stairs where she had been calling for Jason earlier. It was dark and Sarah gripped the edges of her dish hard and she followed Cameron down into the basement.

When they reached the bottom he flicked on a light to reveal a bare cemented room with a couple doors and a passageway leading to the right. They went down the hall and emerged into a large room fully carpeted and with soft comfy sofas facing a large screen at one end of the room.

"Where's the TV?" Sarah asked.

"Right there silly." Ron laughed pointing at the screen. He walked to the frontmost sofa and sat down. Sarah followed but still couldn't figure out how the wall was a television.

"It's like a theatre Sarah, instead of having a small box the screen is this whole wall." Ron explained seeing her perplexion.

"Really? Wow! I wanna see it!" She cried excitedly. She'd never been to a theatre before but she'd heard people talk about them.

"Hold your horses; let me turn it on first." Ron picked up a remote with more buttons than an airplane had and pushed a button labeled lights. The lights dimmed and then he turned the TV on. The movie he had been watching earlier started and Sarah screamed as a dead body fell and a bloody head rolled across the screen.

Cameron fumbled to turn it off but Sarah was already frightened to death.

"I'm so sorry Sarah! I completely forgot about that movie still being in there. Here let's find something better for little kids." He switched over to TV mode and began flicking through several channels before finding some nice wholesome Tom and Jerry cartoons.

"Is that better?" he asked. Sarah nodded but her eyes were still wide with shock. But the shock slowly faded as the cat chased the mouse through the house. She slowly began to eat her sandwich as her mind filled like an empty sponge with the wonder of the large screen TV system.

When the show and dinner was over Cameron asked her if she was sleepy.

"No, I already took a nap."

"Yeah but it's already ten thirty. I'll let you sleep in my room till we buy your new bed okay?"

"Okay, but you have to tuck me in." She agreed. So they took their dishes up to the kitchen where Ron washed them quickly while Sarah went to admire her three new pairs of shoes again.

"Their very pretty shoes Sarah." He commented as he came out of the kitchen to see her parading about in new sandals.

"I know, I don't get new shoes just old ones from other people. Just like my old clothes, they belonged to a bigger kid before me."

"Well I'm glad you like them. Here jump on my back and let's go upstairs and get you ready for bed." So he squatted down as she took of her shoes and then jumped on his back. She wrapped her skinny yet vise like arms around Ron's neck and he took her up to her room.

"Now you get dressed for bed then brush your teeth. That's something I know you have to do after eating all those sweets today. I think we got you a tooth brush let me go check while you get undressed." So he went to go root through some toiletries while Sarah put on her brand new flannel princess pajamas.

"Yep here it is a nice new toothbrush. There's toothpaste in the bathroom so go." He opened the brush and handed it to Sarah as she left the room to go brush her teeth. When she came back she went through another bag and pulled a out a large book of stories.

"Now it's time to tuck me in." She said marching out the room and down the hall to Cameron's room. She put her book on the bed then climbed up and got under the covers.

"So how do I do this tucking in business?" Cameron wondered.

"You put the covers over me nicely then read me a story." She explained.

"Got it. Scoot over a bit so I can sit on the bed too. Why don't we read the first story in the book?"

"Okay, what is it?"

"Cinderella, let's see here. Okay here we go. 'Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom.'" He read. Sarah listened carefully and looked at all the brightly colored pictures in the book. When the story had ended she still wasn't ready to go to sleep she was so pumped up from her exciting day.

"I'm not sleepy!" she said as Ron got up from the bed and fixed the covers around her.

"What? It's past eleven Sarah. You have to get up early and go back to the office with me tomorrow to see Brigette. Wait a second I have an idea. You stay here and I'll be right back." Cameron left the room and Sarah waited while looked ahead at the pictures in her book.

Soon he came back with a mug of milk.

"What's that?"

"Warm milk. My Grandmother used to give me hot milk when I was little like you. She said it makes you feel sleepy after drinking it. Here sit up and try some."

Sarah drank the milk, which slowly warmed her up inside, and soon she began to feel her eyes drooping.

"There I told you. Here let me tuck you in again."

"You have to kiss me good night too." She said finishing her sentence with a yawn.

"Fine but that's it, after I kiss you goodnight you have to go to bed." So he bent over and kissed her on the forehead and then went to turn out the lights.

He went to his own room to think for a while before going to bed himself. He thought about what Brigette had said about him being proud and arrogant. He also thought about his work and Sarah and how he was going to manage both. Finally he got so tired of thinking that he fell asleep with his thoughts still whirling around in his head.

In the morning he woke up to his alarm clock rather than Sarah. He sat up and went to take a shower and get ready to go into the office. When he had gotten dressed her went to wake up Sarah and tell her to get ready as well.

"Sarah, time to get up." He announced coming into the room. Her body, which looked much smaller because of the size of the bed, wiggled but didn't wake up. Ron went and shook her but she just squinted her eyes together and mumbled.

"Come on get up so we can go see Brigette."

"Brigette? Can I wear my new shoes?" Suddenly she was awake, well mostly awake that is. She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around.

"Yes you can wear whatever you want, but we have to hurry so Brigette doesn't get mad at me for being late."

"Okay, but what about breakfast?"

"Toast?"

"Umm okay. Leave so I can get dressed."

"Fine, fine. But don't take too long."

"I won't." she assured him as she slid out of bed and went to go through her bags again dumping things here and there as she searched for the new jean skirt she wanted to wear. She found it and then put on a light blue shirt on and then ran downstairs.

"There you are, come on you can eat in the car. Put your shoes on." Cameron said as soon as she came downstairs. He gave her a ziplock with her toast and they went out the door.

They drove quickly to the office where they went up the elevator as they had last time and he took her into Brigette's office.

"We're here!" he said coming in.

"Ron what did you do to the poor girl's hair?" was the greeting he got as Brigette got up from her desk and come around. She grabbed her purse and took out a small comb and took Sarah over to a chair to comb out the rather dreadful looking bedhead.

"Sorry, I guess I just didn't think it was that bad." Ron explained.

"Well you'd better start, there much better." Brigette stood and admired her handy work before going back to her desk.

"So what do we have to fill out." Ron asked taking a seat next to Sarah.

"You have to fill out the adoption papers and then you need to talk to Haley about Sarah going to school." Brigette told him as she picked up a rather thick pile of papers.

"All that?"

"Yes you need to carefully read and fill out all of these papers. I suggest that you talk to Haley first and take the papers home so Sarah doesn't have to sit here. Or better yet you get started and I take Sarah to Haley. You'll still need to meet with him later but at least he will have met Sarah. Come along Sarah I'll take you downstairs."

"Okay, bye Ron!" Sarah waved as she followed Brigette.

"Bye, hope you have more fun than I'm going to." He sighed taking the mountain of papers into his own office so he could get a head start.

Meanwhile Brigette was making sure Sarah had been taken care of.

"Did you eat yet?"

"Yes, I had toast. And last night I had a pastaramee sandwich."

"I think you mean pastrami, but that's good. Now Sarah I'm going to introduce you to a man named Haley Rimms and I need you to be a good girl and be nice to him okay? He may look big but he's a very nice person and he's going to try and help you get into school."

"Okay."

"Here's his office now." Brigette knocked on the door marked Rimms and waited for an answer.

"Come in!" came a loud gruff voice from the other side.

"Good morning Haley, I brought you the girl. Sarah say hello to Mr. Haley."

"Hi Mr. Haley." Sarah said shyly. She felt extremely small in front of the 6' 9" man who made a great shadow over her.

"Nice to meet you Sarah, here have a seat so we can talk more. Brigette how about you give us some time alone, don't worry I'll bring her back up." Haley said.

"That's sounds fine. Sarah, go ahead and take a seat and be good okay? Don't worry everything will be fine." she tried to calm Sarah who was getting a bit anxious about being left alone with this giant of a man. She went and sat down and watched as Brigette left the office and closed the door behind her.

"Sarah would you like a piece of candy?" Haley offered her a bowl filled with candies. Sarah took a piece and popped it in her mouth loosing a bit of her fear with the sweet hardcandy.

"Now Sarah I know I might scare you a bit but I want you to know that I ain't gonna do nothing but ask you some questions. And their easy questions that I know you can answer. Are you okay with that?"

Sarah nodded as her mouth was too full to speak.

"Good, well let me get out this form here and we'll start. Can you read Sarah?"

"A little bit."

"Can you read to me what's on this card?" Haley handed her a card with several words ranging from easy to hard. She began reading slowly, stumbling from time to time but was able to read all the way down the card.

"That's okay you can stop there. You're a very good reader you know that? Now tell me what you can do it math." Haley continued to test her academic abilities for about an hour.

"Now Sarah, and I promise you this is the last thing, I want you to grip my hand and squeeze it as hard as you can." He reached over the desk and lay his hand in front of her. Sarah hesitantly placed her small pale hand in his huge dark chocolate hand and squeezed with all the strength she could muster. When she had done that she let go and sat back down.

"You are a very talented young girl Sarah. I'm going to put you in the fourth grade for now, that's about a year higher than you should be in, you should be proud of that. Now let me take you back up to Cameron's office, I'm sure he's been wonderin' where you've been."

So back up they went, the tiny eight year old following that gigantic forty two year old all the way to Ron's office.

"You've got a special little girl here Ron. Take good care of her and she could really be something." Haley said.

"Hear that? I'm special, and I'm in the fourth grade now." Sarah told him proudly.

"Really? That's great. Thanks Haley, so what do I do with her now?"

"You bring her to the center everyday. Or you could have the bus come pick her up. Since you work with us she can go the school downtown no cost, but she has to go no excuses, then you should know that after going there yourself for a while."

"Yes I understand. Well I need to buy groceries and then fill out the rest of these forms and papers so we're gonna get going now."

"You have a good day Ron, and you too Sarah. Ron, be careful, that kid has one hell of a grip."

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A/N: Hope you guys like this one better than the others. Let me know 'cause I want to know what you guys think, that's why I joined this site. Thanks for reading!