The boy had a good head start until he bumped into the man. He was an older man, in his fifties with an accent that was definitely not American and so as the youngling turned from him to go in the opposite direction, the older man took his wrist and asked, “Where are you headed off to, lad?”

Unfortunately, this distraction was enough for the social worker to catch up to the runaway. As soon as she had left the office, the orphan had barged out of there with intention to find his older brother and then happened to run directly into this man who could be his Opa. Finally, the lad knew that his luck had run out and let his hands go to my pockets.

Opa scowled and was about to say something when his wife appeared. She was old enough to be the orphan’s oma and really beautiful as well. The orphan gazed into her welcoming eyes and let his fear subside. The woman meant him no harm. As if reading his thoughts, she smiled at the boy and then glanced at her husband.

“Honey, I hope you were not giving this little one a fright, were you?” her voice dripped with sweet honey as she asked the strange man this question.

“No...No...I wasn’t...Anyhow, Ms. Taylor, could you please explain to us why is this little one out in the hallway by himself?” his eyes frightened the lad for a moment and all of a sudden, he blinked and his eyes returned to normal.

“Oh, I was just going to get paperwork for his transfer to an orphanage...but your appointment is actually right back there.“, Ms. Taylor pointed out kindly.

“He’s an orphan?” Opa interrupted. “Ah, yes. You see, his parents were just declared deceased and he has not been admitted to the system yet...” she struggled to find words to express herself when Oma interrupted her this time.

“Can we take him? Under our care, I mean?” she questioned the nervous Ms. Taylor and Opa’s eyes grew wide.

He took her by the hand and said, “Darling, we can’t just keep him, there are rules in place...”

“For a reason, I know”, she responded. “However, we cannot let this poor boy be sent off to god knows where by himself.” she huffed at him.

“If it were up to you, you would adopt half of the state...“, he muttered under his breath. Then, she glared at him and answered back with, “It’s your fault we can’t have kids.”

Silence killed the conversation and Ms. Taylor suddenly found the wall interesting.

“Oh, I just had a thought, does he have siblings?”

Ms. Taylor said, “Ma’am, it is not standard pro...” Oma interjected her reasoning and repeated the question.

“Yes, an older brother who is not here.”, Ms. Taylor responded quickly.

“We’ll adopt both of them”, she added to the slack-jawed Ms. Taylor and her husband, “We have enough room for two.”

After that, Ms. Taylor moved heaven and hell to find his brother and bring them together.

And that is how the boy ended up with Oma and Opa.

He called them that as they appeared to be around the age of his grandparents and Oma/Opa meant grandma and grandpa respectively in his native language of German.

Unfortunately for him, Opa disliked him intensely and Oma did not.

She cared for the boys as her own and sang “Mockingbird” to the youngest every night.

She called him Little Mockingbird and said that one day he would fly into the clouds and make everyone proud. So that became his nickname, Mockingbird.