My name is Evangeline Ann Kelpie and I'm adopted. I've always known, and I'm pretty happy about it. That might sound weird, but it really isn't if you were me. One of the people who's raised me isn't too fond of me. I can't be sure why, but I've heard Mrs. Kelpie talk about my hair and eye's once. I'm not sure what to make of it, but I'm not the only child in the house anymore. They adopted Ollie when I was 7, I think they adopted me when I was 3 or 4 maybe. Anyway, we got Ollie when he was 3 years old and he was the cutest thing in the world. The Kelpie's liked him a lot better than me, but I don't mind too much because at least he'll get attention and be taken care of. I'm home schooled and they put Ollie in public school, I think it has something to do with my hair and eyes again.

We don't have too many mirrors in the house, but I think I had light brown hair and now it's blonde. I don't think it's very odd. A girl down the street told me hers had done the opposite, but I don't talk to her much anymore. I do chores and clean up after Ollie, and it's incredibly boring being in the house all the time, but I've gotten use to it. I don't talk a lot with the Kelpie's, I don't even talk with Ollie very often. But when no ones home I listen to the radio and sing or dance. The Kelpie's have a lot of privacy since they live on the outside of town and the closest neighbor lives at the end of the block so no one hears the music.

I really like to read, but I'm not allowed to go out to the library, so I read what Mr. Kelpie brings home from work. He works at the library and Mrs. Kelpie is a dentist. Mr. Kelpie likes me a little more than his wife does. She doesn't like to look at me, but Mr. Kelpie talks to me and makes sure I have things that I need and sometimes he asks me if I fancy reading anything new from the library.

I think if I talked to him more we'd get along well, but Mrs. Kelpie looks at me like I'm killing kittens when ever she see's me talking to her husband. When I turned eight, Mr. Kelpie told me to call him Steve. So now I call him Steve and I think it's very nice of him. On my ninth birthday he sneaked me some new books he bought from the book store. One was a Greek mythology book and another was a poetry book. And they were mine, I'd never owned any books before, but Mrs. Kelpie found out and she didn't like it much. She was yelling at me and asking where I'd gotten them, and I wasn't going to send her to Steve. So I sat there looking at the wall and I think she lost her temper because she slapped me across the face. I tried not to cry, but that wasn't working so instead I just looked at her. She got even more angry, and stomped off to find Steve. They started yelling and I went down to find out if I got Steve in trouble. When I got into the living room I saw Mrs. Kelpie slap Steve across the face.

And I yelled for the first time.

Steve

I have no clue why Beth hates Evan so much, but she does. We were just arguing about the books I had gotten the girl for her birthday when Beth slapped me, like that was a good idea, and Evan came down the stairs and saw it. What I saw was a red hand print on the little girls face, and I was ready to burn Beth alive. What right did she have to hit that child. But before I could even think to say something I heard a very angry little voice yelling from the stairs.

"What do you think you're doing!"

Beth and I turned to the little girl with shock. She doesn't talk, and when she does she almost whispers. But that shock was replaced with an even bigger surprise as we looked at her. Her normally long, straight almost pale blonde hair was dark orange with red streaks and it was curly. And her dark blue eyes were dark brown.

The next thing I know Beth's on the ground, fainted I presumed, and I was still staring. I should have known better to think this just stopped. I had a creeping suspicion that her eye's had been changing colors recently, and when I gave her the books I bought her, I thought I saw them turn light blue then back to their normal dark blue color. This happened a few times when we first got her, that's when Beth started shunning her. She wouldn't even let me near the child unless it was to feed or clean her.

Evan started calming down and I watched as her hair straightened and faded back to a pale blonde. Now she was just standing there staring at my fainted wife.

"I think we should talk," I told Evan as I gently took her hand and led her back to her room. We sat down on her bed and I started to talk.

Evangeline

We were sitting on my bed and I was a little confused. Mrs. Kelpie just fainted and Steve wanted to talk about something I thought it might be serious, so I waited for him to talk.

"I'm guessing you don't know about the fact that you can change your hair and eye color then?" he asked me. I just stared at him, and if I'm being honest here then I did feel my hair shift around on my head before.

He continued, "Well it does, and we found out when we got you. We actually adopted you from an orphanage when we were traveling around Europe. I had to convince Beth, she didn't really want children at the time but you were so tiny and I thought we just had to take you. So we did, and the first night we had you I gave you a toy dinosaur and you were so excited. And your eyes turned bright yellow; we barely noticed and brushed it off. But that night I was rocking you to sleep and your hair turned blue. Beth saw and freaked you know. She was never very fond of you after that."

The whole time he talked, I tried to think, which meant not getting too excited because WOW I can change my hair color! How. Cool. But I didn't want to get all riled up because Steve seemed sad. I think, he thinks it's his fault.

"Anyway, I thought I should tell you. There is somethings you should know," Steve told me, getting my attention.

"You should really learn to control your hair and eye... thing.. because if people saw you do it, I don't think they'd take to it so kindly. And I know what your last name is; the one you came with," he said, holding his breath.

I thought this was silly, because my last name is his last name. But then I realized he must be talking about my parents last name. The ones who made me. What's the word.. biological I think. Well now I was just curious. I don't know anything about my parents. Were they nice? Why didn't they keep me? Are they even alive? I had to stop and breath, then I looked up at Steve expectantly.

Steve started talking slowly, like he had to hold the words back from falling out of his mouth, "The woman that worked at the orphanage and took care of you told me that your father dropped you off there. Your father said that your name was Evangeline Ann Prince. And that your mother named you, and they couldn't take care of you because of certain reasons. The woman also told me you looked a bit like your mother." I sat quietly and listened; it felt like eternity. But now I knew somethings about my parents.

"Wow..." I said quietly. I looked outside, and it was raining; I loved the rain.

Steve told me he had to go get something and would be right back. When he came back he handed me a small hand mirror, and told me to practice when no one is watching. And that's what I did, I practiced everyday. It wasn't so hard really, what was hard was not doing it when I was emotional. That took some serious practice, and I found the only way to have my eyes and hair stay normal when I was especially happy, or angry, or what ever, was to just not be emotional, and stay calm. And by the time of my 10th birthday I had it down perfectly.

Besides perfecting my usage of the odd changing of my hair and eyes, I found I could change my height and facial features as well as my skin color and how old I looked. Which was all very weird and I hadn't practiced it much due to the fact those things didn't change when I got emotional.

So after the year of learning, and after my 10th birthday, the oddest thing happens; I got two letters in the mail. They both had the same funny wax seal with an H on it. Steve told me he had to sneak them from the pile at the door so Beth wouldn't see and take them, she had just left for work and couldn't take the time to go through it.

We sat in my room and opened the first letter which told me I was accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It included a list of school books and items I would need for school. I showed it to Steve who, at first, thought it was a joke; I didn't get the same feeling. I went to open the next letter which was from the headmaster of Hogwarts, we knew cause it said so in the first letter of course, and he wrote saying he had sent me my letter a year early. As all other little witches and wizards attended Hogwarts when they turned 11 years of age. But I was a special case and he would be coming by to visit and chat that very day.

I handed it to Steve to read and I stared, mouth open, at the wall. Does that mean I'm a witch? Steve just finished the letter and he looked a little confused and like he didn't really believe it. We turned to each other, ready to make our arguments, when we heard the door bell.