I woke up and saw the sun streaming into the window. I felt a little different, like something had changed from every other morning. It took a couple seconds to realize what. No pots banged in the kitchen, mom wasn’t singing her dish washing song. It hit me like a freight train. This room wasn’t my room. These walls weren’t that of my own home, the place where I had lived for so long, I honestly believed that nothing would ever go wrong here. Like we were an island from the rest of the world, that nothing could ever hurt my family. But I was wrong. Mom was gone. She was gone. Just like Dad. Who would help me and my little sister? We couldn’t stay in the orphanage; my sister and I were too old to ever get adopted. I wouldn’t trust anyone with my little sister’s life anyways. There was only one way. This morning, I had woken up for the first time in two days. Mom wasn’t coming back for me and Hallie, she wasn’t coming back at all. So I had to take us somewhere safe. Get us away from all the people who would hurt us. Did the government and social workers actually believe that they were helping her? An inner city foster parent could be anyone. Someone that wanted the kids for drug money, abuse, or as a slave. I knew someone named Mary once. She got passed from home to home and one day she never came back. She had cuts on her face and bruises. I wouldn’t let that happen to Hallie. I will save us, but I do need money. I was so tense. Could I actually steal? I just had to keep thinking about Hallie and Mary and I could do it. The social worker had left them in a small dingy room with an open window, and her little black purse. Hallie was only nine, but she knew to listen to me. I grabbed the purse and whispered to Hallie, “ We gotta go!” Hallie looked like she was about to cry but she nodded her head and her brown braid bounced with her head. “ I’ll follow you.” She was so brave for a little girl. I climbed out the window and helped her down. We didn’t have much time so I ran for the first bus I saw and yanked a slightly torn dollar bill from my jacket pocket. I knew they would be looking for us soon, and the woman would cancel her credit cards. I ran to the first ATM I could find and withdrew five-hundred dollars from her account. Both me and Hallie had dark hair, almost black, so I figured we would go get it died, then buy some train tickets to wherever sounded best. I was fifteen, and I looked older than that. I knew this would work, it had to. “Fi?” “Yah Hallie?” “Is Mom coming back?” Hallie was crying. Her fists were in tiny balls and her nose was scrunched up. “Hallie you gotta stop crying. The ladies at the hair salon will get suspicious.” “I want to go home.” I felt tears welling in my eyes, but I couldn’t give into them, I had to save us, I couldn’t be weak. “We’ll make a new home Hallie, and it will be by the ocean, I’ll get a job and we can rent a little beach house and everything will be ok.” “Will we build sandcastles?” “Yah, our house will have sand in it, you can build them whenever you want, and we’ll have a couch made of sand and beds and…” “I don’t want a bed made out of sand, think about the bugs..” Hallie made this cute little face and stuck out her tongue.
