1 The foster home

One dreary afternoon a young boy looks up the driveway to his new home, he turns back to look at the lady carrying a black folder behind him. "Go on, it's ok." She says. Nate Takes a deep breath and walks down the long driveway to his new home. Little did he know it would be the last day of his childhood innocence.

As he walks up to the front door he sees a young woman. "You must be Nate." She said with a smile. "Yes ma'am" he replies. "Welcome to my home, my name is Ruth. Come on inside and meet the rest of the boys." Nate looks back one more time and the caseworker makes eye contact waves and smiles then gets back in her car and heads back to her office. He walks into the house and is met by three boys his age: Taylor, Jim, & Steve. "Boys this is Nate he's your new foster brother. I want you to treat him the same way you do each other." "Yes, Mrs. Ruth." Nate shyly waves to the boys. Taylor looks at him and motions "Come on Nate we'll show you our room." Nate follows the boys upstairs. When they get upstairs the boys lead Nate to the first door on the left, "here we are" as they walk into the room Nate sees two sets of bunk beds each with a name engraved in the wood railing. The top left was Taylor's the bottom left was Steve the bottom right was Jim and the top right had his name. Along the back wall was a huge flat screen TV and attached to it was an Xbox and PlayStation. Below the TV was a shelf housing several DVDs, video games, and controllers. Jim looked at him "look, man we bunkmates." "Do you wanna play a video game?" Before he could answer Jim's question they hear a voice from downstairs. "Boys dinners ready!" The other boys get all excited and encourage to Nate to hurry downstairs. "Come on man you don't wanna miss Ruth's cooking it's amazing." "I am kinda hungry" he replies as they head downstairs.

They get downstairs and immediately smell basil and garlic the other boys look at Nate "man, you in for a real treat smells like miss Ruth made her famous spaghetti and garlic bread." Nate grinned thinking to himself "I wonder if she knew that my favorite meal?" As they enter the kitchen Ruth smiles "come on boys sit down and eat. Plenty for an army." The boys sit down and begin to eat. After dinner Ruth and the boys Go to the living room. "Ok, boys let's introduce ourselves to Nate here and so he don't feel too uncomfortable here you can tell him why your here."

Jim speak up first "I'm Jim, I'm 14. I've been here since I was 10. And I came to miss Ruth's home because my daddy killed my momma in front of me, and now my daddy in jail." Nate looked at Jim tears swelling up in his eyes. "I'm so sorry Jim." "I'm Steve I'm the oldest here I'm 16, and I'm here because my momma is a drug addict who sold me to her dealers to get high." Nate almost couldn't hold tears back. " I'm Taylor, I'm 15. I'm the middle one," he said with a chuckle. " I've been here the longest I've been here since I was an infant. I don't know who my folks are. Miss Ruth was a nurse at the hospital I was dropped off at and she took one look at me and immediately knew she was gonna bring me home." He put his hand over his mouth and whispered to Nate "I think it was my pretty blue eyes that sold it." Nate started boo hooing and laughing at same time. "Thanks guys for telling me about yourselfs. I know it's not easy. Well I guess it's my turn, huh?"

Everyone looked at him. Finally, Ruth spoke up "if your not ready honey it's fine." "It took Jim and Steve a while to open up. We understand sweetie." " Well as you know I'm Nate, I'm 13 so I guess that makes me the baby." All the boys chuckled "yea man, you are." Nate grinned "First off I wanna thank miss Ruth for agreeing to take me in." I've never been in a foster home before I'm new to this orphan stuff." " I'm here because my momma is a prostitute and she just didn't come home one morning and when my neighbor found me three days later she called the cops and they brought me to this bldg where I met a nice lady who didn't speak much just carried around a black folder. Only time she spoke to me was after she got off the phone with miss Ruth and she brought me here." "Thank you Nate. It took a lot of courage to spill your guts. We glad have you in the home too. Welcome to the family." Nate smiles through tears.

The boys said goodnight to Ruth and went to bed. "Night miss Ruth." "Night boys sleep tight" the boys headed upstairs and turned the lamp on and the lights off. "Goodnight." They said in unison. And off into dreamland they went, dreaming of a bright and hopeful future, one that wouldn't come to pass.