Kind of Home

I'm working on making a world. I've got the mountains and valleys, an ocean, and continents. It's a slow process, though, since I use only my hands. Well, my hands and a couple of tennis balls.

As I work, pieces of plaster rain on me, but I don't care. I'm digging my trenches just a little deeper, carving my roads a little farther, and when I manage to break off a bigger chunk, I get new lakes and hills. Each time, I name them — Lake Nickisia. Mount Andew. The Trenchbull. There's something calming about the thwackathwackathwacka of the balls off the ceiling, the dance my hands do as I throw faster and faster, until I can't hardly see my fingers anymore. Fast hands. I've always had fast hands.

"God, Nicki ... slow down! How am I supposed to do that? I can't even keep the ball going. You're doing two at once!" I catch both and glance apologetically at Emmy.

"Takes time and practice," I offer. "You'll get there."

"I'll get fostered again before I get there, Nicki. And I just got my own top bunk, too!"

"Stay here as long as I have, and it'll be no sweat."

"I ... I'm sorry, Nicki. I didn't mean it like that. ..."

Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I drop down to the concrete. My toes instantly seek my slippers, and I cram my feet in as quickly as possible. Mid-October and it's already thirty degrees outside, every bit of that cold happily taking up residence in our floor. Tossing an afghan around my shoulders for good measure, I sidle up to Emmy's bed.

"No worries. I was joking, Emmy."

"I wasn't. I stink at this."

"Not as bad as I stink at sticking."

Sticking — that's what we call it. The lucky kids stick to their foster families. I seem to be covered in nail polish remover or something. I've been with five — count 'em, five — families in five years since Grammy died, and I've spent as much time in the Center as I have in homes. It's not like I have any major horror stories to tell — nobody hit me, or starved me, or touched me. Sometimes things don't work out, and things just didn't work out for me. A couple of those did involve legal issues on my end, but the others? Finances, leases running out — heck, one of my families got deported two weeks after I moved in.

They were all nice enough. I just didn't stick.

Emmy finally tosses the tennis ball away and curls around her Minnie Mouse pillow.

"You going to the art course with me this morning?" she mumbles into Minnie's ear.

"If I can finish unpacking, yep. Wainwright's been bugging me about it. Two weeks back and I haven't emptied my suitcase yet. Wishful thinking, I guess."

"I know! You haven't even taken out Fancypaws!"

That'd be Ms. Fancypaws McKittenfluff, my sole remaining stuffed animal from a childhood menagerie. My grammy bought me many more — Doggy the Dog, Findango, Corduroy-If-You-Please, and Sullen Moomelstein, to name a few. I can still remember Wainwright explaining to nine-year-old me that they'd gone to foster care, too. I liked imagining them finding new families and kids to play with. Of course, that was before I knew about Goodwill.

"I guess she just got comfortable in there," I muse. "Can't say I blame her."

"A suitcase is no kind of home for a lady!" Emmy exclaims, fanning herself like a southern belle. With her blond curls and tiny mouth, she actually looks the part.

"It might be if the lady is missing her left ear and has cotton leaking out of her armpits," I reply. It's true. Two and a half feet of well-loved and clumpy-haired stuffitude, Fancypaws is a few years removed from her debutante days. I shuffle over to the suitcase and gently extract her from the jumble of jeans, socks, books, and bracelets. My fingertips automatically find the velveteen patch of her belly and worry at it, carefully avoiding the holes and little rips. I remind myself to check out a book on sewing and fabric repair — Fancypaws is long overdue for a makeover, especially now that she's retired from the thieving business.

Emmy asks me if I want to get breakfast, but I'm not even dressed yet, so I let her go ahead. I clear a bit of space in the middle of my blankets for Fancypaws and nestle her in there, then slipper-slide my way across the concrete to my little closet. The chill in the air says sweaters and jackets, though for some reason the tights, long black skirt with the sequined hem, and a white T-shirt are whispering to me. I throw on a hoodie with big pockets and my grammy's Swarovski crystal earrings for good measure, then scoot out to breakfast.

All the rooms in the Center are off one long hallway. Wainwright has it set up so that the entire space reads like a timeline of kids' lives. At our end, where the boys' and girls' rooms are, the walls are plastered with pictures of families. Most of them are from the 1980s, when the Center opened. Beneath each picture is a little brass plate that says the family's name, the kid's name, and when she or he was adopted. Down the hall, the pictures get newer and newer. The best part is looking at how stuff like clothes and haircuts has changed. You know those fringed lizards that pop out their neck skin like a gigantic umbrella to frighten predators? That's like the girls' hair in the '80s. I'm not sure who they were trying to scare, but I'm betting it worked.

As the hallway goes on, the hair gets better. Toward the end, near the kitchen and the art room, are the newest pictures. Mine's not up there, since I haven't stuck. Wainwright never lets us see the moment she takes our pictures down when we come back, but I've heard her sniffling in the bathroom after she does it. I think it hurts her almost as much as it does us.

I pass by thirty years of bobs, bowl cuts, and bangs on my way to grab a bagel, and it's just as I'm turning around, bagel in my mouth and a milk carton in either hand, that I spot the guy. Or rather, The Guy. I...