Foster Four

Hey all, this is my second story for Wattpad. This is going to be a very long story. If you like stories with long chapters and 50+ parts to it, this'll be a story for you.

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Chapter 1

My name is Betty Trentham. My mother and I own and manage the local fruit processing factory. We also own and manage the orchards that provide the fruit for the factory. This story is partly mine but it is also the tale of the 4 children who have become the children of my heart.

On the day that this tale begins, I had just delivered a truckload of apples to the factory. I decided to take a short walk down a nearby street while I waited for a crew to unload the truck. This particular street was new to me. I rarely walked behind the factory.the street was in awful shape. It was filled with potholes, cracks and weeds sprouting up from the cracks in the pavement. There were no signs, road markers or sidewalks. It was a road that was slowly returning to nature.

There were some houses on this road. Mostly abandoned hovels but here and there were a couple houses that were in slightly better shape than the rest. Looking back to the factory, I could see steam rising from the stacks. Only steam, no chemicals. Our factory was as green as we could make it. We didn't want to contribute to global warming. The factory was a half mile away across a meadow. On the other side of the road from the meadow were the houses. One of the houses I was looking at was in particularly bad shape. It was literally falling to pieces. Shingles had fallen off the roof and were scattered in the yard. Broken glass from the windows was also in the yard. The sideboards were bare of paint and loose, creating cracks in the walls of the house. The yard was also full of weeds and a couple scraggly stunted trees. The porch to this house was slanted towards one side, creating a slide like surface. I really hoped that no one was living in that house . It looked ready to be condemned.

The next house was in a slightly better condition but with the addition of a large oak tree in the front yard with a treehouse in it. I felt a little nervous passing that house. It felt like I was being watched.

About 900 feet later, the road ended at a white fence with one of those reflective dead end signs. I was surprised to see the sign because I hadn't seen any other signs until this one. I turned around and started walking back to the beginning of the road. I was passing the house with the treehouse when something whizzed by my head and clattered into the road. It looked like a piece of house shingle. I heard an unearthly shriek and looked up to see a young boy dangling from a branch of the oak tree under the treehouse. His shirt was full of holes, and was a size or two too small for him. His too short jeans had rips and tears and what looked like a patch job on one knee that was badly sewn. His straight brown hair was so long it was falling in his eyes. He had a skinny look to him, like he hasn't eaten a good meal in over a month. When he saw me looking at him, he yelled "help! The rope broke. I'm slipping!" He was about 10 feet off the ground. A fall like that in his condition would guarantee a few broken bones. That made me run over to the tree. I was just in time to catch the boy as his grip on the branch failed him. As I set him gently on his feet, I heard a panicked cry from the treehouse above me. " Chris! You ok?" To my shock, there was another boy in the tree. He too had too long brown hair. The younger boy next to me called up to him "I'm ok. This lady caught me when I fell."

I called up to the boy."are you stuck up there?" He nodded and called back " the rope was fraying. I guess it couldn't take my brother's weight. It snapped when he tried to use it to get down." I smiled and said " climb out on the branch. I'll catch you."

The boy nodded and climbed out. While I was talking to the boy in the tree, I felt the younger boy's hand reach into my coat pocket. After setting the older boy on his feet, I turned to the younger boy and said " you know, my pockets are empty" the boy looked like he was about to cry. I turned back to the older boy. He too was wearing clothes that were too small for him. Holes and tears were all over his clothes.he was very skinny and had raw marks all over his arms and legs. Both boys smelled like they hadn't been clean for a month. They both looked like they were scared but stubborn at the same time.