Greed, paranoia, and peace signs

Chapter 1

It all started with grease dripping off pizza. The adolescent mongrels ripping it to shreds with their bare hands, and the boy forced to fend for himself in the midst. The chaos of hungry teenagers subsided finally and our small hero strode across the dingy shag carpet to the dining room table covered in scattered pizza sauce stains making the scenery look like a war zone, to be frank it might as well have been. To his dispair there was only a lone piece of pepperoni left in the cardboard pizza box. His freckles seemed to wince as the amber ocean in his eyes squinted in disgust at the sight of it. His lips flashed a glimpse of a frown and up into the attic he went without dinner for the fifth time this week. Out of curiosity I walked up to the vacant pizza box and looked to see what was wrong with the pepperoni, nothing so I did what I expected the boy to do and popped it into my mouth. As I chewed I recall wondering what was wrong with the kid. That was my flaw and everyone elses that was the first mark against us to our end. Judgmentality.

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It was late, past curfew and I was the only one with the ticket out of here, a drivers liscense. So, naturally everyone swarmed my clunky old van to get out of the foster home and into trouble.

"yo! Nancy!" I heard behind me, this was not our hero, but he really needed to learn how to whisper. While I needed to learn how to think faster, before I knew it a glitter of keys were flying across the night air straight for a place between my eyes, luckily I was at least smart enough to dodge the glistening keys.

"Dammit Ryan!" I shouted, "what did I tell you about that nickname?" his pudgy lips were curling up into a menical grin and so were his eyes that I had to look down to see under the bill of his hat. Nancy was not and never will be my name. That was when I saw the boy out of the attic for the first time at night. I felt a cautious finger poke my right shoulder and when I turned aroung my keys were glinting in front of me. The hand that was holding them was our sheepish little hero who couldn't look me in the eyes when he squeaked out the word,

"here," I clutched on to the keys and my expression was probably wide eyed in utter shock this kid never broke rules, and kept to himself. He was definitely out of his comfort zone. He was way out of it when he was the last kid on my clunker of a van and everyone was wide eyed.

"where to?," I asked. He flinched when I asked like I had revved up a chainsaw and was wearing a goalie mask.

"uh I can wait until everyone else gets off," he responded, an actual sentence. He scratched the back of his head making the shaggy mop of black on his head swish. I nodded so the poor kid didn't have to say anything else and have a hard attack.

" I aint riding with that hippie freak!" my eyes shot back to the seats behind me and of course the poker faces in the back revealed nothing. Our hero took a carless shrug and sat on the floor between the fabulous and the fostered who snickered and hissed names that seemed to bounce off our hero with ease. He didnt care, so there I was wide eyed again as my eyes darted from the road to the rearview mirror to see the boy toying with the bracelets that coated his wrists casually, as if no one was shouting out every flaw He had throughout the night. Then we were alone. Awkward.

"so now can I ask where to?" I said I looked down at the clock, 11:30 this kid has rode for a half hour to places god knows where and he still had the patience to casually glance up and mutter,

"huh? Oh sorry, uh just ahead here please miss, um Nancy right?" it took all I could muster not to slap this kid so hard his freckles would fly off his face.

" no my name isn't Nancy,"

" but I heard that short kid call you-"

" my name. isn't. Nancy."

" oh," scilence. Awkward. Then The longest red-light I've ever encountered. "uh so what is your name then?" he mumbled, but I heard him.

"trixie," I answered and I'd hate to go through another fit of silence so I asked, "and you?"

"Oliver," he said with a rise in his voice he said " oh look right up ahead if you don't mind trixie," his face contorted into a wide mouthed grin revealing a gap in his teeth. That was when I saw the fire.