Dedicating Every Day to You

Chapter One

Emmy squeezes my hand. "It's not that bad, Kat. The world isn't going to end."
I laugh a little, a lock of hair falling into my face. "Are you sure, Emmy? Are you positive?"
She flings her arms into the air. "Kathryn, the red part of your popsicle fell off. It's okay. You won't die."

It's true, that I will be okay. It's just a popsicle, and cherry is my least favorite part. But I like ragging on my best friend. She has a sense of humor, and she's not the type to get annoyed with me easily.
"It's the principle of the thing. The loss of a popsicle is a travesty of epic proportions. A Greek tragedy, Emmy!"

Miss Falcon, our foster mom, walks over to where we sit, perched on the edge of the Diggs Park fountain. She's tall and pretty, with honey-blonde hair and big green eyes. She's wearing cat-eye glasses today, and she has a big smile. It is, after all, a special day today.

"What's a travesty, Kathie?" She's the only one allowed to call me Kathie.
"I dropped the top of my ice pop," I admit, giggling at the look on her face. "I'm just messing with Emmy."
"That sounds fun," Miss Falcon says, tucking one of my curls behind my ear. My hair is untamed, a giant waterfall of spiralling curls that I can't brush or braid or restrain in any way.

"If it wasn't your birthday, you'd be in the fountain," Emmy threatens, cracking her knuckles.
"You're all talk, Emilie," I say, licking the bottom of my popsicle. "All talk and no action." I'm mature now that I've turned thirteen, so I stick my blue tongue out at her.

"Call me that again, I dare you." Emmy hates her real name. She's Emilie Serena Etienne LaRoux. She flew here from France with Miss Falcon when she was only seven.

See, Miss Falcon goes around the world taking children out of bad situations and bringing them here to America for a fresh start and a good life. I've been in the foster care system my whole life, so I'm familiar with this set-up.

I don't have a tragic story like you'd think. My mom was a teenager, so she gave me up when I was an infant. I've stayed with some really nice people, but Miss Falcon is my favorite. Emmy has been with Miss Falcon for six years now, but I just came last year.

"Okay, Emilie Serena Etienne LaRoux," I yelp, then jump off the rim of the fountain and run into the statue garden that we're not supposed to climb on but everyone does anyway. I scramble up a statue of Daveed Diggs, who the park was named for.

"Come down here and me battre comme un homme*!" Emmy shouts from the bottom of the statue. I laugh and climb higher, the height filling me with happiness. I like to be as close to the sky as I can get. Miss Falcon calls me her child of the sun, and I guess that's me.

Today has been the best birthday ever. We all walked around Jackson (our little town) together, and then came to my favorite park and got ice cream. My foster brothers are playing in the splash pond, and Livv, our seventeen year old foster sister, is reading Pride and Prejudice under the biggest tree.

"I can't vous battre comme un homme, silly. I'm not a man!" I stick my tongue out and try to climb higher. Only one problem- there is no "higher". I'm balancing on the tip-top of the statue, and my sneakers aren't the best for balance. Plus, I'm still holding my popsicle in one hand.

I'm on one toe, wobbling and grabbing for anything to hold me. But there's nothing for me to hold up here, and with a terrifying dropping sensation in my stomach, I free-fall.

Martin is in the overhanging tree, and he reaches out and grabs my arm. My toes are dangling three feet over the hard ground, and if my foster brother hadn't been there to catch me, I would have had a birthday broken arm. I already broke a finger on my twelfth birthday.

Martin and Jacob pull me up into the tree, and then I shimmy down until Livv grabs my ankles and sets me down firmly on the ground.

That's what a family does. We catch each other when we fall. We become each other's best friends, support crews, therapists, and pet peeves all rolled into one. But the sad thing is that I know that these people, Miss Falcon and Emmy and Livv and Martin and Jacob, are never going to be permanent for me.

*Fight me like a man