7 children all runaway from their homes to find somewhere to start over, and when someone finds out that where they are, the kids work together to prove that their fine where they're at.
Chapter 1: Intro
Why does it have to happen this way?
My name is Elijah Jennings, I'm a seventeen year old orphan with one little brother and six sisters…well they're not my siblings…let me explain my story.
When I was three years old my dad left me and dear old mom to fend for ourselves, I haven't seen him since. Two years after that, when I was five, my mom died from a drug overdose. She was a good mom, I still don't know why they didn't let me go to her funeral, and since they couldn't find dear old dad, CPS put me in an orphanage. After about a year of suffering there, one night I ran away, away from all the pain and the memories of my home town of Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
At six years old, I finally found my new home in Cedar City, Utah, and more importantly, my new mom. I had ran away and ended up on Mrs. Clara's doorstep. That was eleven years ago and I've been there ever since.
Mrs. Clara Bruin is who everyone calls momma. She is a retired teacher and a neighborhood saint. Everyone loves her and accepted me the second I walked through Mrs. Clara's door.
Mrs. Clara's house is the biggest in the city. It's like one of the houses that you would see on Cribs, it was three stories high with seven bedrooms and six bathrooms and when I got there only two rooms were being used.
The first two years was with just the two of us was quiet, then as more kids ended up at what Mrs. Clara nicknamed the "Safe Runaway House" , she moved up to the third floor.
The first addition to our little family was Christine. She had been abused by her dad and her brothers since she was four years old after her mom had died (mysteriously of course). At seven she finally got fed up with it and ran away from Rocklin, California, to the safe runaway house in Cedar City. We were the only two kids in the house for almost 9 years after that.
Because we were runaways, momma was real careful about letting us out all the time because we didn't want her to get in trouble. We were home schooled while we lived with her. She used one of the three bedrooms on the second floor teach us. Our house was like no other. Christine and I got along great after a little while, and after two years I got used to calling Mrs. Clara momma and I called Christine my little sister even though she's older than me by two months.
We didn't get a new addition to the house until I was almost sixteen years old. I got another sister named Michelle, she was six years old, and the same age I was when I came here. She was abused and molested by her stepmother and her dad ever since her parents got a divorce a few years before. She was quiet at first, but after a couple of weeks she became the biggest ball of energy to come out of Medford, Oregon.
At the time that Christine and I were to have been in high school, we both would have been juniors. Six-and-a-half months previously we had begged Mrs. Clara to let us go to school, finally broke down and let us go.
After little Michelle got here our house filled up faster than water in a pool. Jamie was the first of the numerous and the only one that technically didn't runaway, but was kidnapped. Let me explain, well about six months after Christine and I started our junior year in high school some friends wanted to go to California for Christmas break with their family, we both reluctantly agreed, once we reached California we found out that Christine's father had had another child that was about seven years old. After several days watching the house we had found out he was beating her too, so one night we snuck into the house and brought Jamie out.
Almost six months later came Jasmine. At eight years old she was the ring leader of the little group that they had. The only child from the same state as the "Runaway Safe house", she got accustomed to living in Cedar City, only living the next city over in St. George, Utah. She made friends fast and I felt that for the first time since I first walked into Mrs. Clara's house I felt that my family was finally whole.
