Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed.
She was fifteen, and she was out of here.
Claudia shook Mr. Tyler's hand, accepted the packet of papers he offered her, and tried not to start giggling. Because if she did, she would never be able to stop. This was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. It should not have worked, not in a million years.
But Ira had had a heart attack a couple months ago—fortunately not a serious one, but he and Rebecca had decided that they had to take some time off from fostering for awhile—and Claudia had ended up bouncing around some more searching for a new foster family. None of the first set had stuck, and Mrs. Campos had gone on maternity leave while she'd been in the respite home waiting for yet another placement, so when they finally found one she'd been moved by someone who didn't know her to a new home where nobody knew her. All it had taken was two minutes in the pathetically-unprotected social services computer system to get herself introduced as seventeen instead of fourteen, and now, on her fifteenth-slash-eighteenth birthday, her interim social worker was handing over her paperwork and declaring that she was free. Well, technically he was declaring that she'd aged out of the system and suggesting several transitional programs in the area that might be of help to her, but either way, it was completely insane.
Each of the Mitchells, including six year old Bobby, had come out to say goodbye, and she clutched her duffel tightly and did not laugh. Completely insane or not, her spur of the moment plan had worked, and she wasn't going to do anything that might spoil it now.
Oh, at some point someone was going to notice that something was wrong. Claudia didn't know much about the benefits offered to social workers, but Mrs. Campos would have to come back to work sometime, and when she did she'd probably notice that she was one case light. And Claudia had no doubt that there were paper files lying somewhere around the social services office that proved that she'd really been born three years later than their computer was now claiming. But by then she would be long gone, and as long as she didn't do anything completely stupid, she should be able to avoid getting caught.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay here for a little longer?" Mrs. Mitchell asked again, frowning up at the darkening sky. "I know you're eighteen now, and all excited to be out on your own, but we're not going to just slam the door in your face. Maybe you should stay until the weekend, and then we can help you find an apartment."
Claudia shook her head. It was unlikely that she'd be found out in the next three days, but she wasn't going to take the chance. "That's okay; I've got a place."
Mrs. Mitchell clucked her tongue and shook her head. "Well, if you're sure. But you've got our number. You call if you need anything, do you understand?"
"I will." Not. "Thank you. You too, Mr. Tyler."
Mr. Tyler nodded and turned for his car, and Claudia tucked the flyers and overstuffed manila envelope he'd given her into her duffel. She didn't think that there was anything he'd given her that she didn't already have copies of in her box—well, except for the list of resources for kids leaving foster care, anyway—but she wouldn't know until she had time to go through everything.
She watched as his car pulled away, and then she slung her duffel up over her shoulder and picked up her backpack with the rest of her clothes and books in it. "Goodbye, and thanks again," she said with a wave to the Mitchells before heading off down the street.
She was three blocks away and passing McDonalds before it occurred to her that she really didn't have a place to go, and she stopped in to get an ice cream and directions to the nearest motel. She probably should have done that before, but even though she'd known this day was coming, up until Mr. Tyler had showed up after dinner she hadn't really believed that it would work.
An ice cream cone and a cheap motel room—it would have to be cheap, she didn't have that much money on her—might not be the fanciest way to spend her birthday, but at least she would have privacy to go through her paperwork and plan out exactly what to do next. Some of it was obvious: find a place to rent, move her and Joshua's money to new accounts so she couldn't be traced that way, sign up for a GED exam so she could legitimately claim that she was done with school, look for a job where no one would ask too many questions….
She did have an ID that claimed she was eighteen instead of fifteen thanks to a couple of budding forgers at school, so that was a start. She'd traded one of her electronic codebreakers in return, and even if she did look a little younger than eighteen, hopefully the ID would be enough to convince people. The guys hadn't understood why she didn't want to be twenty-one like everyone else who wanted IDs did, but buying beer wasn't exactly her first priority right now. And the fact that she wasn't claiming to be twenty-one might be enough to keep anyone from looking at it too closely. The thing looked fine to her, but forgery wasn't exactly her specialty, and Tom had said specifically not to let any police officers see it.
She got a room at the motel two streets down without any questions being asked, but then, this didn't exactly look like the kind of place where people asked questions. At least the room was relatively clean.
Tomorrow…tomorrow she would do the bank stuff, and the apartment stuff. And maybe get herself a computer if there was enough money for it; that would be a nice birthday present. If not she could always build one—even if she did buy one she'd probably end up doing customizations, anyway—but that was the one thing that she really needed that she didn't already own. Once she had a computer, she'd go ahead and take herself out of the school system. High school wasn't as bad as middle school had been, even if her classes were still ridiculously easy, but if someone at social services did notice something was wrong, it would be way too easy to trace her that way.
She grinned to herself and put the chain on the motel room door. Hell, given that she'd figured out the secretary's password during the first week of school, if she had a computer she could just hack herself a real high school diploma and forget the GED exam. That might not be such a bad idea, now that she thought about it.
She dropped her bag of clothes on the floor and pulled the paperwork Mr. Tyler had given her and her box out of her duffel, dumping it all out on the bed. The pictures were set back in the box carefully; she didn't want to risk damaging them, but they weren't what she was interested in at the moment.
The first set of papers were social services resources...she hadn't thought so initially, but they might worth taking a look at. It wasn't like she was going to use their transitional housing or enroll in whatever the 'Independent Living Program' was—it sounded like foster-care-lite and specified people eighteen to twenty-one—but there might be a few useful suggestions about job hunting. She set it aside.
Bank paperwork, bank paperwork…apparently someone at the social services office had been getting account statements for her, which was nice of them, but there were no new accounts here that she hadn't already known about. A listing of the contents of a safety deposit box, that was different. Not all that useful since she had the key in her box and would be opening it herself in the next day or two, but at least she now knew where her birth certificate and social security card were. Not that she could use them, since they both referenced that pesky fact about her being fifteen, but it was good to know where they were. Apparently there was some jewelry and Joshua's ID stuff in there too...not so useful, but good to know.
This was an invoice for a storage compartment as well, and she spent a minute staring at the address. Nothing came to mind immediately, but maybe that was where the things from the house had gone after Mom and Dad had died. She'd definitely have to check that out. There was some crap about IQ tests, nothing there that she didn't already knew, her midterm report card from the school—she was lucky that he hadn't noticed that it said ninth grade—and not much else. That was okay, though. She could manage with what she had. She was free.
