"No! Stop! Mommy! Daddy!"

I felt myself being shaken awake with the names and faces echoing in my head. It was Gwen, my best friend. Um.Maybe I should explain more. My name is Rina. I'm 16 right now, but at the time this story began, I was fourteen. I have long red hair, brown eyes, and freckles. Gwen, as I said, is my best friend. I don't know why we clicked so well. I mean, we're total opposites! But we did. I'd known her for as long as I could remember, since the day I came to the foster home. We grew up together, until about a year before, when Gwen was adopted. Anyway, Gwen's the kind of girl who gets straight A's. She's into poetry, art, and music. I like music too, but I'm more of the athletic type. I run track, play football, hockey, tennis, volleyball, and of course, my all-time favorite: basketball. And take my word for it.when they dubbed me the "Tomboy with 'Tude," they knew what they were talking about. Basically, here are the three most important rules to survival when you're around me: 1-Don't ever call me Red or Freckles. 2-Don't say the name "Magneto" around me. 3- Don't mess with my friends. Break any of those rules, and I have a tendency to go berserk.

Anyway, back to the story.I felt myself being shaken awake. It was Gwen, my best friend. "Rina, are you okay? You were screaming like a banshee! Bad dream?"

"Yeah," I said. My dreams were one of the few things that I didn't even share with Gwen. "Hey.what are you doing here, anyway?"

"My new mom and dad.God, I love those words! Sorry.my new mom and dad drove me over to say hi to all my old friends. This is so much better than the phone conversations, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I wasn't jealous of her or anything. Just because I was considered "unadoptable" and she had this really great new family didn't mean I was jealous. I was happy for her! Really! But in case you're wondering, I was "unadoptable" for two reasons. The first was that I was too old. People usually didn't want to adopt a 14-year-old. The second reason was that I had an attitude, and that was fine with me. If they had a problem with my attitude, tough. They're not the kind of family I'd want anyway.

At least, that's what I tried to convince myself, but it wasn't enough to keep the tears back at night. I mean, at least the other kids at the foster home knew a little about their past. I just walked out of the woods one day, according to Jade. She ran the foster home, and she said that there was no indication of who I was or who my parents were, except for a little necklace I was wearing with the name "Katrina" on it. People started calling me Rina once they got to know me, but the circumstances of how I ended up in the foster home was kept between me, Jade, and the state. No one knew anything about me, and no one had the guts to come up to me and ask, because I am not ashamed to say that I tend to let my anger take control once in a while.

"So what's been going on in your world, Rina?" asked Gwen.

I shot her a glare, and said, "You lived here for ten years. What do you think?"

She laughed a little. "Don't worry, Red. You'll get out of here soon enough."

She's just lucky that she was Gwen, because if she was anyone else, I'd have knocked her clear across the room. "Why would I want to get out? I have a reputation here. I may not be too popular with the girls, but I get along all right with the boys next door."

Gwen cracked a smile. "Of course you do! You fit right in with them because you could batter any one of them senseless if you wanted to. That's how boys associate with one another."

"Well if you'll excuse me, Gwen, I have to get dressed, because I'm playing basketball with the guys today."

"Typical," she sighed, walking out of the room.

I pulled on my red shorts and my red-and-yellow basketball jersey. Red and yellow were my favorite colors, and it even had my lucky number on it: 14. I wore it for luck in the basketball game that day, but I had no idea just how much luck it'd bring me.