In the beginning, things were okay.

Mr. Gordfrey gave Carmine a livable room and fed him three square meals a day. But, Carmine didn't feel too much at home with him. His foster father was too busy working to make time for him. He never stopped working to play a board game with him, never stopped to listen to his music, and never read to him at bedtime, saying he was too old for bedtime stories.

And to make things worse, Gordfrey was found to have a drinking problem he'd fallen right back into after the doctor confirmed he'd quit, only for him to start again a few weeks later.

The social workers took Carmine out of Gordfrey's custody, and brought him to a new foster family in the form of a Rodian woman and Twilek man, the Kirans. According to their background check, they seemed like a lovely couple. Mr. Kiran was a professional chef at a restaurant, and Mrs. Kiran was a children's dentist.

For a few weeks, things went nicely at Carmine's new foster home. His foster mother gave him stickers to reward him for flossing well every night, and Mr. Kiran made great lunches for Carmine to bring to his new school and gave him a few lessons on how to cook too. Shurra fruit crumble was his favorite.

But then one day, the restaurant Mr. Kiran worked for went out of business due to an infestation, and he and his wife had to give Carmine back to the social workers when they began facing financial difficulties of their own.

So, he got placed with another family. This time, it was a human family with two children not much younger than Carmine. But... Carmine had to sleep on the couch and didn't get the same things as the biological children did. As it turned out, they were just in it for the money they got that was supposed to be to take care of him.

The same thing happened with Carmine's next four foster families. No one wanted to keep Carmine as part of their family. They just saw him as a meal ticket.

And his latest foster family was the worst of all.

This foster family made Carmine sleep in a closet and forced him to cook and clean for them like Cinderella.

Carmine cried as he was locked in his closet room one night. He couldn't take it anymore!

"Okay, Fluffy. I'm done." Carmine said. "I'm gonna find my own place. Grandma didn't raise me to let people treat me like this!"

Carmine cast a spell to jam the lock and snuck out of the apartment and ran off into the night.

Carmine ran and ran for a long time and looked around for any place he could possibly get a job. But given that he was only thirteen, that didn't open a lot of doors. But, he had to try something. He didn't have a ton of money, and he was definitely too old to begin Jedi training now.

He asked around at different places if they were hiring any help. Restaurants, libraries, shops. But every shopkeeper said he was too young to work any of the jobs.

"I know I'm young, but I'm hardworking and responsible." Carmine begged.

"Come back when you're older, kid." said the last shopkeeper Carmine met as he was escorted out.

Carmine sighed. He was getting really frustrated. He thought of only one way he could earn some money now.

Carmine placed a cup down and took out his guitar. He'd seen musicians playing out on the streets before, and people gave them money. So, why couldn't he do the same?

Carmine held his guitar and began playing some chords on the strings. He began to play the melody to his family's lullaby, and tried to sing it too. But when he saw people looking at him, his throat closed up. And he closed his mouth too, but kept playing his song, and he played it beautifully.

People clapped as he finished his song and put credits in his cup.

"Thank you." Carmine said.

"Again!" said a little kid.

Carmine smiled. His first fan.

"Okay." He said. And he started the lullaby again.

People gave Carmine money each time he played another song. He mostly played the melodies to some songs he and Miranda used to sing together, and occasionally, when kids came, he played funny little songs like Old McDonald and Pop Goes the Weasel. Parents seemed to like seeing this young boy making their little ones happy.

"Do you happen to go to Melody Academy?" asked one parent.

"No." Carmine said. "But do you know where I can find this place?"

Following some directions given to him, Carmine used some of the money he'd earned to take the bus pod to the Arty Wood District where the best professional artists on Coruscant, and sometimes best in the Galaxy learned and grew as performers.

And that was when Carmine came across a huge blue building with crystal windows and music notes on the walls. At the front door, he saw a big sign in sparkling blue and white letters that spelled M.E.L.O.D.Y. Academy, and a smaller sign underneath showed that Melody was an acronym for the Musical Education League of Dynamic Youths.

Carmine walked into the door and looked around. It looked beautiful on the inside. There were portraits of past students on the walls dancing, playing music, or singing.

He looked around the halls and could see in some open classroom doors. He could see students learning to dance, playing in a little orchestra, singing in a choir, practicing vocal exercises, and learning the history of all kinds of music, dance, and instruments from all different places.

Carmine was astonished by all these things and started to think... maybe he could go to school here.

Carmine ran into a human janitor who was guiding a bunch of droids cleaning the hallways.

"Hi, excuse me, Mr. janitor. Can you tell me where I can find who's in charge of the school?" Carmine asked.

"You lost, little guy?" the janitor asked.

"I don't know." Carmine shrugged. "It's kind of a long story. But, I was hoping I could come to school here."

"Where are your parents? Are they here with you?"

Carmine looked down and felt tears come to his eyes. That answered the janitor's question.

"Kid, don't cry." said the janitor. "Do you have a foster family anywhere?"

"I did. But I ran away from them."

Carmine explained to the janitor, whose name was Jakobi, that he'd been through so many foster homes, and they all gave him back after a few weeks or were in it just for the money, and that his last one was the worst and he'd been trying to find work, but no one would hire him.

The janitor looked at Carmine and felt terrible.

"What's your name, kid?" asked Jakobi.

"Carmine. Carmine Jinn."

"How good are you at cleaning?"

"I know how to deal with tough stains and organize too."

"You know, I've been looking to get a cleaning assistant. Think you'd be interested?"

"Would I ever."

So, Jakobi brought it up with Headmistress Mozarta, and she was okay with allowing Carmine to be an assistant. But, of course, she pointed out that they needed to speak with CPS about taking Carmine in. For the time being, Carmine was allowed to sleep in the faculty/staff dormitory.

And a couple weeks later, Carmine was under Melody Academy's care as the new cleaning assistant.

The job seemed simple enough. All he had to do was small cleaning jobs Jakobi gave him, work with the droids sometimes, clean the droids, and make sure the trash was taken out and sorted through regularly. It wasn't the most pleasant job, but he was able to earn himself a little money, enough to eat, and a safe place to sleep. But, because he wasn't a student at the academy, he had to do homeschooling in the school library at night and in between cleaning assignments.

Jakobi was a good boss too. He always praised Carmine for his work as a cleaning assistant, but the students were not as kind.

Every day, some mean kids would mess with Carmine by swiping his glasses and calling him names like Cleaner Kid, Four-Eyes, and Blind Bat Cleaner Boy. That last one wasn't even clever. Luckily, he was usually saved by a teacher. The last thing Carmine wanted was to have to resort to magic. But he still practiced whenever he could. And all the while, he never took off his locket or stopped practicing his guitar. He still dreamed of being a great performer someday.

Carmine continued to get better at his cleaning job as time went on. Before he knew it, almost a year had gone by, and he would be fourteen soon.

Throughout all that time, he'd gotten to watch as students learned and performed so many feats of music. He saw all sorts of genres of music. Country music, pop music, classical, autotune remixes, rap, musical theater, opera, and so many more. Lots of dance forms too. Ballet, hula, belly dancing, hip-hop, salsa, merengue, interpretive dance, tap, and so many more. And Carmine couldn't remember seeing so many musical instruments in one place anywhere else.

He wanted to be a student at Melody Academy so bad, but with tuition costs, there was no way he'd be able to afford it on his own, and he doubted his guardians would be able to do so either. So, it seemed all he could do was dream.