"Well now, Frank, who is this... young man? What happened to him?" a woman with curly, short blonde hair asked. She was wearing thesame dress that any old housewife would. She glanced up for a quick second at Johnny, but returned to gazing at the chicken from outside the oven.

"Oh, Veronica," the guy who had helped Johnny, Frank, replied. "This is.. eh...hm. Did I get your name?"

"Johnny."

"Yes. Johnny. He was sitting on our front porch. Poor boy doesn't know where his parents are, and he's hurt pretty badly."

"Such a strange looking boy..."

"Veronica."

"Oh, I know. I'm just saying, if you're going to take a kid off the streets under your wing, make it one that doesn't look like a living corpse!"

Johnny was hurt by that comment, and it showed in his eyes. Veronica's tone softened. "I'm sorry... uhm, Johnny. Frank will get you cleaned up and we'll find you something to wear. Once you boys are done doing that, you can have some dinner. Chicken!"

"Sorry about my wife, Johnny. She's not like that. Actually, she's one of the sweetest people out there," Frank explained to Johnny, digging through his closet to find something that would fit the rail-thin boy. They had just finished taping up Johnny's hand, so tightly that it could barely move. But it was stopping the blood from pouring out, which was good. Frank settled on a white t-shirt, and some old, black athletic training pants. Johnny raised an eyebrow, eyeing the horrendous outfit, but taking it into his arms anyway.

"It's fine," he replied. "I'm used to getting... looks."

"Hmm, yeah, well, that is the spare bedroom. You can change in there!" Frank pointed down the hall.

"Thank you."

It was a small room. It had a twin bed and a mirror, and that was about it. The walls were painted an emotionless white, and the carpet was the same color. In fact, the only color in the room came from the dark, mahogany-stained wooden furniture that sat untastefully around the room.

Taking his shirt off to replace it with the white one, Johnny did notice how thin he had gotten, as he checked himself in the mirror. The shirt was a few sizes too big for him, but at least it was something new. He could have mistaken himself for a corpse, too. The pants fit nicely, even if they weren't "his style". As of then, his boots stayed on. He looked in the full-length mirror and saw how horrible the outfit was, and laughed.

It was the first time he laughed in more than a week.

"So, ehm, JOHNNY." Veronica picked a few green beans off her plate and moved them to the other side, making room for another spoonfull of mashed potatoes. "You don't go to school?"

Johnny nodded 'no', attempting to grasp the fork in his taped-up hand.

"You should start going."

No response. He was too busy trying to get that fork... no one bothered to help the kid. Everyone stared down at their food.

"How would you feel about going to school?" Frank asked. Johnny shrugged and looked up from the fork, to see Frank staring at him with wide eyes. "It'd give you something to do. Why don't we get you settled in?"

"Okay." Johnny actually preferred to leave immediately, but it seemed like there wasn't a way to say that to the man. He followed him through the hall, and into the room that he had changed in before. He hopped onto the bed --it was more squishy than any other bed he had ever felt.

"Well, goodnight. Veronica'll be up to wake you in the morning, if you're up to going to school."

"Mmhm..." Johnny had almost nodded off already, as Frank turned off the light and shut the door.

Now he lay in the bed, and what was there to do? He hadn't slept in a week. Sleeping was just not in his nature.

In the hall, he heard Frank and Veronica mumbling-yet-yelling, something parents tend to do when they don't want their kids to hear an argument (yet, they always seem to).

"You can't just let a stray kid stay at our house--" that was obviously Veronica.

"He was sitting on our front porch. What do I do, shoo him like some sort of raccoon?"

"... Yes!"

"Why can't you just give him a chance? You didn't even meet the kid before you told him he was funny looking!"

Johnny listened for a while longer, then looked out the window.

It was dark enough to see some of the stars out. He heard that in some places, it gets so dark that there are millions of little white dots in the sky. His father told him about some things called "shooting stars" that were like little stars, except they shotinto the air like fireworks.

"Ahh, but you can only see those kinds of beauties in the woodlands. With all those ferocious bobcats," Johnny thought to himself, mimicking his father.

Could you really see that many stars? It seemed impossible to Johnny, when all he could see from his window were a couple dim lights twinkling in the purple sky.

If it weren't for those bobcats... for sure, Johnny'd take himself out to the woodlands to see one of those shooting stars.