Note to reader: I started this chapter the day after I published chapter 12. Considering Spring Break is next week, if I don't have this published in 3 days feel free to yell at me, lol. Hope you like it, Please Review!

The newsies belong to Disney; they obviously did not get my Christmas Wish….

"Marty, you have a visitor!" Drew called into the apartment as he stepped inside. Mary smiled at the sight of her frequently absent husband as he rushed over to embrace her. In the entryway stood a tall middle-aged man carrying a notebook and pencil who was studying me intently.

"You must be Marty," He assumed as he reached out to shake my hand. I smiled as I shook his hand back. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you; I have to say I've heard nothing but positive things about you."

"Marty, this is Brian Denton, The man who is writing the article for the paper." Drew informed me, obviously seeing my puzzled look. My smile widened, so this was that wonderful man that was helping me out so much?

Drew introduced Mary as his wife and asked him to have a seat. We all got settled in the living room before Denton opened up his notebook and looked at me.

"Now, Drew told me he informed you about the interview. So if you are fine with it I would like to ask you a few questions. You don't have to answer if it's too personal, are you ready?"

I nodded my head and looked at Drew and Mary, who both gave me reassuring smiles. Denton started out by asking me the basic information, like my full name and age. I relaxed, this wasn't as bad as Drew had implied. But then he started to ask me about my parents and the relationship I had with them. I rarely ever talked about my parents; whenever I did I always got emotional so I chose to just steer clear of the topic all together. I remembered what Drew had said about thoroughly answering the questions and took a deep breath.

"Their names were John and Anita Campbell. We, my parents and brother and I, didn't always get along, but we were family and we loved each other." I spoke slowly, reminiscing about the ten years of my life that I had parents.

I was a feisty and independent child, something that aggravated my mother to no end but that my father found amusing. I smiled, I could still hear my mother asking my father to get me under control, and in return all Papa did was laugh his hearty laugh. "She is only a little girl Ann," He would say. "Let her be carefree while she still can." Then Mother would sigh and give my father a slight smile and playfully slap him on the knee. Then she would turn to my older brother, Arnie, and tell him how grateful she was to have one placid child.

Arnie and I were very dissimilar children. Arnie took after my mother- quiet, easygoing, and serious. I took after my father more, being adventurous and wild. Eventually my mother broke my father in, of course, causing him to put his spirit at rest, and allowing him to develop a sense of responsibility. But the shine always stayed in his eyes, and he always encouraged me to be true to myself. Papa was my hero figure; I looked up to him and admired him like no other human being on earth. Arnie did too, I knew that he wanted to be just like him, but his conservativeness kept him restrained.

The fact that Arnie and I were so different often put us at each others throats. I would complain to my parents how Arnie never wanted to have any fun and Arnie would retaliate saying that my kind of fun would get them into trouble. Mama would defend Arnie and Papa would defend me sometimes causing strife among us. Nevertheless, no matter how the personalities clashed in our household there was never a doubt in my mind the love that filled our abode. Even though I was the cause of my mother practically pulling her hair our, I knew she loved me just as much as Arnie. I knew that Arnie cared about me too, even though we were so different, and he finally showed it when it was needed the most.

I was only nine years old when a teenaged Arnie shook me to wake up late one winter's night. He pleaded with me to wake up and get out of bed; he said that Mother needed us. I managed to get myself out from under the warm covers and stumble into the bedroom across the hall where my mother lay moaning. She was dripping with sweat, a side effect of the raging fever she was experiencing. She had been feeling unwell lately, but simply passed it on as a common cold and continued with her busy schedule. But it wasn't until that night that she realized it was something more serious, and by then it was too late. She died in the night clutching Papa's hand and hugging us to her.

"Martha, I am so sorry I criticized you in the past, but no matter what I said before I am proud of whom you are. Promise me you will never be anyone but the little girl I raised," she said to me in her final moments. I nodded my head with wide eyes. She turned to Arnie and said her final goodbyes to him, and lastly my Father. After she kissed him one last time her shaking stilled, and she was gone.

It was only a few weeks later that Papa started to show the same symptoms, but we couldn't afford the hospital, and Arnie woke me up to experience the last moments with my beloved Papa. I remember him pulling me into his arms, and even though it was unsteady it still managed to make me feel protected.

"Marty, promise me you will never settle for anything but what makes you happy. Never conform, Marty, and always remember that you are something special," He said through his chattering teeth. Then he turned to Arnie and made him promise to enjoy life too, and to become a man that will make him and Mother proud, and to do everything in his power to keep us together. He told Arnie that he was the man now, and Arnie promised wholeheartedly. That was the night that I became an orphan.

Arnie was serious about his promise to Papa in his last moments. He worked harder than anyone that I know in order to keep us afloat. Since Arnie wasn't old enough to inherit the apartment or any money he had to start from scratch. He looked deeper into the promise he made Papa, when he promised to be the man he also promised to ensure I had the best he could give me. This is why he is in prison now, because he took extreme measures to increase our monetary supply.

With the lack of a male guardian, or any guardian of age, they did the only thing they could think of, and that was putting me in foster care. But in my last promise to Papa I said that I would do nothing that would make me unhappy, and foster care made me unhappy. So that's why I kept running away, to the only place where I found happiness. The last promise Arnie made to Papa also influenced why he kept trying to escape, he promised he would do everything in his power to keep us as a family. So he broke through his obedient barrier and became a lot more like Papa, which is what he wanted in the first place.

"Oh my goodness," Mary said, causing me to break from my deep thought. I looked up and she had tears streaming from her eyes. Next to her was Drew sitting wide-eyed, surprised I had shared this much with a total stranger. I shot a look at Denton who was writing frantically on his notepad. This confirmed my fears; I had just said all of that aloud!

"That covered, a great deal of my questions, Marty," Denton said, a look of awe on his face. "I don't think a front page article should be any problem."