Chapter Three
Not Quite Safe

Rob sighed a bit as a car horn honked loudly out the window. Glancing at the bed across the dim room, he saw that his roommate was still sound asleep. He had yet to sleep much at night, perhaps since was definitely still not over the anxiety of actually leaving Brooklyn- and especially his "home". Perhaps he never would be.

Rob frowned a bit as he turning over in his bed toward the window. His friends on the Ghostwriter team had not tried to contact him again that day, besides a brief message from Jamal, which he was glad for.

Even so, he cringed some. Knowing them, they would attempt to go through many detailed notes and found out what they could about the information he had accidently given them- including that he was using another name- and would attempt to locate the center.

He sure hoped not. The center was somewhere in Connecticut, and in a small town, but other than that, he really did not know anything himself. With the right clues, though, Ghostwriter could go straight through locks, doors, and even floors that would usually keep out unwanted intruders and find the information the team was after.

They could very well figure him out, very easily.

And then . . .

Back to the pain, and a lot of it.

Rob then forcefully tried to think of something else, and came up with a memory from many years ago from when he and Jason were still living together. He had gone to get a drink of water, when he had misjudged where he was going, and had whacked his head on the wall of the door frame pretty hard. His impulse was to yell out loud from the pain, but had not wanted to wake his father, who had just returned the day before after several delays from his latest deployment and was slightly in a sour mood.

Rob had managed to wobble to the homemade "tent" he and Jason had made of chairs, stools, and blankets on the floor. Amazingly, his father had actually allowed them to sleep in it in the first place.

Somehow, Jason had chanced to look out of the tent at the same time that he neared the door flap. His older brother had carried him on his back inside their tent, and had held him for quite a while on the mess of blankets and pillows inside. Even though Jason could not talk, Rob had definitely known that his brother meant only comfort. He had then produced a thin, but bright lantern flashlight, and they had both happily signed, told goofy Jedi stories, and made odd hand "puppets" with the lighting. Since they were in the tent, there was not even any light that had shown through the door.

His head had seemed to hurt less and less the entire time that they were awake together. Maybe it had done that, but being with Jason had made it less, somehow, even with it hurting.

Rob closed his eyes. How he wished that Jason, his older brother, his friend, was here with him. Jason would definitely understand that he did not want to go back home, unlike the team. He would understand, even if he never told him the actual reason . . .

A bit later, he managed to fall into an uneasy sleep, with an odd dream to go along with it.

He was following a couple of other foster kids through the cafeteria doorway. For some reason, the other kids were sitting there, without any trays. He stared a bit, confused. Was there a sort of meeting that he had not known about?

Rob sat down on an empty seat by his roommate, still baffled. A policeman was talking to one of the watchers by their usual wall. The officer then turned around, and Rob flinched a bit as strode purposely in his direction. He stopped right beside him, and then began to speak, regardless of the kids around them.

"I heard you have a different name," he said deliberately.

Rob's eyes widened. He then berated himself for his stupidity. Clearing his face, he spoke in a level tone.

"No, sir," he said.

The police only doubtfully looked at him. "You sure?" he asked.

Rob nodded, hoping that he looked confident. "Yes, sir. My name is Richie Branson."

The policeman then smiled, and not in a friendly way. "I have proof that you're not."

To Rob's horror, the man reached in a pocket of his vest and took out Rob's most recent military ID. He smiled again as Rob gasped.

"I don't think you have a twin," he stated triumphantly.

"Where did you get that?" Rob asked, trying to keep his breathing steady. Maybe he was being stupid in being so bold to a policeman, but he did wonder about it.

The man smirked, and turned around. He gestured to two people he had not seen in the room beforehand, standing two tables away. His parents.

"From them."

Rob gasped as his "parents" came nearer. They were smiling, but he knew that that was fake. As soon as he went back to his house, the supposedly kind gesture would instantly change.

He looked to his roommate beside him, but the tan-haired boy was just playing yet another water game.

"Can you help me out here?" he asked desperately.

The boy merely raised an eyebrow. "We weren't bothering each other, remember?" he said, and went back to trying to get several tiny balls through a miniature basketball hoop.

Rob then stood and tried to dash away, but his parents followed him. He burst out of the cafeteria and went sprinting down the hallway, cutting around a corner. Rob then gasped as he saw his older brother standing near the left wall.

Jason seemed to sense his approach and turned around. "Why are you here?" his brother asked, his hands flying. "Mom and Dad said you're not at home."

"No time for that now," Rob answered grimly in the same language, feeling a huge pang at actually seeing his brother after so long, but having to go away from him again.

Jason looked confused, but Rob ran back in the direction that he came. If he could lead his parents away from Jason, his brother would be safe. Cutting through another hallway, he looked back to see his father running after him, with his mother close behind. If they caught him, there would surely be a whole bunch of pain again- but at least it would not be Jason on the receiving side.

He ran through hallways, through random stores and school classrooms, throughout all of Connecticut, all the while with his parents coming closer-

Rob suddenly woke up as he heard a familiar pounding on the door, as well as the same voice from the morning before shouting at them to get to breakfast soon. He lay there, breathing slightly heavily. His oblivious roommate went out of the room after a few minutes and slammed the door. Only then did Rob sit up, still feeling a bit shaky.

He was still in the center. His parents were far away, all the way back in Brooklyn, and Jason was safe in Washington, D.C. He was away from his brother, and Rob truly wished the opposite, but at least Jason was safe, and would stay that way.

. . . He hoped.

Rob stood awkwardly next to some foster kids next to his age outside, waiting for a school bus. It was quite odd, as he had never done that before. Always, his mother or someone else had driven him (and Jason, before he started attending the deaf school) away from the base, unless the school was right on it. If the school on the base was close enough, then he could even just walk to it.

Public school buses went a lot of places, but they were not permitted to enter a high security military base on a general basis.

Rob hoped that he would get a seat on the bus to himself. He actually did not know what school buses were really like. Rob had gleamed a small amount of information from books, but there were some "facts" that seemed to be rather opinionated.

He glanced around the group, glad again that at least he did not have to worry about the rude teen that had shoved him his first full day at the center. From what he heard, the older boy had tried to get past a supposedly "lazy" guard, and had been caught soon afterward. He had not been seen ever since.

Rob looked around again at the kids around him, nervously wondering if they would start to fight with no guards watching them. Several younger boys from the center were with them, obviously used to the routine as they just mostly started to run around in circles, in an impromptu game of tag. Rob cringed a bit. Hopefully no one would start a game of "steal the backpacks", as he had heard some civilian classmates complain that had occurred at a bus stop one time.

He gripped the straps of his new backpack (the public school had insisted that he have another one instead the one that he had brought. Maybe they did not trust the condition, for some odd reason), as he looked around to his left, seeing his roommate in the foster center. Dustin just stood there, turned toward the general view of the houses on the road. He really did hope that the tan-haired boy would turn out not to be troublesome at all.

There was the sound of two pairs of footsteps coming toward the group, amongst the chattering around him. Panicking a bit, Rob swerved around, then sighed in relief. It was only two girls that looked to be in some grade in middle school. The one on the left, with curly black hair was frowning a bit, while the short-haired blonde seemed rather nervous.

The black-haired girl rolled her eyes. "Gee whiz, Chelsie," she said in a quiet voice that still could be heard. "It told you before. There's nothing to worry about them."

The blonde winced. "But they're foster kids, Heather," she complained, clearly not convinced, as she nervously glanced around. "They could do lots of things."

"Really?" Heather replied, huffing a bit.

Several kids from the center looked curiously at them, and Chelsie made a slight squealing noise and hid her face behind her hands. The dark-haired girl sighed.

"Look, Chelsie, I've gone on this bus route ever since kindergarten. No one has done anything but try to steal my backpack once or twice" –Rob gripped his pack straps even tighter- "and a few times someone tripped me, and that was quickly over with when one of the other kids told them to knock it off. Really, just think of these guys like usual people."

Rob cringed a bit at that, remembering the amount of rudeness he had witnessed at the center at times. At least no one had shoved him today, though, and even for the past three days. (Yet?)

The girl continued. "The people at school have actually done the same exact things as these kids, anyway. So anyway, if you don't bother them, chances are, they won't bother you. You know?"

Chelsie had not moved her hands from her face. "No," she squeaked. "No one told me that I would be riding with foster kids to my new school."

Heather laughed a bit. "Oh, come on," she cajoled. "Think- usual people. People that are just going to do whatever they want- 'cept boing on pogo sticks to school, really. They've got backpacks and everything."

"Then why did the school warn me about them?"

"That was just probably since you asked what that 'huge building' was over on West Street. You told me about that, remember? I think that was just for information, not a warning."

"But I didn't know it was a foster center!"

One of the boys from the center leaned over towards the girls. "Sure, we all have large teeth, and turn into wolves regularly. Didn't you hear about that?"

Chelsie squealed and covered her face again, while the boy laughed. Rob heard a couple of discontent mutterings around him, worried that the new girl might reveal what they were at school, while some others just rolled their eyes.

"Sheesh, you're actually worried about that?" said a boy with red hair and thick glasses. "Kind of hard to run off from the center, unless you want to go to a detention one."

There was a bit of tittering, along with Chelsie looking even paler. Rob was glad when he heard a noise slightly similar to a large truck just then. He looked to see a large vehicle coming toward them that was actually mostly yellow-orange in color, not just yellow, and had a blinking white-ish light on the top. Maybe the latter was for night, like planes in the sky?

On the top front of the bus, some lights suddenly came on alternately, turned orange, then red as it stopped nearby them. Rob blinked as a stop sign then actually come out toward them. He had not read a book that mentioned that part before, as well as the other lights.

Rob saw his roommate follow the other kids onto the bus, his face neutral. Clearly, he had done that many times before. A bit shakily, he followed the last of the group onto the bus, wincing a bit as a younger boy bumped into him on the small, black striped steps onto the vehicle.

Rob then inwardly scoffed. Here he was, scared about a bus ride. How nuts was that? (Then again, maybe he was attempting to not think about "home" . . .)

He stepped onto similar flooring between the many brown seats, and nearer the noisy chattering of many students around him. Perhaps there were a lot of people that the bus picked up, and not just people at the center. Chelsie was still looking quite nervous in a seat near the middle, and his roommate was in a seat by himself a few rows back, looking out the small paned windows.

Rob chose an empty seat behind him, hoping that Dustin would not complain. He felt the slightly odd sensation of the bus vibrating underneath him after he sat down, until the doors up front closed and the vehicle began to move, slowly at first, then faster. It was rather odd, riding without a seat belt, but as he looked around, no one else seemed to mind. Rob then looked out the small window. It was kind of neat, seeing a view that was higher than being in a car. He supposed it might be interesting do this every school day.

He sighed a bit in relief. Despite the loud chattering around him- and some shouting- riding a school bus did not seem to be too bad. Jason would grin when he learned that Rob had actually ridden a bus-

Rob then winced hugely. He had forgotten for a tiny bit that was not writing to his older brother currently. Hopefully he could procure some stamps and envelopes from somewhere at some point . . . Why had he not brought any with him? It now even seemed worth it to just hope that no one would guess where he was with the postage markings- though he still was not quite yet sure.

Feeling rather unsettled, Rob sat in silence for the rest of the ride, until the bus stopped in front of a one story building, though it was long in length. He blinked a bit, still surprised even after Mr. Willowby had personally driven him here yesterday to apply for school.

The town seemed to be much smaller than Brooklyn, and so therefore, such a large building with multiple stories was probably not needed. Rob frowned a bit. There being less students in school meant that there was more of a chance that the teachers could pay attention to him, and he could be caught . . .

Nervously, he followed the other middle school students off the half-empty bus (the younger students had gotten off earlier at another school), near many other buses also in a diagonal angle in the parking lot. It was like a waiting area for the buses, in a way, and was definitely a different sight as he gazed at the many yellow-orange vehicles, all labeled with different numbers on their sides and front.

Rob followed the crowd inside of the building, quite glad when he had found the office nearby. One of the grown-ups at the foster home had explained where it was. He was a little confused as they had seemed to not think that he would just not attend class, like some foster kids might do, then remembered the harsh security and sternness of the guards at the center. Being reported by the teachers seemed like an unpleasant thing to do. Maybe they had just deemed him as someone that would not need to be personally almost dragged to their first classroom, though. Perhaps even Mr. Willowby had had a say in it.

He almost smiled a bit, remembering the older man's gentle smile and pleasant greeting just that morning, so different than the stern gaze of most every grown-up in the foster home. He then took a deep breath before entering the school office.

Rob stood a bit awkwardly in front of a nearly full Math classroom. The teacher, Mr. Horkinger, introduced him to the class.

"So we have a new student, Richie Branson," the teacher said.

Rob noticed that none of the students really looked too interested- or maybe that was just him hoping that it was that way.

"So we welcome Richie to our numbers, and I'm sure that he will be a fine asset to the class."

The teacher then pointed to an empty seat near the middle of the room. "So, Richie, you can take a seat right there," he said.

Rob quickly nodded, holding some borrowed binders and notebooks from a small supply in a school closet somewhere. He sat down, feeling slightly embarrassed by the introduction, but also glad that at least his supplies were new, as opposed to used. He really did not want to have to write his school notes in some half-filled notebook that could even have random scribbles on some later pages.

The teacher went on with the lesson for the day. Even though it was a new place, Rob was actually glad that he was in school. He had tested for a mostly average seventh grade classes, but with a high aptitude to succeed. Rob knew that he had missed a lot of things in the previous couple months of school in Brooklyn, but that was due to his situation at home, and he had not been able to concentrate enough to get higher grades there.

Here, though, there was no "home" to go to. He did not have to worry about that. Even if he did get caught in some random fight in the center, his parents were not there.

He smiled some. It was a humongous relief. Somehow, even with the constant threat of other people nearby possibly figuring out about him, for this, he did not have to worry anymore in school anymore. He had not even really thought about that being a relief once away from Brooklyn.

Rob listened to the lesson, trying to take some notes. With some excitement, he realized that for the first time for a while, he actually could concentrate enough and understood the lesson that the teacher was giving. Even though it was not an accelerated class, he could actually do well in school again.

Shoving aside random thoughts of being found out- as well as the new girl's terror at the bus stop- he reveled in the relative peace. Both at here and the especially at the center, he had had the same feeling. He was free.

"Hey, Richie!"

Rob turned to someone behind him to see some Asian kid with black hair rushing toward him in one of the school's many hallways. At least he had remembered his name when one teacher had actually called on him, and also now. Perhaps he was getting used to "being" the unknown person named Richie Branson after all . . . but that definitely did not mean that he wanted to casually talk to other students at school.

He then turned back around, playing the same game that he had played many times after moving to a new military base- ignoring whoever wanted to talk to him, hoping that they would eventually just leave him alone. Hopefully this person would actually leave him alone, instead of shoving him or some other rude attack like the rude older teen had done at the center.

The boy came closer. "Hey, Richie. Richie," he said persistently. He came up beside him, and chatted, seeming to ignore Rob's silence.

"So where are you from, anyway?" the boy asked. "None of the teachers had said, unlike they had with a few other new students. They actually don't with most people. Maybe a lot of new students just don't want to tell where they're from. I don't really get that, but whatever."

The boy annoyingly kept on, as Rob tried to remember the directions to the Social Studies room for his third period class. Surely he did not have the same class next as the talkative boy.

"We get a lot of new students here," the kid babbled on. "I'm not sure why, but maybe it's just a transfer area where people's parents have a job for a while, and then get transferred to another place at some point. There have actually been eight new students within the past six months."

Rob ignored the chatty student as he finally admitted to himself that he could not remember where the classroom was, and took out a school map that he had put in one of his binders.

The Asian boy came up closer to him. "What're you looking at?" he asked him curiously.

Rob finally looked up at the boy again. "Look, I just want to be left alone," he stated firmly.

The boy's face fell. "Oh," he said, a bit subdued. "I just thought that, you know, since you're new, you might want a friend or something. Someone that already knows a lot about the school, and the town, if you're new here." He smiled a bit awkwardly.

Rob sighed. "Okay, I appreciate that, but really, I'm fine by myself."

He turned the map around, wondering where the room was among the many scattered items on the map. Finally giving up, he tried to remember the directions again after stuffing the map back into the binder.

Rob went down the hallway that he had been walking down earlier. The boy still followed him. "You sure you don't want help with anything?" he asked.

Rob sighed, and stopped walking. "Do you happen to know where Mr. Langden's Social Studies classroom is?" he asked resignedly.

He could not believe he was actually asking a student for help, of all things. Before, in other schools, it had usually been a random teacher, or some other grown-up nearby. Maybe actually having a group of friends back in Brooklyn had even slightly changed that resolve for new places. He hoped that boy would not think it an invitation to become friends or anything like that.

The boy's face brightened. "Sure!" he stated, smiling friendlily. "It's just two hallways to the left. The door is three doors to the right once you get in the hallway, right by the door with all of the clouds on it."

Rob nodded without returning the gesture. "Thanks," he said briefly, and took off at a faster pace.

The boy still walked beside him again. "I'm Ryan Akino, by the way," he said. He sort of hesitated before asking the next question. "Would you want to have lunch with me and my friend?" he asked.

Rob shook his head. "No, thanks," he replied curtly, turning to head into another hallway.

Ryan shrugged. "All right, then," he responded, not seeming offended by the refusal. "We always sit on the right side of the cafeteria, three tables down from the right side door nearest the office, in case you change your mind."

Rob frowned. Thankfully, the boy finally took off in another direction at the end of the hallway. He was able to find the Social Studies room just fine, thanks to the student's directions. Rob sat down in a random empty seat in the back, once the teacher had said to just sit anywhere. Hopefully there would not be too many people that wanted to be really friendly. He already had friends in Brooklyn- plus Ghostwriter . . . at least as Rob Baker, anyway. Also, there was Jason, his older brother . . .

A friend here (or "friend", maybe, depending on the person) just might somehow guess his secret of why he had left home. He had not even been able to tell it to the team, or even Ghostwriter (or Jason). It would just be worse if someone random from here, friend or not, found it out, or even found him out, in his new identity.

Rob winced. The fears of being discovered came back forcefully, and he winced at the classroom around him, full of chattering students. Somehow, he knew that he was not completely free, as he had felt earlier.

Shuddering a little bit, he got out his Social Studies things just before the bell rang.

Rob sighed as he walked into the Home Ec room. Once again, he had become lost in the new school, and had been late to class. Thankfully, so far his teachers had believed that him being new was a reasonable excuse, like many of the schools after moving to a new air force base.

In the front of the room were several ovens, fridges and counters. The class was seated at various sized round tables in the center of the room. Rob frowned at looked toward the back of the room to avoid the familiar stares. There, he saw a tall man with black hair, writing at the chalkboard, who had to be the teacher.

The teacher turned around and put down his chalk. "Ah, so you must be our new student, then," he said, smiling some.

Rob nodded a bit. "Sorry I'm late," he mumbled.

The man thankfully just waved him over to a table with a couple of empty seats. "No problem," he stated. "So anyway, you can sit down there. I believe our class will be quite accommodating."

Rob nodded again did so, avoiding looking at the students. He glanced up again at the teacher to see him clasp his hands together.

"I'm Mr. Lia," the teacher introduced himself, "and this is our wonderful class of home-based skills, including making treats and other tasty delectables, plus a bit of information about them and how they influence people, and other such things."

Rob nodded yet again. Thankfully, the teacher began to start the lesson again. Rob got out yet another new notebook, as well as a pencil from his pencil pouch. From the corner of his eye, he saw someone a couple of seats ahead of him waving. Looking up, he saw that it was the friendly Asian boy that he had seen earlier. Next to him was a dark-skinned boy, who was currently glancing up at the chalkboard as the teacher explained something.

And then, to the Asian boy's right-

Rob blinked, scarcely able to believe it. The tan-haired boy seemed to sense his stare, and turned around and scowled before facing the teacher again. Rob looked down at his notebook for a little bit. However in the world was his roommate from the center in his Home Ec class?

He had not even known that they would be the same grade, much less the same class. The tan-haired boy seemed just a bit shorter than him, but that type of thing did not always mean too much. He wondered if they were actually the same age, or just happened to be on the same grade level.

Later, the teacher had asked them to divide into groups that he had chosen of three to four students each. Some of the students groaned.

"Why can't we just choose our own groups again?" a girl with earthy brown hair complained from the middle of the room.

Mr. Lia merely smiled. "It would be good to mix up the groups once in a while," he said. "That way you can work with someone new for a change."

Rob sighed a bit in relief as he was placed in a group with neither the student from earlier or even his roommate. Instead, he ended up with two very chatty girls and a short brown-haired boy that kept on complaining that the ovens were too slow. Rob let the girls take charge, attempting to not roll his eyes as they debated over how best to make the extremely simple recipe of biscuits from a mix.

The taller girl frowned at the open cupboard over the stove. "So should we grease the pan, or not?" she asked her friend, ignoring Rob and the other boy in the group.

Her friend shrugged. "I don't know," she replied, sounding slightly bored. "What I really want to know is if we're ever going to make cookies. I don't even really like biscuits unless they have jam, and the teacher already said that we don't."

Rob sighed as he looked past them to the other groups. He saw the Asian kid from earlier chatting with some other boy in the class. Two kitchen areas away, his tan-haired roommate had his arms crossed and was busy watching a dark-skinned girl awkwardly stir the dough in a large metal bowl. Some dough then plopped out onto the floor.

The girl stopped stirring and just stood there giggling, holding the fork, until another girl in her group handed raised an eyebrow and handed her a dishcloth. The dark-skinned girl then grabbed the cloth, and grinning, handed the fork to the other girl, who sighed heavily as she began turned around to the bowl and began to stir its contents. Throughout all of that, his roommate just still stood there nonchalantly, apparently not interested in their antics. After a little while, the other person in his group handed him a biscuit cutter. He surprisingly accepted it before walking to the counter, and watched as the dark-skinned girl dumped a large ball of dough onto the grey surface.

"Hey, are you going to watch the other groups all day long, or are you actually going to help us out?" he heard someone ask from behind him.

Rob flinched as someone then tapped him on the shoulder. Apparently he did not clear his face quickly enough before turning around, as the shorter girl from his group spoke up again.

"Yeesh, it's not like I whacked you with a hot poker or anything," she stated, raising an eyebrow. She then turned to her friend. "What were those poker things for, anyway?"

The taller girl shrugged. "Who knows. Maybe they were for ancient cooking. Good thing we've got ovens and stoves."

"I like microwaves a whole lot better," her friend commented. "At least than stoves. They're a whole lot easier to make things."

"I agree there," said the other boy in the group, looking hungrily as the taller girl dumped the gooey dough onto the counter. Rob could tell right away that they had added way too much water.

The girls frowned. One of them poked at the sticky mess.

"Maybe we could shove it back into the bowl and add some more of the mix," she said taking her finger out of the dough. She frowned at the pale paste coating her finger and wiped it on the green dishcloth hanging on the oven door.

The other one sighed heavily. "This is why I really don't like cooking," she said.

Rob frowned as the two girls only succeeded in making more a mess, including when they somehow dumped most of the contents of the bowl onto the floor. It finally took him and the other boy to finally mix another batch correctly, with the shorter boy doing the actual talking while the girls watched.

He was thankful that although the girls questioned his unwillingness to roll up his sleeves like they and the other boy in their group had, they did not force him to do so. It was very much worth getting the dusty mix on his clothing and having to scrub it off with a dishcloth, than show them any sort of leftover bruises from his "parents."

Rob sighed as one of the girls opened the oven to set the loaded tray inside. Glancing over at the other groups, he saw his roommate silently eating a butter-covered biscuit at a table, while the rest of his group chattered away about something.

He turned back around. Thankfully no one at school seemed to know that he was not who he seemed . . . at least yet.

The bell soon rung. Relieved, Rob picked up his school things from a table.

"Hey, Richie," someone called out.

He flinched as he recognized the familiar voice of the friendly Asian kid from earlier. Why could he just not leave him alone already?

The kid called to him again. Rob gritted his teeth and strode from the room, hoping the annoying boy would get the hint already and go somewhere else. Unfortunately, he caught up and walked beside him, along with the dark-skinned boy that had been sitting by in class.

"It's so cool that we're in the same class together," the Asian boy chattered. "I wonder if you would want to meet me and Kevin at the arcade or another place sometime. It could be fun. Maybe you could even tell us some about yourself, like where you used to live, or, I don't know. Maybe you even like ice cream? There's this great place up on George Street nearby a playground."

Rob huffed, frustrated. He then stopped at a slightly familiar tenor voice. Turning around, he was surprised to see his roommate glaring at the two other students.

"If you want to make friends with most any new kid around here," the tan-haired boy stated deliberately, "never ask anything about them, especially where they're from."

His roommate sharply then walked past them, leaving the Asian kid and his friend gawking where he had left.

"What did he mean by that?" the former asked, baffled. His friend only shrugged.

Rob quickly started walking to where he hoped his next class was. Thankfully, the talkative kid and his friend did not follow. He was a bit more concerned about what his roommate had said, though. Rob was a little surprised that the sullen boy had actually stood up for him, but was actually currently feeling more frustrated than grateful.

How could he have given such a hint that Rob was currently living in a foster home? He did not know if the Asian boy or his friend would even guess that the same applied to his roommate. Who know how long he had been in the center. Maybe he had even been there for years. At least the girl from the bus had not seemed to blab about them at all. Perhaps she was even in a different grade.

Rob frowned, huffing a bit. The annoying boy and his friend apparently did not currently know about the center, and he hoped that it would stay that way. Hopefully he would never wind up in the same group with them or his sullen roommate in Home Ec, though, and definitely also any other class.