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Summary from the Library of Congress cataloging-in-Publication Data: Seven teens facing such problems as pregnancy, homosexuality, and abuse each describe in poetic forms what caused them to leave home and where they found home again.

Notes:

The runaways go to stay in the basement of a man’s house and take care of it in exchange for room and board. The author writes the “poetic forms” into parts and chapters. There are two pages per child in each part, if you will. The excerpts and page numbers will be out of order to keep the story lines of each runaway straight.

Runaway 1: S - S’s parents do not know she is pregnant (p.2).

…almost too big to hide it now…where can I go?

J**** [her boyfriend] says: “You could get rid of it.” I thought of how he tossed the broken condom in the trash…(p.2).

Her boyfriend leaves her (p.2).

…there’s this girl named Keesha who told me there’s a place kids go and stay for a while…people don’t ask questions. I go (pp.2-3).

S confides in Keesha [they are both the same age] who finds her in a doughnut shop (p.44). She takes S to her house “…no parents…kids who live here kind of fend for themselves…across the street...a woman was yelling, “You bastard!” (p.45).

Runaway 2: C

…thinkin’ ‘bout the time we all got stopped….thinkin’ I could go a different way…tried to keep an eye out….got stopped before I made it home (p.10). Grandmama’s house is home…until she woke up to flashin’ lights…[officers]told her I was DUI…left me handcuffed…prob’ly get two months this time…keep findin’ yourself locked up…(pp.10-11).

I wasn’t drunk. Just one beer a couple hours before. Never woulda got stopped if I was an adult. Or if I was white (p.26).

That half-smoked blunt they found under the back seat…only one there [visiting hours] all week was my probation officer…I shoulda stopped drinkin’ that first time…back in seventh grade…grandmamma won’t care if I stop livin’ (pp.26-27).

…wanna know…what keeps me alive in here [jail]? They [officers/guards] try to think of everything so you can’t kill yourself - Velcro shoes…special bags for sleepin’, so you can’t make a rope…that little camera in the corner starin’ at you…they think I stay alive just cause they make me…(p.52).

…I’m part guilty, part innocent…last time I had court I said I wasn’t drinkin’…they [the court] believed me…just got probation…this time, truth is I did have one beer (p.68).

…don’t know exactly why I started drinkin’. Just fun, I guess. You’re talkin’ to someone, they hand you a beer…by the time you go home…had more than you meant to. You don’t stop to think…can’t stop until the party’s over (p.95).

Runaway 3: H (a gay boy)

Think how that’s supposed to be: Mom, Dad, there’s someone I’d like you to meet…someone special…loves me as much as I love him…(p.12).

I just told them…watched my world explode…turned into someone he’s [his dad] hated all his life…(p.12).

I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not…(p.13).

Another note in my locker today: Die, faggot…someone twice my weight shoves me into a table…so many guys like him [the boy who pushed him]…anyone with half an ounce of individuality gets crushed [H]…can see which kids are trying for which slots - jocks or freaks or ‘playas.’…everyone would rather die than be what I am. Even the thugs…with all their drugs and guns (p.28).

Do people think I’m contagious? …if they talk to me they might turn gay (p.28)?

His father kicked him out, so H sleeps in his own car and uses a sink in the handicap stall of the library to clean up (p.70).

…guy made a comment about my gorgeous red hair, which is nothing new…he asked if he could have a picture of me (p.70).

H gets a job and goes to stay at Keesha’s house [the house actually belongs to an older man named Joe] like the other runaways in this book.

He meets up with his mother:

…I listened to her. But now I’m sitting here thinking, Blah, blah, blah. Neither of my parents has enough backbone to stand up for me…as far as I’m concerned, Mom can take her little window to Dad’s mind and slam it shut…she wants to buy me stuff…I have enough of everything…day I moved in here [Keesha’s house]…took a shower…I’m living in a house with open windows (pp.96-97).

If people we’re supposed to count on can’t (or don’t) support us…it’s up to us…find the friends who can and do…home is in your mind (p.108).

This book contains stories of other runaways. Keesha is a young girl who ran away some time ago to move in with Joe, who inherited the house from his aunt. There are some notations of Joe’s thoughts in this book:

I know the value of a house like this…all I knew then was I could stay. ‘As long as you need to, Joe,’ was what she [his aunt] kept on saying…that’s what I say when kids show up…I ain’t up to the task of tryin’ to be their legal foster dad…I can give them space…space is time (p.35).

They’d [kids] stay a week, a month, a year…still like that…I go get Keesha, and I watch…she checks out the situation….she makes the right decision…I love this girl whatever way I can, too young to be her father, too old to be her man (p.77).

Research by M. Lyn