Chapter Two

On my first day at my new school, I woke up with an empty stomach, a full bladder, and not even a port-a-potty or a protective bush. I had to do something about my living conditions, and soon. But all I could think about was how miserable I still was.

I passed a grocery store on the way to school, where I bought all the apples I could carry, munching one even on my way out the door, and stuffing the rest into my backpack. A park right across the street provided a public toilet. I ran the rest of the way to the school, and managed to make it up the stairs before the last of the stragglers was inside. I was late, but I was spared the embarassment of being the only one.

I met a few kids right away, and they seem okay. It didn't take long to settle into a routine. I get up early so I can get to town and use the public washrooms. The gym has showers and a free snack bar, and you don't need a membership. I could almost live there in secret, like those kids in that book by E. L. Konigsburg, but I'd rather be in my own home, even if that home consists of a sleeping bag and a bunch of packing crates.

School is hard for me; I'm smart, but I'm way behind these kids, and it's hard to concentrate. I think it's because I'm still so sad most of the time. I try not to think about what Grams would think about my grades.

I can feel my easel calling to me. But homework has to come first. The last thing I need is to flunk out and have some truant officer come nosing around, find out I'm living alone, and send me to some group home. "Tomorrow," I whisper a promise to it, as if it were alive and could hear me.

 The nights are still long and lonely.

I wanted to use some of the money Mom and Grams left me to hire an architect to build a modest house on my land. Just the way we planned. But there was no way I could afford anybody whose office is in a place like this!

So I used the library's internet connection, and found a place that makes those prefab mobile homes. It's still going to take most of my money, so I'll have to be careful from now on.

What little spare time I have is devoted to painting. If I'm ever going to be any good, I have to eat, sleep and breathe my art. Squirting the paint onto my palette, I eye the blank canvas like it's a road, shrouded in mist, stretching in front of me. I have only to step forward, like Alice through the looking glass, and a whole world will take shape around me.

Blending the glorious colors, I capture with my brush whatever emerges from the mist. It soothes me as it always has. No matter what sorrows and fears I face, when I paint I escape them. I become whatever it is I'm destined to become.

My little house is ready now. It's small and drab, but it's a roof over my head, and it's all mine. Once I'd filled it with what remains of our furniture, I felt insensibly comforted. Things are looking up.

author's note: Avi really did run all the way to the school that first day, and was quite late. The "in school" icon was already up and the green bar fairly advanced, long before she got there. The funny thing was that there was a group of about 5 kids, of different ages, milling around in front of the school doors after school had started. Forty-five sim minutes later, the doors opened again, admitted one kid, and closed. And again. And again. Avi finally got in an hour late.

She burst into tears fairly often those first days. Several times, I noticed it sounded eerily as though she were sobbing out "Ohhh, Grams."

author's note: "That book by E. L. Konigsburg" is called From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about a couple of runaway kids who hide out in a museum, and it's a good read. I highly recommend it.