All I remember is the yelling of my mom and dad saying that they don’t want to be together anymore. My three brothers and sister were with me in my room, patiently waiting for them to stop. This was their 100th time fighting this month. I’m getting tired of this crap. Finally, they stopped; I hope this is the last fight they have. Maybe I spoke to soon, they are splitting up and are fighting for our custody, this may be the last time I see my brothers and sister. I don’t know what to do…maybe I should run away or just stay so I can take care of my siblings. This is something I have to think about.

I can’t sleep, too many things on my mind. Turn after turn, minute after minute, it seems like hours. I keep thinking, should I runaway…or stay here at home and wait to see where I end up? While I stare at the ceiling thinking of what to do, I start dozing off forgetting all what happened. I was having happy dreams until I hear my mom. “ALEX!!!! Time to get up, its 7:00!!!!!” I woke up thinking to myself, “Oh great, just when I was happily sleeping I have to get up.” I get ready, eat breakfast and get dropped off at school. In each class, I barely pay attention, I mostly sleep…there’s nothing that I might miss anyway. The school day went by fast, I’m so glad, but the bad thing is, I have a lot of homework that I don’t even know how to do. All of a sudden, I wake up on top of my math book and other homework, I look at the time and its quarter till 10. I might as well go to sleep. During the night I wake up and stay awake for a while thinking about what I should do. I decide to stay…unless it gets worse then it already is.

The next morning I wake up knowing that I’m late for school, but wait the court date is today. Mom must have went and let us stay home like she said she would. I go check to see if my brothers and sister are awake. They’re not in there rooms, so I go check the kitchen, they are not there either. I wonder where they are. Before I start panicking, I check the living room. They are there and so is my mom, I must have been sleeping longer then I have thought. Around her eyes are red and puffy, and my three younger brothers look sad. I ask what’s wrong and what’s going to happen. Nobody says anything, there’s an awkward silence for at least two minutes. I couldn’t stand it anymore, being the drama queen I am, I freaked out. I ran as fast as I could to my room and slammed the door. My sister Lacey came to my room and I asked her to tell me what happened and who are we going to stay with.

“Alex, mom said that we are not going to stay with neither her nor dad.” Lacey said to me. Those words repeated over and over in my head. “Then who are we staying with if we are not going to stay with neither mom nor dad?” Lacey was quiet for a little bit, I couldn’t wait any longer, I kept asking who are we staying with over and over again. Oh great, Lacey is in her panic mode. She finally gets out of her staring gaze and tells me that we are going to have to have foster parents. I am shocked, I can’t even say anything and I’m sure that my jaw even dropped at those two words. I think to myself, maybe that is a good thing in a way, we still will be together right? Well I’m not even sure about that as I think about it. I ask Lacey about it, she doesn’t know either, she told me to go ask mom about it. I go ask my mom about it and we talk about it for a while. My mom said, “Alex, I don’t know how to say this but I will anyway, all of you are going to be split up.” “But why do we have to be split up? We behave more when we are together (yeah right) so we should stick together instead of being split up!” I couldn’t help but yelling, I told myself to calm down. “Honey, I didn’t have the choice to choose if you could live with me or your dad, or have foster parents, if I did you would be with me. Now I want you to be a good girl and just try to live with it, I’ll try get your custody back again, if I’m able to.” I kept telling myself that it was both good news and bad. The good news is we will be close to each other and the bad news is that most of us will be split apart. I can’t stand this anymore; I go once more to my room, this time the tears are falling. After this I’m never going to cry and that’s a promise to myself, I hope.

We have one more day to be with each other and get ready to go to our new homes. I try not to be obnoxious the whole day and enjoy it instead. The day raced by fast and it was dark out already, I said to myself that I might as well have fun while I can. I decide to do something people will remember me for here in this town. It turned out that I snuck out of the house with my partner in crime, my brother Alan. We planned to TP every house on the block except ours, of course; but that wasn’t the only thing we did, we spray painted A&A on every house door or steps. We both knew that we would be in big trouble in the morning, so I decided that I would spend the night out at my best friend Adalynn’s house.

The next morning when I went home, every house was still covered in what my brother Alan and I did. I tried to be serious and not to laugh while I was walking down the street. Right when I walked in my house my mom called my name. By the tone of her voice I could tell that she was super angry. I went into the living room and I saw Alan sitting across from my mom. I was thinking to myself that Alan snitched that it was my idea to do that to every house on the block. Man, if he did, he is going to end up hurt. My mom starts talking to me. “Alex, I know that today is when you are going to go to your new home, but why did you and Alan have to do this now?”

All I could say back is “First of all, what did Alan tell you?” My mom said that he never blamed it on me, he said that it was both of our idea to do this and we did this because we wanted to be remembered for something in this town before we go. I was so glad he didn’t say it was my idea, even if it was, but he wanted to help anyway. Everybody ,whose house was TP‘ed, went outside and finally noticed that their house was TPed and that A & A was spray painted on their door or step. It was around one o’clock and everybody was ready to go. We all said our good byes and headed off in separate cars to our new homes. Most of us where in a town called Issovain. When I heard the name, I couldn’t help but to think what if that was my last name….ha-ha that would be hilarious. There I go again thinking random thoughts. I finally arrived at my new home with my foster parents or should I say temporarily foster parents. The person that I am with, brings me inside and introduces me to them. I think to myself, whatever…they won’t be able to handle me, so why should I pay attention to their names.

It’s my first night staying in their house, it’s kind of creepy but oh well I don’t plan to stay here long. I wait till it gets dark outside and quietly go outside of the house. I look around and try to figure out what I should do. I notice someone owns a nice 2009 expensive looking car, what should I do with it? Should I spray paint something on it or should I go joy riding? Hmm… that is a toughie…well not really, I decide to go joy riding around town to see if I can figure out where some of my siblings are. I break in the car very easily and hot-wire it. I go around the whole block and see that my two brothers Aven and Peter live just a few blocks away. I text both of them telling them that they should meet me outside of their house.

They go outside and rush to the car. I know exactly what they might be thinking. Just as I guessed, Aven immediately asked if he could drive. Obviously I said no, I didn’t want them to get in trouble. I told them that I just wanted to go see them and that I would see them some other time. I drove off and headed back home. Oh crap!!! The police are everywhere, but I don’t really care. I end up speeding right past them and keep on going, till I got bored. I was hand cuffed and put in the back of the police car, I couldn’t help but to laugh. The police officer asked me why I was laughing but I reply no reason, maybe because your fly is open. He ended up looking and I started cracking up so hard that I started crying. The very next day, I was brought to my temporary home. As I planned and hoped to happen, they ended up not wanting me any more. I was warned not to do something like that again, but I know that I will do it anyway. For the next three or four houses, it was the same thing over and over again. Until I got bored of doing whatever I was going to do.

The next house that I went to was a very clean, nice, preppy looking house. I couldn’t help but thinking that I wouldn’t even last a day in this house or most like an hour because of how I act. When I walked in, everything was either white, light blue, or yellow. I was in awe for a little bit until I thought of the easiest thing to do that will let me get out of this house. I was acting like I was going to do nothing at all for a whole week, so it would seem like I was actually a “good” girl. The plan had to be changed though. It would take months maybe, to gain their trust, since they know of my past. While they think I’m sleeping, I plan my trick over a few months calendar. It took a week and a half to figure out what I’m going to do.

Over the months, I end up calling them mom and dad, I think they are happy now. I change to a whole different person, from tomboyish crime doing girl to total girly girl who doesn’t do a crime. I can tell that my plan is working, they trust me enough to let me use a credit card to shop. “Oh my gosh, I need to check my myspace and mail, I have to tell my brothers and sister about this.” I go on the computer and check to see if they are online.” Shoot, none of them are, so sucky , what should I do now?” I might as well check all my messages. There’s not really important ones, its basically all junk mail, so I get off the computer and head downstairs. My foster parents are in the living room watching the news or watching something , I don’t know what it is. I go to the kitchen instead, but then my “mom” called my name before I even look for something. I go check them in the living room and that’s when they tell me that they want to adopt me. I was surprised and mad at the same time, my plan is ruined! What am I suppose to do now? “Um… I don’t know what to think…can I think about this for a while?” I said. “Sure you can…” said my dad.

While running up the stairs, I’m not sure what I’m suppose to do. My plan was working out perfectly and now its ruined, but maybe I can do something else then what I was thinking. I’m in my room thinking about what I should do now, when the idea hits me. I’ll tell them I still need time to get to know them and then during that time I will do pranks all over the place while they are out. When I’m going downstairs, I hear them talking about me. “Maybe we shouldn’t have told her this, it seems like it was too sudden.” my dad said. “I don’t think it was, it was the right thing to do considering that she has changed to a different person,” my mom said sounding unsure. I go down the stairs like I usually would and tell them what I am thinking. “I think we should wait a while before I become your official daughter, I feel like we need more time together and I need to get to know you more.” “Ok, we are fine with that Alex, now go do your homework before it gets late.” “Ok mom” My plan is working, I just have to keep this up for at least 2 weeks then I can do what I’m thinking. I get done with my homework and go to sleep.

The two weeks rushed by and I wasn’t even ready to do a thing. I went online and searched up some things to do because I couldn’t think of what to do. It was a perfect night to do something, they went out to eat for dinner while I was suppose to be at a friends house and I was not. I was so glad I had a cell phone, I told them to call me on that instead of at her house. Before I began my criminal things, I checked if the house was empty and nobody was watching. Then I began, the first thing I did was put dog poop under the couch cushions and swiped the license plates off the other cars. I also put clear plastic wrap on their toilet seat to see if they would actually fall for it. The next thing I did was fill the garbage can full with water, since I knew they would throw away stuff. There were many other things I did, I put hot sauce in the ketchup, glued shoes together, booby trapped the bathroom and living room and put laxatives in the protein powder. “oh boy, this is going to be so awesome and they are going to be pissed off!” I thought to myself. “This is the most funniest thing I ever done, they will never find out it was me.”

I called them telling them I would be home when they arrived. When I heard them coming, I ran upstairs and pretended to sleep. They came and checked on me, made sure I was here and asleep. I heard their footsteps and then…yelling. As fast as I could, I quickly got up, climbed out the window, and ran. I never looked back and kept on going until I reached Alan’s house and that’s where it all began…again.