Little Lost Girl: The Complete Series

by Angelique S. Anderson

  It was summer break from school, so Star spent a lot of time playing board games with Gina and visiting her grandfather’s relatives. She even got to spend time with her cousins, Danielle and James, whom she had known only in passing before her grandmother passed away. Star often went hunting with them for crawdads and tadpoles in the creek that summer. In the evenings after dinner, she played card games with Gina and her great­-aunt, Shelly.

  As summer neared an end, her grandfather received a notice from the manager at his apartment complex reminding him that it was in a senior living facility. Kids were not allowed, and guests were not permitted to stay longer than five days. The search for a home for Star began anew.

  Returning to Las Vegas was not an option, since Star refused to live there, and in any case, her father and stepmother couldn’t afford a plane ticket to fly her down. Star had no other relatives with room to board her, and although her grandfather was in touch with Diane, Star was not welcome to return.

  One day, her grandfather announced that he had a friend he wanted Star to meet. Her name was Jill. She was a likable lady with two pre-teen boys, and she had agreed to meet Star and see if she could take her in for a short time. The meeting went well. Star liked Jill, and she liked the woman’s carefree disposition. Jill had always wanted a daughter, and they hit it off well—but not for long. Star had become a free spirit by then and rebelled against being locked up in the house after school. Often, she went to the creek to hang out with her friends or stopped by to visit her cousins. She didn’t get along with Jill’s two young sons, and she wasn’t diligent about performing her household chores. She knew that she needed to check in with Jill, but she rebelled against strict rules. She also knew that staying with Jill was temporary, and it was just a matter of time before she would be sent her away to live elsewhere.

  A few weeks later, Star was washing the breakfast dishes and discussing her Saturday afternoon plans. Out of the blue, Jill told her that she wasn’t allowed to visit her friends anymore. Being a head­strong fourteen-year-old, Star refused to agree to give up her friends, and the discussion escalated into a heated argument. She stormed off to her room crying. When Jill stormed in shouting obscenities, Star held a piece of glass to her wrist and threatened to end her life if the woman didn’t back up and leave her alone.

  “You’re not going to kill yourself in front of my boys!” Jill shouted. She rushed at Star and tackled her to the ground. She was not a thin woman, and Star could barely breathe, much less move under her weight. Star repeatedly tried to push her off, but Jill refused to yield and continued to yell obscenities as Star called the police.

  Chapter Seven

  Foster Care

  Less than ten minutes later, two uniformed police officers responded to Star’s emergency call. They demanded entry to Jill’s house and escorted Star out to a parked squad car. When the door slammed shut behind her, fear crept in and she worried that they would take her away, or worse, lock her up. She broke down in tears and asked God to help her be brave. As the officers climbed into the car, she knew something was up but wasn’t sure what.

  “Am I going to jail?” she asked in a frightened voice.

  One officer gave her a friendly smile and said, “I’m Officer Dean, and no, of course not.” Gesturing to the other policeman, he added, “This is Officer Lopez. He is my partner. Don’t be afraid. We want to help.”

  “Want to tell us what happened?” asked Officer Lopez as he pulled out of the driveway and onto the street in front of Jill’s house. He glanced at Star in the rear view mirror, his eyes concerned but kind. Star’s heart thumped with fear, and she was sure a terrible fate would await her if she told the truth, but she knew lying to the police wasn’t an option.

  “I don’t know,” Star said. “One minute, I was doing chores. The next minute, we were fighting. I got very upset and said I would kill myself. She grabbed my wrist and hurt it, and then she sat on me.”

  “Are you injured?” Officer Lopez asked.

  “My wrist hurts a lot,” Star answered, and then she fell silent as they drove. She had expected to be taken to the police station, but instead, they pulled up in front of a hospital. The officers asked her more questions. They both were courteous and promised she would not be arrested, so she opened up about her living situation and her grandfather.

  When the officers finished questioning Star, they led her into the hospital and a nurse examined her. The woman looked closely at Star’s wrist, and then she poked and prodded at her ribs.

  “Does anything else hurt, honey?” asked the nurse.

  “No, ma’am,” Star replied.

  “Your wrist might be sprained. You’ll need to put ice on it for fifteen minutes every hour for three or four hours when you get home,” the nurse said. She went out into the hallway to talk with Officer Dean and his partner. Several minutes later, the two policemen entered the room, and Officer Dean asked Star how she was feeling.

  “I’m okay. What is going to happen to me?” she asked.

  “Your grandfather cannot take you and Jill Harris is not legally related to you, so we are going to put you in foster care.”

  “What?” Star whispered, aghast. “I don’t want to go to foster care.” She burst into tears. “I want my daddy!”

  “Where is your dad?” Officer Lopez inquired.

  “Las Vegas.”

  “Okay, honey, we will try to contact him, but in the meantime, you’ll be placed in foster care. We can’t just put you out on the street.”

  Star exhaled slowly as she yielded to a feeling of defeat. Everything she had heard about foster care from her friends and at school had always been bad. She wondered if her new foster family would lock her in her room and leave her there, just as Diane’s husband had done when she was a young girl.

  Star rocked back and forth, her arms wrapped around her knees, wishing she could stop breathing and never have to worry again. She must have dozed off because when she awoke, the kind nurse was gently shaking her shoulder, saying, “Wake up, sweetie, it’s time to go.”

  Star blinked and rubbed her sleepy eyes. The nurse took her hand and led her out of the hospital to the waiting patrol car. Officer Dean got out as Star and the nurse approached, and he opened the rear door, helping Star climb in. As they pulled out of the hospital parking lot, Star looked sadly out of the car window, wondering what kind of indignity or heartache she would suffer next.

  They pulled up in front of a simple white building with no signs or architectural features. It looked more like a prison than a social services office that handled neglected and homeless children like Star. She waited for Officer Dean to open the rear door and then followed him into the building. A woman with a mop of dark curls and a professional smile greeted her.

  “Hello, Star. I am your caseworker, and I am going to help you find a family. Okay?”

  Star shrugged an acknowledgement.

  “Good bye and good luck, Star!” Officers Dean and Lopez said in unison.

  Star forced a smile and waved goodbye, wondering if they thought she was a troublemaker. She also wondered whether Jill had told them she was an awful child, just as Darcy had told people when Star lived with her. She sat in her chair, head bowed, as the woman across the desk filled out a stack of forms. Star noticed a badge clipped to the woman’s blouse that gave her name as Lorraine Thomas.

  “You are lucky. I have a placement for you tonight. We don’t usually have openings.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Thomas,” Star replied.

  After the caseworker filled out another form, she said, “Let’s go. It’s getting late, and they are expecting you.”

  Star followed the woman out of the room. She had a feeling things were as bad as they could get and feared that wherever she went next would be worse than anything before. Mrs. Thomas locked the building behind them and led Star to a dark burgundy Ford sedan, holding open the door while Star slid into the passenger seat.

  When Star was younger, she had rea
d a book entitled A Child Called It that resonated with her. It was a story about a boy in a terrible situation, and he had gone to court to face his birth mother after years of childhood abuse. Star remembered the little boy’s account describing his social worker and the memory of climbing into a car to go to a home with strangers who were supposed to care for him. Star never dreamed that she herself would be in that situation one day. She was afraid of strangers, and she knew that moving in with a new family would mean new rules, difficult adjustments, dealing with new conflicts and potential abuses, and possibly getting attached and thrown out again. She was not looking forward to this experience at all.

  “The home you are going has fifteen children,” Mrs. Thomas informed her.

  “Is it an orphanage?” Star asked.

  “No, we don’t have orphanages anymore. These children all live there. Some are the couple’s birth children, others are adopted. If you behave, they will probably adopt you too.”

  Star noticed that the caseworker’s voice was cold and emotionless, and she wondered if Mrs. Thomas had taken an immediate dislike to her.

  “I’ll be on my best behavior,” Star said, as a sinking feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. She wondered how long she would last with that many kids around. At the same time, she thought it might be nice to have over a dozen siblings. Surely, one of them would like her enough to be her friend.

  Chapter Eight

  Foster Care Homes

  Mrs. Thomas pulled up to a yellow, tri-level house in a well-manicured neighborhood. Without glancing back to Star, she simply said “Wait!” into the cool evening air. Then, she got out of the car and walked briskly up to the front door. Star remained buckled in her seat as instructed. She looked out the window and saw a large trampoline and a small wooden structure in the back yard. Chickens wandered around the yard, pecking at the ground.

  About ten minutes later, Mrs. Thomas came out of the house and motioned for Star to join her. Next to the caseworker stood an exceptionally tall man, and a petite, red-haired woman stood beside him. Star climbed out of the car and approached them timidly. She wondered what new sadness would come into her life and what it would be like to live with so many people in one house.

  “Hi, Star! Welcome to our home,” the petite woman greeted with a friendly smile. She placed an arm around Star and led her into the house. The next hour was a blur as Mrs. Thomas discussed Star’s situation with the family. The couple introduced themselves as the Mathesons. When the caseworker left, they told Star about their seven birth children and eight adopted children. They told her they hoped Star would be their ninth adopted child.

  The house had bedrooms upstairs and downstairs. The seven boys slept upstairs, and no girls were allowed on the second floor. The eight girls slept downstairs, and no boys were allowed. All the children were assigned daily chores, but Star was given a week to adjust before she would be expected to help.

  Since Star had no clothes or other belongings with her, the oldest girl in the house loaned her clothes to wear until her own belongings could be retrieved from Jill’s house. School started a few days later, and by the end of the first week, Star had found her niche. She went to school, came home, fed the chickens, worked on homework, and then went to sleep. On weekends, she and the other kids would play on the trampoline and camp outside or stay up late talking.

  Fights erupted between Star and the oldest adopted girl. Sometimes arguments turned into cat fights where the two of them went at each other, fists and all. They clawed, ripped, and cursed at each other, much to the dismay of Mr. and Mrs. Matheson. After a few such incidents, they decided Star was not working out, so when she came home from school one afternoon, they told her they would not be adopting her, and she needed to pack her things. It didn’t take long to pack since Star barely had the clothes on her back. She stuffed her meager possessions in a well-worn suitcase and sat down, waiting for Mrs. Thomas to come and get her.

  In the next foster care home, Star felt she could be at peace. A sweet couple took her in and gave Star her own room. The Dennisons had no other children and taught her how to care for and look after horses. They even gave her a miniature pony to call her own. The pony was there when she arrived, but they told her that as long as she took care of him, he was hers.

  Star named the pony Dodge, and her favorite part of the day was brushing out his mane and walking beside him in the pasture. It was just one month later when the Dennisons sat Star down for a heart-to-heart talk. They told her she was not working out and Mrs. Thomas was coming to get her again. For the life of her, Star couldn’t figure out what she had done wrong. She had behaved and kept her room clean. She had taken good care of Dodge and worked hard in school to get good grades.

  Mrs. Thomas was none too happy when she arrived that afternoon to pick up Star. As they drove back to the caseworker’s office, she made a point of admonishing Star, “Why can’t you behave? Why do you keep getting yourself kicked out of every home? I have one more home where I can place you, and it’s our final option. If it doesn’t work out, you will be sent to a group home. Believe me, you won’t be happy in a group home, so you’d better behave!”

  The caseworker pulled up to her office building and parked, saying she needed to pick up some paperwork. She told Star to come inside with her. As Star sat waiting, a thought occurred to her and she asked, “Why can’t I go live with my stepsister?”

  Mrs. Thomas frowned over her black-framed glasses and replied, “Does your stepsister even want you? If she does, she would have to pass all the required tests before she could foster you, but first, she would have to pass a background check.”

  “She can pass a background check,” Star said, not sure if that was true or whether her stepsister would want her. Rachel was her stepmother’s daughter, and they had always gotten along, but the last Star had talked to her, Rachel had married and was living in a nearby town with her new husband.

  “All right. I will contact her and ask if she will take you in and get certified as a foster parent.”

  Star’s tummy did a flip. It wasn’t much in the way of progress for her situation, but the thought of living with someone who might like her made her happy.

  “Where am I going now?” she asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you don’t mess it up until we can figure out something for you,” Mrs. Thomas snapped. “Come on, let’s go.” She picked up a stack of paperwork and headed for the door. Star followed behind, wondering what she had done to make her caseworker dislike her so much.

  Star lapsed into thoughtful silence as they drove out to the country and her new home. It was a beautiful site—a sprawling ranch-style house with log siding and a huge wooden deck that wrapped from the front door around to the side of the house. It reminded her of her friend Bridget’s house, and Star said a silent prayer that the family inside would be just as nice as Bridget’s parents had been.

  Star followed Mrs. Thomas up to the house, wondering if she could keep herself out of trouble long enough for Rachel to take her. Then her mind filled with worry that Rachel might not want her. Only time would tell. She walked up the redwood steps to the cherry-stained deck, and the walls around her heart hardened. No matter what happened here, she would not let herself become attached to the adults of the house or the children, if they had any.

  At first glance, Star’s life with the new family, the Charlestons, differed greatly from her first two experiences in foster care. They gave her their son’s room because he was off to college, and she had her own phone she could use to call friends or family—if she had any friends or family to call, she thought sadly. At least, she could talk to her grandpa. It had been several months since they had talked, and she missed his friendly advice and loving support.

  A large glass terrarium that came up past Star’s hip was situated along the right wall of the room. Inside was a large iguana Star was allowed to hold as long as she wore thick gloves. She nicknamed him George because she co
uld never remember his real name.

  The Charlestons’ home was clean and tidy, and Star’s new foster parents took good care of her. Star had gone to school with their daughter previously, so she was delighted to have a friend. But it didn’t take long for Star to get herself booted from this foster home too. She grew to hate the daughter with an adolescent passion because the girl spread embarrassing lies about her at school and made fun of her when they were out with her friends. When she could no longer handle being the subject of taunts and ridicule, she packed a few belongings, cut the screen of her bedroom window, and climbed out into the night.

  The night she ran away, she walked for several hours towards the town, but the wind was bitter cold, and it was snowing. She walked past the road that led to her junior high and continued until she came to an abandoned bank next to a gas station. Star crawled under the bank sign propped against the outside wall seeking shelter from the cold. She pulled several pieces of clothing from her bag to cover herself, bunched her stuffed animal under her head, and settled in for the night.

  An hour later, Star’s teeth were chattering and her eyes hurt from the freezing weather. Her toes and fingers were going numb, and genuine fear that she might freeze to death forced her to walk to the gas station and ask the attendant to call for help.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and a young teenager with pimples who sat behind the cash register looked up from a magazine he was reading, obviously unhappy about being disturbed.

  “What?”

  “Can you please call the police?” Star shivered and rubbed her arms.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I am a runaway. I ran away from home and I am asking you to call the police,” Star admitted.

  “You ran away from home?”

  “Well, I ran away from my foster parents.”

  “Do they know you ran away? Did they file a report?” The teen scrunched his nose as if trying to avoid an intense itch.