Niagara Motel by Ashley Little

floor as people shoved themselves away from the table. I sat at the table staring down at my plate until everyone had left the dining room. I pushed my broccoli stumps around in a circle and waited for the heavy feeling to go away. After awhile, Brian, the SOD, came back in. He tucked in all the chairs but one and then sat in it, across the table from me.
    â€œHow are you doing, kid?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œYeah?”
    I shrugged.
    â€œHow’s your mom?”
    â€œNot good. Her heart’s bruised. Bad.”
    â€œShe’s going to get better though, right?”
    â€œShe could die if things don’t heal properly.” Saying it mademy legs feel watery, but I knew it was true. I made a pillow with my elbows and put my head down. I kept looking at Brian with one eye.
    Brian scratched his beard. It was brown and thick and made him look like a wannabe lumberjack. Or maybe he was a lumberjack when he wasn’t supervising juveniles. It’s hard to tell what people do in their spare time just by looking at them. But I was pretty sure that Brian wasn’t a lumberjack. He wore a Nirvana T-shirt. The one with a yellow smiley face on it and x’s for eyes. “I know it must be hard in here for you sometimes,” he said.
    â€œMost of the time.”
    â€œBut you know what?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re one of the lucky ones.”
    â€œOh yeah?”
    â€œYeah, man. You’re going to be leaving soon, to live with your mom.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo some of these kids don’t ever get to leave.”
    â€œYou mean they have to stay here for their whole life?”
    â€œWell, until they’re nineteen, then they have to move out and look after themselves for the rest of their life.”
    â€œGet jobs?”
    â€œYep, get jobs, find a place to live, buy groceries, make food, pay bills, all that.”
    â€œCan kids have jobs?”
    â€œThat depends.”
    â€œOn what?” I thought of Meredith, working her corner. She probably made more money than some adults did.
    â€œWell, it depends on what you want to do. See, kids under fourteen aren’t supposed to work for a company or a store or a restaurant, but it’s okay for kids your age to do other work, like mow lawns,babysit, deliver newspapers, stuff like that.”
    â€œBrian?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œDo you think that I could get a job?”
    â€œI don’t see why not.”
    â€œBut not some crap job. I need to make a lot of money.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œBecause I need to go find my father.”
    â€œWhy’s that?”
    â€œBecause he’s my father .”
    Brian squinted at me, waiting.
    â€œAnd because, if something happens to Gina, I mean, if she doesn’t get better, or if she has another accident, then …”
    â€œOkay.” Brian nodded. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bounced in his throat like a super-bouncy ball. “Do you know where he lives?”
    â€œI think maybe Boston. I think he might own a bar there.”
    â€œShouldn’t be too hard to track him down then,” Brian said.

 
    Â 
    8
    I made up signs to cut people’s lawns and posted them all over town, but nobody ever called. Or else maybe someone did call, but no one at the group home gave me the message. I phoned the Niagara Gazette about doing a paper route, but they told me they already had enough carriers in my area. I thought about collecting bottles and cans and cashing them in, but then I remembered that guys here do that for a living and that’s how they buy their food and pay for their clothes and stuff and if I collected bottles, wouldn’t that kind of be like stealing from them? Plus, it took all day to make a few bucks, anyways. I kind of gave up looking for a job, but I didn’t give up on the idea of one day going to Boston to find Sam Malone.
    Sometimes, when I was hanging around downtown,