iwasmore | (no subject)

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Noah misses his sisters all the time. Aside from them he hasn't known many kids, and he never paid much attention to the ones in Darrow. Agatha's the youngest he's met here, but he doesn't consider her little. She's an old soul, she lives on her own and she's self-sufficient. It's only since meeting Jack that it really hit Noah that kids could end up here without their parents. Noah can't imagine what it would be like to be that young and show up in a place like this, how alone and confusing that must be. Jack seems to be handling it well as far as Noah can tell, but he still wants to do something nice for the kid.

Kid's skateboards don't cost that much, and Noah can't stop thinking about how much Jack liked riding around on his, so he decides to buy him one. Then he realizes Jack will need pads and a helmet, and there's this set with a really awesome dinosaur helmet and matching design on the board, so he gets all of it.

He brings all this to the children's home to surprise Jack, and thankfully finds him playing outside in the yard since he has no idea what protocol is for visitors at this place. "Hey, Jack," he calls and waves, leaning against the fence.

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Some days, the adults don't have time to take us lots of places. All of them are busy making sure that we have enough money to buy food and other things, or sometimes lots of the kids are sick so the adults have to keep us at the Home so that they can help the sick kids feel better. Today all the adults are too busy to take me to other places, but that's why I got lots of books from the library last week, I can spend so much time reading them and still learning lots. I like reading outside more than inside because the air feels more clean and you can smell lots of things in it.

It's like the first time I went out of Room, I could smell the trees and grass and then the rain.

I'm reading a book called Magic School Bus, there are lots of books like that at the library and I liked collecting them all because one of my friends talked about it when I first got to Darrow and then I wanted to watch and read it all. This one is about what's inside your body, there are lots of red blood cells and they travel everywhere, wow! They're like little spaceships.

I hear someone calling out to me, I flip the book upside-down so that I don't lose my place — but wow! It's Noah! I didn't expect to see Noah!

"Noah!" I yell, and I run over to give him a hug. "Did you come to visit me?"

"Hey, Jack," Noah says with a bright smile, setting the bag down to hug him back. His hair is done in some sort of ponytail with loops today and Noah is careful not to mess it up. "Cool hair."

"Yeah, I wanted to visit, but I was hoping we could go on a field trip. Is that allowed?" he asks, hoping Jack knows the rules of this place because he has no idea. He straightens up and looks around for an adult for a moment, then back to Jack. "Just for a little while to the skate park, if you want to do some skateboarding?"

"Thanks!" I'm really happy Noah talked about my hair, I took a long time this morning to put it together. The boys said I was using too much time in the bathroom but I think it looks awesome. "I wanted to make my hair like my friend Rey's, she's got lots of Strong and she's super fun." I hug Noah a little longer, really tight because I'm happy that he came to see me, then I get down from my tiptoes.

"Um yeah, field trips are okay! You just have to show them your card, that way they know who I'm with and if they need me back they can find you," I say and point to the front room of Home. I think they'll let me go with Noah no problem, because Noah's really nice and they only don't want me to go with mean people. "Wow, you want to take me to the skate park? That's awesome, that's so cool, I wanna go! Did you bring skateboard stuff with you?"

I reach for Noah's hand and pull a little to the front room so that the Home can know about Noah quick, I don't want to waste time!

Jack is like a whirlwind of talking and hugging and dragging, and Noah can't help but laugh and follow along. "I brought lots of stuff, I'll show you after we get permission. What did you mean by your friend being strong, by the way? She's like a body builder or a superhero?" Noah asks on their way to the front desk.

He holds the door open for Jack and follows him in, still holding hands, and sets down his big shopping back to get out his ID and let them know where he and Jack will be.

"Um, um yeah I think she's kind of like a superhero but I don't think she's a body builder," I say. I have to think about it lots because I think lots of people are superheroes even if they don't have capes. Like my Ma is my superhero, she's better than any other hero in World to me! She's even better than all the not real heroes. And the Officer who found me when I was getting away from Old Nick, she's a superhero too.

Rey has the Force too, she knows how to use it, but I don't think I'm supposed to talk about that too much. Maybe after Rey teaches me one day.

"She flies starships! And the big Jungle Gym in Park, she goes up to the top of that like whoosh and she's there! She doesn't look really big but she's really fast," I tell Noah as we wait at the desk. There's papers that they give Noah, I think he has to write on them, Andrea told me about that.

Noah tries to follow everything Jack is telling him about this mysterious Rey. Jack paints an interesting mental picture of her, and Noah kind of hopes he meets this girl sometime just to see how she measures up to Jack's impression of her. "She sounds super cool," Noah says, skimming the forms and then signing them. He realizes he's going to be completely in charge of an entire person and wonders for a moment if he's actually worthy of the responsibility. But, the indoor area of the skatepark has actual adult employees, so knowing they'll be around in case of an emergency (hopefully there won't be an emergency!) is a little reassuring.

"Okay, looks like we're good to go. Are you okay taking a taxi?" he asks, picking up the bag and offering his other hand to Jack.

"She totally is," I tell Noah. "Maybe both of you can come to the Home sometime and meet each other!" I think about how all my friends are really, really cool, and I think that my friends would like my other friends so I should get them together sometime. I think it's hard to make sure everyone has enough time because they're busy, but maybe I can have a party sometime and most of them can come, that would be really awesome. I think Rey and Noah would like each other a lot because they're both nice and they can do really cool things, like Rey and the Force and Noah and his skateboard.

I jump when Noah's done, I'm really happy we can go now!

"Yeah, I can take anything!" I say, I skip over and hold Noah's hand. "I never took a taxi before but I learned at School, they're like cars, except they have a sign that says taxi and you pay the driver money to take you, right?"

"That would be cool, I'd totally love to meet her," Noah says, grinning. Jack's enthusiasm isn't contained by what he says, his thoughts are that and more. He's like the living embodiment of a ray of sunshine, and for a moment Noah is grateful that while people are here they aren't gone from home, because his family would probably be devastated to lose him.

Noah swings their hands as they walk down to the corner and to the curb so he can hail a taxi. "You're right, the taxi driver will take us where we need to go since I don't have my own car here to drive us. Which sucks, because it was an awesome car. It was bright red and drove really, really fast."

When a taxi stops for them, Noah helps Jack into the car, scooting in next to him, and gives the driver the address for the skate park.

"You had your own car? That's really awesome, when I'm bigger I want to have my own car too. Maybe. But maybe I want, um, a apartment first because I think there are lots of places in Darrow you can see if you ride the Subway. My friend Peter showed me that," I say, and I laugh when Noah swings our hands, he's really big so when he swings our arms they go a really long way.

There are lots of things I see in Darrow that I think would be really nice to have when I'm a grown-up, but I think the apartment is the most important because I like a place that feels more like a home and not just a School.

I'm more quiet when we get in the taxi because the driver is a stranger. I get closer to Noah and I whisper in his ear. "How far is the park?"

"The subway is cool, too, definitely, but I bet you'll like driving really fast even more," Noah says with a certain amount of longing creeping into his voice. He was a lot like Ronan, back when he was alive, speeding and driving recklessly along all the back roads and empty streets.

When Jack leans in to whisper to him, Noah whispers back like a secret, "Not that far." Darrow isn't big enough for it to take that long to get from one place to another, but for a kid time probably feels different.

And indeed they arrive several minutes later, the children's home being close to the ocean, and the skate park being just further up the beach. Noah pays the fee and helps Jack out of the taxi.

"Ready?" he asks with a grin.

I giggle real quiet when Noah whispers back to me, I like that he did the same thing as me, that's what friends do. I look up at the taxi driver only a little bit, the taxi driver doesn't say lots so I think he probably doesn't like to talk so much. I wish he did because then I would talk to Noah about what it's like to drive fast, because I know cars go fast but I don't think Grandma drove her car faster than other cars so maybe that's not driving fast.

I looked on the map that I have and there's lots of places that don't have so many buildings and lights, they call it the countryside, I bet you can get a car and drive super fast there.

"Whoa, we're close to the beach!" I say when we're out of the taxi. I think I'm a little bit loud because some people look at us, I should be a little more quiet. "This is awesome, we can skate and we can go to the beach later if we want, I didn't know there were so many cool things here. I'm so ready."

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