#1 - Nick Webster

11. Homecoming

            It's been a wild ride this last year. I'm glad to finally settle down, though. I think I've found the family that I've been looking for all this time. I'm a year older, a year stronger, and a year more knowledgeable than I was when I first arrived in this country.

Unfortunately, I've found no sign of Nikki. I've been on the move even within the United States, but that hasn't stopped her from tracking me down in the past. Now that I have a family, I might be able to persuade them to help me travel to find her. We'll see what they say. I can't just ask them right away and expect them to say yes right away.

I should probably update you on where I've been this past year, though. What a journey I've had. I didn't stay in Illinois for very long. When I jumped onto that truck at the homeless shelter, I decided to jump onto a different random truck the next time we stopped. That truck was also heading westbound. I had switched trucks in a city called Rockford.

My destination was simply to get away from Chicago. I didn't know how far I wanted to be from Chicago, but that was the location that I landed within the United States. It made sense for me to escape from that area to minimize the chance of the Russian government finding me. It also made it harder for Nikki to track me. But... I'm pretty sure Nikki has better tracking skills than the Russian government. At least she has in my experience.

In Rockford, I hopped out of the first truck and eventually made my way to a gas station. I stayed there for several hours until I overheard a truck driver talking on the phone. He said he was heading to Dubuque, Iowa. I figured out which truck he was using and snuck onto that truck. There was a spot for him to sleep behind the driver's seat, and there were cabinets where I decided I would hide while he drove. It was a bumpy ride, but we eventually stopped in Dubuque, Iowa. I hopped out of the semi-truck when he was out of the truck.

From there, I wandered throughout the city of Dubuque. I had to be more resourceful at night. It started to become cold at night. I had found out it was September, and winter was coming whether I was ready or not. I would need to find a foster care agency or family or something soon. Fortunately, it didn't take me long. Within a few days, I found a foster care agency within Dubuque.

This foster care agency had much of the same problems as the one in Chicago. They had too many kids and not enough resources. The kids were a little nicer than the kids in Chicago, but they all also had trouble being adopted by families. The kids who were adopted always seemed to be younger kids. Fortunately, I was in the age range that still was adopted more readily. Teenagers were the kids who didn't get adopted very easily. I was still a few years away from being a teenager, but the rate that kids are adopted makes me nervous.

I didn't stay at this foster agency for very long. I started having luck transferring from agency to agency. I didn't have to worry about being deported either. It took some time every time I wanted to be transferred since I didn't have any official credentials. But ultimately, I ended up being transferred out because there were too few resources, and I was just another mouth to feed. Places were okay with seeing me go find a home elsewhere. It wasn't like they hated me or anything, but they were all financially tied up, and I was happy to move elsewhere when I didn't have any luck being adopted.

The second agency I went to was in Iowa City, Iowa. The kids were once again nicer than the Chicago kids, except for one kid. He seemed to be the leader of everyone because he was older and meaner. There were a lot of younger kids at this agency, so they were helpless defending themselves against him. I didn't think that it was fair for him to bully the other kids just because he was bigger and older.

When I first arrived, he 'greeted' me by taking for my 'lunch money.' When I told him that I didn't have any money, he spat on my foot and pushed me down to the ground. "The next time you have lunch money – you give it to me. Call it your dues for me allowing you to stay here." He laughed and walked away with two other kids who just looked at me and laughed.