~~Young~~

Chapter Twelve

   “Oh Sera,” she mused in that motherly tone that others identified with her, was the reason for the Mama moniker, “you shouldn’t be out tonight, you’ll catch a cold.”

   Mama also knew Sera better then even Chelsea did. She was very astute, like Gage, she didn’t miss a thing. She caught every shifted glance, every clench of a hand when Sera was trying to hide something from her. And she wasn’t going to let her get away with it.

   Maybe bringing Gage wouldn’t have been such a bad idea, Sera hadn’t considered before how much the two had in common. But unlike Gage Sera didn’t hide anything from Mama. She posed no threat for her even in possibility, didn’t have a wicked bone in her body.

   “I’ll be fine I always am,” she lied. She almost always came away from this place sick. Lingering chemicals from the old factory’s processing days maybe, “and also as always I came bearing gifts.”

   “You are too good to us,” Mama grinned as Sera climbed one of the ramps, swooping in for a hug, “you’ll spoil them.”

   “I hardly consider the basic necessities spoiling.”

   “To them…” Mama trailed off.

   And she was right, as usual. Her kids didn’t take a thing for granted like Sera did. Clean, running, water was cause for excitement for them. And hot water? That was like Christmas.

   “So how many are there tonight?” Sera asked just to change the subject.

   “Five…six in a few more days I would guess.”

   Meaning there was a pregnant one amongst her brood. It wasn’t unusual, better for her to take the pregnant ones in then risk the lives of both mother and child if she went into labor alone.

   She had two that have always and will always be with her, a brother and sister pair who were her first “kids”. They were both under ten when she found them, sitting beside their deceased mother waiting for her to “wake up” so she could help them find something to eat. The shelters couldn’t handle all the homeless in the city in the winter, and all too often when the air becomes frigid they pass in the night. Mama didn’t know exactly why their mother had never given them up, left them to foster care so they would at least have a chance, only what the kids had told her. Words of a long forgotten father their mother said she couldn’t let find them.

   They were both in their teens now, fully grown adults in mind even if not in body, and were an asset to Mama and her crusade. But never had she thought of any of her kids as a burden, just the opposite. What they taught her about never taking life for granted had been a blessing to her she called it.

   The other three she couldn’t be sure of. Whether they were the ones that were with Mama the last time Sera saw her- though certainly not the pregnant girl, she hadn’t been there a few weeks ago- she wouldn’t know till she saw them. Mama had a way of persuading even dedicated street kids to try for a better life and they never stayed with her long. And the youngest ones, the ones who had run away from abusive or neglecting homes, she would send them with the older ones on a bus ride across the country. She as Sera knew if a seven or eight year old child ran away from home-and stayed away- it wasn’t because their parents took away their video games. And if it was that bad then Mama wasn’t going to take the chance of their parents finding them again.

   “Anyone I know,” Sera asked as they pushed their way through the cracking plastic flaps blocking at least some of the night’s breeze to their camp.

   “Besides Billy and Vanessa?” who at their names waved to Sera from their own respective perches on the piles of cloth they had apparently rounded up as bedding, “No, no I don’t think so. The last of the kids you knew went into a shelter just a week after we made it here, though we picked up Scott on the way,” she waved a hand at a sleeping red head boy curled up on a pile of cloth nearest to the fire, “told me his mom and dad said they were going to the store and didn’t realize they weren’t coming back until he found the eviction notice on his apartment door a month later.”