DAVID AND THE BEANSTALK

PROLOGUE

ONCE UPON A TIME, in the year 2018, in a small town in California, America and in an old, one-story building house, there lived a 36-year old woman and her 12-year old son, David. They were both so very poor, though, and barely had enough food to keep them from starving! In fact, just by looking at the home that they lived in, anyone could tell that they were definitely part of the lower class of society.

Since they were so poor, they had to live their at that house, which had previously been abandoned for quite some time before they had moved into it. The house's living conditions weren't ideal, but for them, it was better than living out on the streets and being at the complete mercy of the weather and the elements or any shady characters.

Because the house had used to be abandoned, it had been a real mess when David and his mom had first found it! And because David and his mom were so poor, there hadn't been much that they could do to give it a proper renovation.

Still, they were able to make it at least somewhat livable and they were just thankful for what little they did have. Afterall, there were many people in the world, who didn't have anything at all!

Because of their poor status and lack of financial income, David couldn't afford to go to school. This often made his mother worry about her son's future. She was afraid that the only jobs that would be available to him because of this would be him flipping burgers at McDonalds or working as a janitor at a school. She didn't want that to happen to David, but there was nothing she could do about it.

David's mom was also a widow as her late husband had passed away when David was only 8. Like David and his mom, David's dad had been a very kind, helpful and considerate person and he had loved both his wife and son as much as they had loved him.

Even when David's dad had still been alive, David's family had still been poor. David and his mom's current situation and their poverty was nothing new as their family had always been poor before David's dad died and before David himself had even been born.

David's mom had tried to find work and apply for a job to earn some much-needed money, but no one would hire her. So, trying to get a job wasn't going to happen.

The only reason David and his mom had even been able to survive this whole time was because they did the only thing people like them could do, they begged! Yes! David and his mother would everyday be forced to stand outside on the streets and beg any passerbys for money, food, clothes and other donations.

They didn't get much from doing this as most people just weren't that very generous or didn't have any time for people like them and simply kept going on past them and went on with their lives. Another issue had been the matter of competing with other poor and homeless people, who were all begging and asking for food money, clothes and other things like them.

Between all of that, they didn't get that much. But again, what could they do?

While David and his mother were poor, David's mom usually allowed her son to go outside and walk across town all by himself. The mother's only conditions for letting him do this was that he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, for him to stay out of trouble, for him to stay on the streets and for him to come back home before it got took dark outside.