I wriggled away from the agent’s grasp.  I ran up to a large, lonely, and dark building.  The sign that was written in big, bold, and angry letters on the building read: “Ms. Robinson’s  Rainbow:  A Loving Place for Orphans”.  Tears pricked up in my eyes. In a trembling voice, I managed to speak. “Is this th-the p-p-place?”  “Yes, Shannon.  It may look depressing on the outside, but I heard Ms. Robinson is very kind.  And if God is kind, you will get adopted by a loving family.”,  Melissa, the agent replied.  “Y-Yes, Melissa.”, I replied. “Now you know that I’m your CPS agent and I never lie to you.  After all, after I knew your mother died and that your father died before her, I was the one who did what?’,  Melissa asked, obviously looking  for me to reply.  Like an obedient puppy, I replied, ” Set up a living arrangement with my aunt.”  We had gone over this a million times, as well as Melissa’s speech about having faith in God, yet I still replied everytime.  Just because Melissa was very convincing and could get angry if you don’t agree with her, as I’d learnt after knowing her for a few years.  Hence, my constant automatic replies.  Suddenly, Melissa’s voice shattered my thoughts. “And after your aunt had a stroke, what did I do?”  “Find an orphanage for me.”  “Exactly. That’s why you should trust me.” ,  Melissa said crisply.  Melissa is a very crisp person. She has a crisp voice, her clothes, which are usually pantsuits, are always perfectly laundered and crisp, and she even walks crisply, so that the sound of her high-heels on the floor would fit right in with the noises of the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks display.

It smelled like citrus fruit in there.  Not real of course, but like somebody had sprayed a citrus fruit flavored air freshener. I knew it was air freshener because in between the overpowering scent of the freshener, you could smell a faint, musty smell like most old buildings have. “And this is where you sleep.”, a voice, which I had already gotten accustomed to being  Ms. Robinson’s, spoke. Ms. Robinson was petite, maybe about five foot three, had long, shiny, straight brown hair that fell down her back and looked like a horse’s mane, and grass green eyes. She seemed to be in her twenties. She had a soft voice, but she seemed like she knew how to treat kids and knew how to be authoratative with kids too. Ms. Robinson handed me a paper that was typed quite neatly. It seemed to be a schedule and some rules.

8:00 AM:  Wake-up.

You make your bed every morning and on Thursday, you change your sheets.  You should put out your clothes the night before.  Somebody will take your clothes from the day before and will return them to you washed in the afternoon.

8:30 AM to 9:15 AM: Breakfast

You’re assigned to a table that you’ll sit at  at  every meal.

9:15 AM to 3:00 PM: School

You will have a tutor who will give you supplies. You will have two fifteen minute breaks, one at 11:00 AM and one at 2:00 PM. There will be a lunch break at 12:30 PM.

3:00 PM to 4:00 PM: Homework

Your tutor will assign work to do after school. Before you begin your work, you can get a snack. Your work will never take you more than an hour.

5:00 PM to 6:30 PM: Free Time

6:30 PM to 7:15 PM: Dinner

7:15 PM to 7:45 PM: Shower and Bed Preperations

7:45 PM to 8:30 PM: Group Chat

We’ll all meet in the Grand Hall to talk.

8:30 PM: Bedtime

Seems like I”ll have a pretty good time here.  I walked to the mess hall for breakfast.

“So you’re the new kid Ms. Robinson was talking about?”, a girl with black hair asked me. “Yep.”, I replied in a casual tone. We moved up the line a little bit. “Well, I’m Miranda. My twin sister, Eliza, is over there.’” She pointed to a girl who looked exactly like her a few feet away. The girl waved. “And this is my friend Faith.” She motioned to a girl with blond hair behind her. Faith waved. Feeling slightly winded from all the introductions, I simply said, “I’m Shannon.” “What’s your table and room number?”, Miranda asked with a slightly hopeful tone.  “Uh….”  I looked at the paper Ms. Robinson had given me. “Table 5 and room 234.”  “Oh my god!”, Miranda shrieked with glee, “That’s my table and you’re in the same room as me, along with Faith, Eliza, and Nadia. Nadia’s pretty stuck up and spoiled. And to think that she’s now an orphan. Her parents must’ve spoiled her.” She shook her head in slight disgust. After I processed all this information, I just said, “Brain overload!” Faith said, “You better get used to it. Miranda once kept us up ’til five in the morning with her talking.” “I did not!”, Miranda objected. Faith and me were already collapsing in laughter. Faith held up her fist, and we bumped fists, delighting in Miranda’s obvious defeat.

“You know that they always shuttle off the new kids first to foster homes?”, Miranda asked. I assumed this was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer. “Geez Miranda. You’re probably freaking her out. Have some sympathy. After all, we didn’t know our families. She did. First she lost her parents, then she lost her aunt. And we’re only twelve.”, Faith preached. “Ok, ok. Look who decided to become Ms. Preacher. ” , Miranda taunted back. After only knowing them for about an hour, I could already tell that Miranda and Faith had an odd type of friendship, where Faith would constantly have to tell Miranda to shut her trap. Another surprising thing is that although Miranda and Eliza are identical in terms of looks, they are nothing like each other in terms of personality. Eliza is pretty quiet. For example, right now Eliza was standing with a look like she was laughing at and mocking Miranda in her head. It was pretty funny. Finally, Eliza spoke. “Well, we better head to school now. How fun.”, she said in a sarcastic tone. “How about we meet in the lounge after we do our homework?”, Miranda asked. “Uh… Where’s the lounge?”, I asked.  Faith told me since Miranda would probably give me a whole long explanation. Woah. This orphanage was almost like a camp!

Ms. Robinson led me to a small room. There was somebody sitting there. “This is Andie. She’s your tutor.”, she said. “Come, sit down.”, Andie said and pointed to a desk. The desk had fresh supplies and books with my name written on them. Cool. This was better than school. In school, we would always get these old textbooks from 1975 with tons of names written in them. One time, I got my mother’s textbook! Andie told me,”Take out the looseleaf.” She handed me some labels for the plastic dividers and folders in the looseleaf. I labeled them neatly with all the subjects. I liked to be organized. Then she said, “Take out all the books in the desk.” She came over to the desk. She showed me which books were for each subject. Then she told me to label the notebooks “Math” and “Spelling”.  Finally, we started. Andie was lots of fun. She was studying in college to be a teacher and was twenty years old. She was very easy-going and tried to make learning as fun as possible with games. Best of all, she only gave me a few easy things for homework per night!

On the way to the lounge, everybody was questioning me about school. “So who’s your tutor?’, Miranda inquired. “Andie.” “Oh my god! You’re so lucky! I heard she’s lots of fun and gives very little homework!”, Miranda exclaimed. While she was making this statement, I was struggling to keep a straight face because Faith and Eliza were pretending to turn an off button on Miranda’s back.

When we got to the lounge, we grabbed some snacks. “So what should we do?” “Oh my god! You have not lived until you’ve seen Ms. Robinson’s DVD collection!”, Miranda exclaimed. One thing I noticed about Miranda is that she doesn’t talk. She either exclaims or inquires. Anyway, the collection was huge! We picked out Breakfast at Tiffany’s and popped it in to the DVD player.

“So what is Group Chat and what is Ms. Robinson like?”, I  inquired. “Ms. Robinson is still like a teenager, even though she’s an adult. She lets us have boyfriends and stuff. And she knows what we like. For example, every two weekends, we have different bars at Group Chat. On Fridays of those weeks, there’s on sundae bar. On Saturdays, there’s a candy bar and you take a bag and take as much candy as you want and take it back to your room. On Sundays, there’s a snack bar with cheese curls and stuff and you do what you do at the candy bar. Group Chat is when Ms. Robinson makes some announcements and then she lets us either chat or we watch a movie. “, Eliza, uncharacteristically talkative, said. “Wow Eliza. I never heard you talk so much.”, I replied. Eliza just gave a shy smile and blushed. Miranda suddenly broke in to the conversation and said, “Well, today is a sundae Friday, so we better get moving. By the way, I haven’t alerted you on the awesomeness of weekends. You wake up late and do whatever you want. Ms. Robinson doesn’t care. She isn’t much of an authority figure. And sometimes she drives us in to Manhattan on the weekends.”  “Good for the food thing and weekend thing. But, gross! I don’t really like boys. I don’t want my life to turn in to a total cliche`. It already almost is. I mean, this is my life currently: girl becomes orphan, goes to orphanage, meets trustworthy friends. I don’t want to add girl meets boy and falls in love to that list.”, I replied, sending everybody in to a fit of giggles.

At Group Chat, Ms. Robinson had only two announcements. “I’d like to introduce the newbies. Shannon and Rob, come up.” With a blush and a push from Faith, Miranda, and Eliza, I came up.  A boy with short brown hair and blue eyes came up. Ms. Robinson asked me some questions. “What are your hobbies?” “I play the sax, read, draw, and play baseball and loyally follow the New York Mets.”, I replied. “How old are you?” “Twelve.”  “Did you meet any friends?”  “Yes. Miranda, Faith, and Eliza.”  “Ok!”, Ms. Robinson announced, “One more announcement before the sundae bar! Tomorrow, I’ll be driving you guys in to the city.” Everybody cheered.

On the way to the sundae bar, the guy who Ms. Robinson introduced as Rob said above the noise of the great stampede to the sundae bar to me, “Hey.”  Not knowing what to say, I just said, “Hi.”  “You wanna go see a movie with me in Manhattan tomorrow at four?”, he asked, cool as a cucumber.   Miranda and Faith were right behind me, chanting, “Say yes! Say yes!” “Oh, fine.”, I said, fed up with their chanting.

That night, I lay in bed, still awake. Even though I  had met some awesome people on my first day, I still felt a slight loneliness. I missed being a normal kid, living with, well, first my mom and my dad, then with just my mom, in Manhattan. I missed walking to Central Park and meeting my friends there for a pretzel or ice cream or biking.  I missed my school and taking the subway to school. I missed lying awake at night and listening to the sounds of the city. I knew not everybody had my luck of making friends easily. I liked Brooklyn, where the orphanage was located, but it wasn’t home.

I guess I eventually fell asleep, because next thing I knew Ms. Robinson was shaking us awake, telling us that if we wanted to go to the city, we need to wake up.  I woke up, along with Faith, Miranda , and Eliza. Miranda was perky and helped me pick out a great outfit. It was a dark green sweater and a pair of black leggings and black flats and an emerald necklace. She also tried to put makeup on me and I protested. Since there is no winning with Miranda, I just allowed her to put on eye makeup. “You know I really don’t want a boyfriend?”, I said as she applied gunk to my eyelids. “Yes. You already stated that,  quite loudly I’ll have you know, last night.”, she replied.

About an hour or so later, we were in Ms. Robinson’s car on the highway. I had a tote bag with my wallet and some extra eye makeup, which Miranda insisted I take,  and a mini hairbrush and mirror. Everytime I looked at my bag, I felt a slight tinge of sorrow. My m0ther bought me this bag for my tenth birthday, the year she got sick. It was blue with a bright orange Mets logo and below it was written “New York Mets”. I looked out the window. A mix of rain and snow was starting to fall.  This kind of winter weather made me long for baseball season, where the weather was sunny and warm. Ms. Robinson shattered my thoughts. “We’re almost there. Shannon, here’s your cell phone.” I guess I looked kind of confused, because Miranda explained. “Everybody gets a cell phone so that Ms. Robinson can keep tabs on us when we go out.”

A few minutes later, we were smack in the middle of Times Square. Everybody ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the lights. “Ok, guys. I’m dropping you off here. Call to check in every hour. To get back, take your Metrocards. That way you could pay the fare to get on the subway. Does everybody have their Metrocards and cell phones?’ , Ms. Robinson said. Miranda ran up to the curb. Rob and his friends insisted on coming with us. “Well.”, Rob said, “It’s already 1:00. Let’s go to lunch and take it from there. I know this great Italian place, but they seat you in pairs. There are three girls and three boys. Double up.” On the way there, we walked behind the boys. Miranda kept whispering to me. “I think its a ploy to get you alone.”, she said. I simply made a small fake gagging face. Ugh, I thought. Why did I agree to go out on a date? Oh yeah, because my dumb “friends” talked me in to it. Whatever, I’ll go eat and see a movie and go around Manhattan pretending there’s no boy with me. This brought me back to my mother’s words. She always said, ”If you don’t like something or someone, go around your regular business pretending they’re not there.”  Maybe I shouldn’t be so judgemental. Rob’s friend, Steve suddenly shouted. “Listen, dude. You may want to chill with your date alone. But, I’m not going to sit alone with a girl I don’t know well.” “Fine man. But what suggestion do you have because I’m starved.”, Rob questioned. “Why don’t we go to that fifties-style diner I was telling you about? Its a few blocks away.”, Steve replied. We started up the block.

The diner was pretty awesome and fifties-ish. We sat on bright red stools. There was a real soda counter and just for the sake of experiencing fifties-style shakes, sodas, and fast-food, we each got a soda, shake, and a burger and fries. The drinks came in tall glasses and the food came in red baskets. My “date’s” friends were talking up my friends. I knew Miranda would be all perky and “he’s so great” when we got back. My  “date” was nice, but I’m not ready to “date” anybody. He was really interesting and funny as a friend. Maybe in the future I would date him, who knows. I actually told him that and he said he didn’t really want to be someone’s boyfriend and he just wanted to see if we could be friends. “I think that we would be good friends. We both like the Mets and we have the same sense of humor.”, Rob replied when I told him we should just be friends. Whatever, I’m proud that I spoke up for myself and that I didn’t let a boy change me. Because in the future, no matter how much I like a boy, I will not change myself for a boy. That was my rule in life. You either take me as I am or leave me alone. My mother always said I had a good head on my shoulders, a strong work ethic, and smarts and that is something you should never change and something that not one person can take away from me. She told me no matter how much you want to be “popular”, you should never change for any friend or person. Because if they don’t take as you are, they’re really not a friend. To this day, I think of that rule every single day. I knew that by myself before my mother told me. Everybody always said I had the personality of my mother and the looks of my father.

Rob shattered my thoughts. “Hello, earth to Shannon.”, he said, waving his hand in my face. “Geez. I was just thinking, Rob.” , I replied. “Whatever. Anyway, we’re going to to the Museum of Modern Art. Then, we’ll go see a movie and go to dinner.” , he said. “Fine. Let’s go, but we need to check in with Ms. Robinson first.”, I replied.

After the muesuem, we walked to the movie theater. We decided to see this comedy. It wasn’t the funniest, but at least you were able to laugh at it’s dumbness. Then, we ate at this great Italian restaurant that served complimentary all-you-can-eat breadsticks and salad. We stuffed ourselves silly. Rob kind of put his arm around me, in a friendly way. It was slightly cringe worthy.  Then, we got on the subway. It was a long ride and I had brought my daily journal along so I wrote.

6:30 PM, 2/19/11, Subway

Well, I went out on a date with Rob. As I’ve said before, I really don’t want a boyfriend, so we agreed to be friends/ “friends with benefits” . Okay, that last sentence- total corn/cliche` fest.  Anyway, I had a great time. We went to the Musuem of Modern Art, ate lunch at this fifties diner, saw a movie, and ate an early dinner at 5:00 at this Italian place. When we get back, I’m going to veg with my friends, change and shower, and go to Group Chat.

Rob and I chatted until our stop. I realized that he was kind of cute in that laid back kind of way. After that, we returned to the orphanage.

We returned to the orphanage around 6:30. While everybody else hurried back to their rooms, I checked in with Ms. Robinson. I came in. “Hi, sweetheart. How are you and the rest of my favorite little group doing? How was your day?’, she asked. “Good. We went to the Museum of Modern Art and to see a movie. We also ate dinner and lunch.”, I replied. “Okay. How did things go with Rob?”, she asked. Geez. Did Ms. Robinson have an endless stream of questions available? “We’re now friends with benefits.”, I replied. She giggled. “Okay honey. You could go back to your room.”, she replied.

When I returned to the room, Miranda, Faith, and Eliza were showering and preparing for a gossip fest. Eliza came out of the bathroom. “Okay. Shannon, its your turn.”, she told me. I went and washed my worries away in the shower. When I came out, I announced dramatically, ”Let’s have a gossip fest later with our candy!”  “Fine with me. But I have one thing to say. Shannon, when you came here I thought you would be kind of a tomboy. I realized that you are in some ways a drama queen. I mean, you’re not really in to all those cliche` things of what a drama queen is and romance and stuff. And that’s what makes you cool. You break boundaries.”, Miranda stated. I blushed and replied, “According to my mother, I got the acting gene from my father. My mom was a film buff, but she didn’t like to act. I’m a film buff and an ack-tour. In fact, I was in a few school plays when I lived in the city.”   ”Ack-tour. Nice touch.”, Faith said from across the room. Eliza glanced at the clock. “7:00. ” “Well, we’ve got 45 minutes to kill. You wanna go to the lounge and watch TV?”, Miranda suggested. “Sure.”

Forty-five minutes later, we were on our way to Group Chat.  When we got there, Ms. Robinson asked us to tell about our day. Rob was very sweet and went on and on about how fun and awesome today was. He said so much that Ms. Robinson needed to stop him. Afterwards, it was candy time. I have a serious sweet tooth.  After I filled up two bags, (yes, two.), I went to sit on a couch. I felt a bit socially awkward because I saw a lot of kids dancing to the music on Ms. Robinsin’s iPod and some of them were kissing. My friends sat down with me until they were asked to dance with some boys. I was sitting alone until Rob asked me to dance. We laughed at the stupidity of our dance moves and the fact that we were stepping all over each other’s feet.

When I got back to the room, I came face to face with a snotty looking girl with silky, long red hair. “Hi. You must be Nadia. I’m Shannon.”, I said. The girl looked up. “Yeah, I’m Nadia. I try to avoid this room as much as possible. I hate the girls in here. They’re all so uncool. I’m too good for them.”, she said, “Let me guess. You’re one of those girls who is all “I try to be nice to everybody” and think she’s so funny.” I turned around to face her and gave her a look. “Gee. Harsh much?”, I taunted back in a snotty tone. Just as I finished my sentence, my friends walked in, flushed and happy from dancing. Nadia narrowed her eyes at me and turned back to her magazine. I could tell she was watching us out of the corner of her eye, like a hawk eyeing its prey. “I suppose you got “acquainted” with Nadia over here.”, Miranda said. “Yes”, I replied. I leaned and whispered, ” She’s not that nice.”  Miranda nodded and clapped her hands together and said, ”Let’s change in to our pajamas and then talk. I’ve got candy!!”  We all raised two bags each packed with candy.

I changed in to comfy pajamas and sprawled out on my bed with a soda and my candy. “So,” , Faith said, “Did you hear? The guys said they’re coming to our room in,”  She glanced at the Hello Kitty clock on her nighttable. “Fifteen minutes.” “Whatever.”, I replied, “Anyway, Faith, are you obsessed with Hello Kitty. You have a Hello Kitty radio, clock, blanket, and tote bag. You glued rhinestones in the shape of Hello Kitty to your phone. You’re even wearing Hello Kitty pajamas.” “Same goes for you with the Mets. You have a jersey, t-shirt, tote bag, umbrella, towel and pajama pants.”, she replied. I looked at my Mets flannels and giggled.

Miranda started in. “So. Steve and I were chatting so much! He’s so cool! Oh, yeah, Faith and Eliza, you two were pretty involved with Greg and Dave.”, she said. I giggled.

A few minutes later, the guys arrived. Well, actually they more burst in and plopped down on our beds. “Hey, why don’t we head to the lounge?”, Steve suggested. It looked like he was holding something behind his back.  When we got to the lounge, there was tons of people there.  We sat on the couches. Steve withdrew what was behind his back. It was a bottle. An empty one. As empty as the Grand Canyon. He placed it on the table. “Spin the bottle.”

Steve went first. It landed on Rob. They kissed each other on the cheek and cracked up. Steve went again. It landed on Miranda. They kissed. The rest of the game went on like that. The awkwardest one was between Rob and yours truly. “C’mon man. You can’t expect to kiss her. She’s like what you dudes are to me.”, he told Steve. “Well, you kissed me. At least kiss her on the cheek.”, Steve replied. He gave in.

When we got back upstairs, I decided that I need to start grappling with my mother’s death.  I dug through my closet floor and found the picture I hadn’t looked at for at least a year. It was a picture of me, my mother, and father on a beach. I was about three or four when that picture was taken. I already was grappling with her death by meeting new people at the orphanage. I thought about Miranda, Faith, Eliza, and Rob. Did I really feel like I could be myself and tell them about the Mets and comic books? No.  Well, maybe Rob. I’ve gotta tell them this. I looked up from my closet.  “Guys, I’ve got to tell you something.”, I said, “I really like you guys, but I don’t think us being friends will work out. We can be on friendly terms, but you guys don’t understand me like good friends should understand each other.” There was an awkward silence for a little bit. “We didn’t expect to be best friends with you. We just figured that we should at least be friends if we’re in such close quarters. Not that we’re so cramped in here.” , Eliza said bluntly. The rooms here really weren’t that cramped. They’re four times the size of the room I used to have at my aunt’s house. Hence, they put four or five girls in one room.

And so began my quest for a best friend.