This is part of a novel that I am working on at school. Just keep in mind that it isn't true! ;)




Chapter 1
I ran and ran and ran. Only one thought raced in my mind. I had to get to the Louvre Museum and hide. It was crowded with people, so I knew that I would be hard to find. I could hear my foster parents’ footsteps pounding behind me. The Louvre Museum loomed in front of me. The glass walls of the pyramid sparkled in the sunlight. Tourists wearing “I love Paris” T-shirts bumped and poked and prodded me with their cameras. I snuck behind a lady wearing a big puffy pink dress. I followed her, and as soon as she was inside the museum, I crept behind a tall marble statue.
After all that running, I was worn out. I soon fell asleep behind it.
When I woke up, the museum was all quiet. They probably didn’t notice me when they locked up for the night. “Good,” I whispered to myself. Then, I felt something wet and warm on my skin. I turned around. A cute little Highland White Terrier pup, according to the books I read in the library, was licking my leg! How did it get here? I thought. Starting when I was only four, I had wanted a dog. I had wanted a dog when the Cavewall family adopted me. That was my first foster home. They had a lazy, fat bulldog, but it bit me seven times before I ran away! I lived in forty-two foster homes after that. So I thought, why not adopt this poor thing?
I picked it up and smelled it. I would have thrown up had not I heard footsteps walking in my direction. I peeked from behind the statue, and saw a man who was dressed in black. I hid once more behind the statue. I could hear him unscrewing the screws on a painting’s display case. In the dark, I could just barely make out the shape of the man carefully setting the display case down on the ground. I watched him as he took the famed Mona Lisa down from the wall. He then stuffed into a burlap bag. That was when the dog made its move. He darted to the man and bit his calf. That was where the bulldog once bit me. I knew that the man was bleeding. He screamed in agony. The dog kept on holding onto his leg.
A flash of light shone in my eye. The object he was holding was a knife! He tried to stab the dog, but the dog was too clever. He instantly let go and barked. A police officer charged into the museum with a flashlight and commanded the man to do the eagle spread. Before the thief left, I watched him pick up a shimmering gem from the ground. I stood all while behind the statue, watching. The police walked away with the thief and I followed him quietly. The thief was screaming so loud, I don’t think he would’ve heard me anyway.
I took a midnight stroll. The moon was bright, and the air was warm. I passed a nearby park. I climbed up the ladder and went down the slide. Little did I know who was behind me?
So there I was, playing in the moonlight, when I started humming a song, from one of my fuzzy memories as a baby. I paused as a quiet howling filled the air with the song. A wet tongue lapped at my arm, which was dangling from the edge of the slide. So the dog followed me here, I thought. I put this thought to test. I climbed up an old tall sycamore tree. The dog followed, digging his claws into the bark. He had a hard time getting even five feet off the ground. I giggled. Suddenly, I heard a voice. “Marie? Marie?? Where are you???” I could tell it was my foster mom, Denise. So now she “cares” about me, I thought.
A gruff voice spoke, “ I don’t think your Marie is here.”
I hid in the tree. I slept in it. I ate my food in it. I read the books I got from the librarian in it. It was like my home. The dog ran around the city, and came back at night. It had scratched out stairs in the tree, but that wasn’t very evident. It was a good thing the tree had thick foliage that obscured me from view. The dog and I turned into close friends, so I decided to name him. Carrot, I thought, was a very apt name for him.
I knew that my foster parents would go looking for me, but I decided that I should be able to at least choose who adopted me.
The following day, I hurried to the adoption center closest to the park. I did the regular stuff there that I had done forty-two times before. The lady showed me the way around the orphanage. She handed me a blanket and a pillow and told me where I was to sleep.
That night, I had a nightmare. It was about my memories as a baby. I remembered that my family was poor. I recalled having a best friend or a sibling. I wasn’t even sure if it was a boy or girl! I woke up, panting. The girl next to me said, “Having a nightmare?” Beads of cold sweat dripped onto the pillow.
“Yup,” I replied.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said.
“Well,” I said nervously. “I’ve been adopted forty-two times.”
“Whoa!” she exclaimed. “I’ve only been adopted once, and it was just last year.”
“Do you know what happened to your parents?” I asked in a still shaky voice.
“No,” she whispered. “I think they died or something.”“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I know for sure my parents are still alive, but I don’t know where they are.” I looked at her, and she was asleep. I dozed off to the sound of Carrot singing my baby song on the roof deep into the night.