The Author (Chapter 1)

And this is where Emmett was now, looking at himself in the mirror of Hank William's bathroom. Emmett took one last look at his damaged reflection before finally washing his face and heading out to the dining room to make himself something to eat.

He walked in to find Hank at the kitchen table, his nose stuck in the paper. Hank was always reading the daily news or a magazine called "the Business stud", saying, whenever Emmett asked, that he must keep on top of the current events if he wanted to keep his social edge at work. Apparently, another guy who'd recently been hired was almost as "up to date" as Hank, and now he felt threatened. For the past two weeks he did nothing except read current events or watch CNN while at home.

Emmett searched through the refrigerator, knowing that he wouldn't find anything worthwhile. The only foods that Hank ever bought were frozen dinners. He said that cooking wasted valuable time. Emmett missed Mrs. Mckinzies homemade meals whenever he looked through this barren icebox. She had been an excellent cook and used to take pride in giving her family the best meals she could muster-a far cry from Hank's Lean Cuisine buffet.

Emmett decided on a Salisbury steak meal, the only frozen dinner that was somewhat edible in his opinion, and tossed it in the microwave.

He sat at the table with his steaming brown lump of meat and started to chew, all the while waiting for the routine to begin. Everyday, Hank took the time to ask Emmett the exact same questions, not even bothering to listen to the answers because he was too busy reading his papers. Emmett guessed that this was Hank's idea of Parenting.

"So, how was school?" asked Hank, not bothering to steal his eyes away from the paper.

"I got jumped again."

"That's nice." Then came the familiar pause so to give Emmett enough time to spit out an answer (just in case it was a lengthy one). "How was math class?"

Emmett decided to get a little creative and see if it made a difference.

"Well, I was hungry, so I ate my desk."

"That's great. What about English, any trouble there?"

"I lit my teacher on fire with my eyes."

"Lookin' good."

Hank always paused for a minute before this next question, so Emmett took the moment of silence to force down the rest of his meal.

"How are those friends of yours?" Hank continued with absolutely no interest in his voice.

"They were all run over by cars today."

"That's excellent."

Emmett shook his head and went to his room to retrieve his backpack. As he walked past the kitchen table and headed out the door . . . "I'm running away and never coming back," he said, trying to see if Hank would notice.

"Sounds fun. Be home by eight for dinner."

Emmett shrugged and headed out the door. He didn't really want to run away, he didn't have anywhere else to go, but there was no denying that he was miserable.

For starters, he dreaded school. Moving from family to family so frequently meant changing schools every couple of months, making it very hard for him to make friends. And being the new kid was never fun. He was always the smallest kid in the class and without fail would receive some demeaning nickname within his first day; ranging from the average names, like shrimp or small-fry, to the more creative names, like hobbit or fetus (that was always his favorite). And the fact that he was usually the smartest kid in the class didn't help his case very much. There was nothing like a little kid who was smarter than the rest to really set off the bullies. So at his new school, just like the rest of them, he was prime bait for the school tyrants. But after getting knocked around for so long, he had become conditioned to it, the beatings getting easier to shrug off with every incident. Not to say that he enjoyed it, but it was nowhere near as devastating as it had once been.