Free Wild-born by Adrian Howell Page A

number or exact street address. I forced myself to push aside my fears about Cat. I had to concentrate on taking care of myself.
    The next morning, tired and stiff from my night in the park, I made my way to a nearby supermarket. There were still a handful of coins left to me, and I was hungry. But when that food was gone, I would have to choose my next move. I remembered my PE teacher’s favorite saying: “Either you get up and face your problems, or you wait around until your problems are facing you.” That day, I chose the latter.
    At night, after another full day’s aimless wandering, I was once again sitting under the bush in the park. Not having eaten any lunch or dinner, I felt weak and even colder than the night before. There was nothing for it: I would eventually have to steal something, either tonight or the next day when I was even hungrier than I was now. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all too bothered by the moral side of that. I was merely trying to survive. If someone was going to give me a job, or any “right” way to make it out here, I’d take it. I knew that was true, and so I felt it wasn’t a real crime to steal when there weren’t any other options. The real question was how to do it.
    I got up and walked toward the downtown area. It was about 11pm, and many of the shops and office buildings were closed. But there were still plenty of cars on the streets, and people were strolling or just milling about on the sidewalks. As I trudged along, I realized that I had no idea where to start. All I knew was that crime was best committed at night, when it was dark. For adults, anyway.
    “Hey, kid, where are you going?” a young woman in a sparkly green dress called out to me from across the street. I ignored her and kept my pace, bringing my head down a notch. A child alone on the streets at this time of night drew too much attention. This wasn’t going to be easy.
    I ducked into a narrow alleyway between two buildings. The alley was dimly lit, with only two neon tube lights attached to the sides of the buildings. One of them was buzzing and flickering feebly. This was exactly the kind of place your gut warns you about, saying, Stay away from there. That’s where bad things happen. But I had been through a good deal of fear these last few days and I knew that there were much scarier things in the world than dark alleyways.
    I looked up at the fire escape on one of the buildings. The rusty iron staircase extended from the top of the building down to the second floor, where it stopped. There was a ladder that could be extended from there down to the ground, but of course it was lifted up so that burglars couldn’t climb it.
    No matter. I stood there and calmed myself for a few seconds, gathering my focus before levitating myself up onto the stairs. Once I landed on the staircase, I felt my power drain just a little from being surrounded by all the metal, but it was no big deal. My new shoes kept me from touching the fire escape directly. Though I was wearing my gloves, I didn’t use the railing as I quietly climbed the steps.
    The problem was that at each floor, there was a locked steel door, but no windows to look in from. I couldn’t tell what kind of building this was, whether it was an apartment or an office or a hospital or what. I climbed to the top and stood on the flat, asphalt roof. I hadn’t been counting, but I must have been about ten stories up.
    I looked at the other buildings around me. Many of them were about the same height. Peering over the edge of the roof, I saw the people far below me walking this way and that, minding their own business. I looked up at the night sky. A thick layer of dark clouds slowly slid over the waning moon, and suddenly, my hunger temporarily forgotten, I was seized with a reckless desire... to fly!
    I lifted myself up a few yards and hovered for a moment, and then rose higher, and higher. Once I was sufficiently above the roof of the building, I tried