Becoming a Randal

By Lauri Robinson, Isabelle Robinson and Hayley Robinson

When fourteen-year-old Samantha West and her younger brother, Tommy, are placed in a foster home, Sam feels as if she's been thrown into a Hallmark movie, full of perfect looking people—actors. The only person not acting, is Spencer Randal, her sixteen-year-old foster brother who hates her. By way of a broken leg, getting hauled home by the cops, and a haunted house, Sam and Spencer each learn what it truly means to be a Randal—Do your best, don't give up, set goals and work towards them, be a good person, and make things right whenever you can.

 

However, just when Sam's life has become as perfect as a Hallmark movie, she and Tommy are returned to their mother, where nothing has changed. As the cycle of living on the streets returns, Sam decides it's time to make things right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fire & Ice Young Adult Books
• Release date: Mar 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781955784627

Lauri Robinson

Lauri Robinson lives in Minnesota where she and her husband spend every spare moment with their three grown sons and their families—spoiling the grandchildren. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and Northern Lights Writers. Along with volunteering for several organizations, she is a diehard Elvis and NASCAR fan. Her favorite getaway location is along the Canadian Border of Northern Minnesota on the land homesteaded by her great-grandfather.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Samantha

I’m sick to my stomach. Got that real nasty taste in my mouth. And I’m mad. Like crying mad. Which I won’t do. Every kid gets mad at their parents, but I have a reason. More than one. Mom knew better. She knew this would happen. She just didn’t care. Didn’t care about me or Tommy. Didn’t care what would happen to us. All she’s ever cared about is herself. She says it’s not that way, but it is.

Always has been.

I have to close my eyes to keep the tears inside. They hurt. Burn. And that makes me madder.

So mad I want to scream. Scream at Mom. If she was here, I’d tell her that I’m glad she’s in the hospital. But she’s not here, so I can’t tell her that, and I’m not glad. She’s the reason Tommy and I are in this car, being carted off to strangers. Because my mother’s fix meant more to her than her children.

We're here!

The cheerful chirp out of the social worker makes me want to puke. For real. That would put an end to the clean smell of her car and to her chirpy voice. I hate being this mad, but there is nothing to be cheerful about.

Nothing!

This is like one of the worst days of my life, and she’s all ‘We’re here!’ like we just arrived at Disneyland or something.

The air in my lungs burns as I huff it out. Disneyland is for little kids who think Mickey Mouse is real. He’s a mouse, and mice don’t talk or sing or dance. They make nests in your clothes and poop all over everything. That’s what mice do. I know. I’ve seen their little brown turds.

Isn’t that a nice house, Samantha? Mrs. Johnson, the chirpy social workers asks.

I look up from studying my worn-out white and blue Sketchers—the ones I got at Goodwill when Mom took me school shopping. Like she cared about me going to school. She never has. She’s never cared about me having clothes. The shelter had given her a voucher to get school clothes for me two weeks ago. Which was fine. I mean, seriously, who would want to pay fifty bucks for a pair of shoes that are just going to get dirty and worn out when they can get a good used pair for five? As long as they fit, who cares? Not me.

I don’t care if it’s a nice house, either, yet I turn to the window. It’s like some kind of stupid movie, the way the sun is shining on the house like some kind of spotlight, making it look all warm and sunny inside and out.

I’m not warm or sunny. My arms are shivering like it’s the dead of winter and I’ve forgotten my coat. Or never had one.

Been there.

Done that.

It’s not winter. It’s only September, and the big stupid white house looks like one that would be in a Hallmark movie. Complete with a smiling, perfect family. Of actors. They’d have to be actors. There are no perfect families. That’s make-believe. So are talking mice.

And houses that look too perfect to be real. With its bright red flowers in the boxes below the windows, the big red WELCOME sign leaning against the door and two rocking chairs sitting on the big front porch. The chairs are red. To match the sign, I guess. And the flowers.

And the roof.

Great. Welcome to the big candy-cane house.

I might as well be at Disneyland.

But I’m not. I’m at a stupid foster home.

That sign might as well say welcome to your new foster home, Samantha West.

Another shiver washes over me as I turn to the car seat beside me.

I’m fourteen, so I don’t need a foster home, but Tommy’s only one and a half, and the county says that I can’t take care of him by myself. I can. I have been since he was born.

My stomach sinks. He doesn’t know what’s happening. Doesn’t know that Mom overdosed last night and is in the hospital. He has no idea that we are here, at a foster home. He has no idea what a foster home is.

It’s only temporary. Mom will get out soon, maybe today, even.

We won’t be able to see her, though. The county says we have to go to a foster home for seventy-two hours. Three days. Then we’ll see her.

I shake my head, so my hair falls over my face, hiding my eyes, and the tears that are once again burning. Pushing to get out, but I’m not going to let them. I’m not going to cry.

We are stuck here at this temporary home for our temporary lives, and I don’t like it. Even though a part of me knows our lives will be temporary wherever we are. That’s how it’s always been.

‘It’s just temporary, Sammy,’ Mom has said to me every time we’ve entered a shelter, every time we’ve gotten kicked out, every time we’ve moved in with some guy she’s having a thing with and Tommy and I have to sleep on the floor. Too many times to count. That’s how many times I’ve heard her say that.

Isn’t it a lovely home? Mrs. Johnson looks over the back of the front seat, smiling like she’s in some toothpaste commercial.

Lovely? No. It’s not lovely. It’s a stranger’s house, and Tommy doesn’t like strangers.

Neither do I.

Even her.

I hate how dark and ugly I feel inside. Hate my life. But there’s nothing I can do, and that makes me feel sick, like puking again.

She’s trying to be nice. The social worker. I get that. Delivering kids to a temporary home for their temporary lives can’t be a fun job. Not one I’d want, that’s for sure. I’m going to get a job at Taco Bell when I turn sixteen because Tommy likes tacos better than chicken McNuggets. I have to pick the lettuce off the tacos for him, but he eats the rest. Soft shelled ones. He almost choked on a hard shell one once.

The Randals are really nice people, Samantha, Mrs. Johnson says quietly, still smiling.

She’s pretty. Sort of. If you like pink stripes in blonde hair. I bet she thinks that pink hair will make the foster kids she’s assigned to putting in homes like her more.

Not.

Nothing will do that.

"I know they will take very good care of you and Tommy.

I take care of Tommy. 

I don’t tell her that because she’ll use it against Mom, which makes me angry. It makes me angry that Mom overdosed, too. We won’t be able to go back to the shelter now. Drug use of any kind is prohibited. Mom knew that. But it didn’t help.

This won’t help, either, but I’ll stick it out, this temporary foster home, because of Tommy. He needs me, and this is the only way we can stay together.

I reach over and gently tickle him under the chin. He likes being woken up that way. Always smiles.

That’s what he does right now. Gives me a great big grin. I try to smile back at him but have to squeeze my eyes shut again because if I don’t, I’ll cry, and I can’t cry. I can’t let even a single tear slip out. That could scare Tommy, and I don’t want him to be scared.

Once I know for sure that no tears will escape, I swallow, which hurts because my throat feels like I ate a packet of hot sauce and open my eyes.

He’s still grinning. I unbuckle my seat belt so I can get him out of the car seat.

I’ll get Tommy. Mrs. Johnson opens her car door. You can get your backpacks.

They aren’t our backpacks. They were given to us at the police station, where we’d spent most of the night. Ever since the ambulance had driven away with our mom on a stretcher in the back. The officers took us to the copshop when the shelter said we couldn’t stay there. Not without our mother. I guess I should be thankful they didn’t fingerprint us, take mug shots, and stick us in a cell.

Bad joke. Even if it was only in my mind. But a joke is better than remembering why and how we ended up at the police station. They could have taken Tommy to the children’s crisis home, but I’m too old. They only take kids up to age twelve.

I know.

I’ve been there before.

Tommy hasn’t and as long as I can help it, he never will go there.

I’ll carry Tommy, I tell Mrs. Johnson when she opens the car door next to Tommy. He’ll cry if you try. I tickle him in an armpit so he’ll giggle while I’m unbuckling the straps holding him tight in the seat.

All right. She reaches in and picks up the two backpacks, one pink and one blue, off the floor.

Real original. Pink for girls, blue for boys. Some girls don’t like pink, and some boys don’t like blue.

Some kids don’t like foster homes, either.

I can’t remember much about the last one I was at. It was eleven years ago. I was three. Mom said it had been my fault that I’d had to go there. I don’t remember that, either.

But we are here now, and I hope Tommy won’t remember any of this. This foster home or anything about how we ended up here.

I will. I already do. I’ll never be able to forget my first look of the candy-cane house. The house I don’t want to be at. The temporary life I don’t want to be living.

I lift Tommy out of the car seat and climb out of the car on my side.

How was the drive?

I turn at the sound of a woman’s voice and the idea I’ve had before, of just taking Tommy and running, strikes again, but I have nowhere to go, no way of providing for him. I hate being a fourteen-year-old kid.

The woman is wearing cropped white jeans and a red and white shirt and walking down the steps of that big front porch. Great. A candy cane foster mother to go with the candy cane foster home. 

I don’t need a foster mother, and neither does Tommy. He has me. If only I was a few years older.

It was fine, Mrs. Johnson replies, shutting my car door. The road construction wasn’t bad at all.

I’m glad to hear that, the candy-cane woman says. We are hoping it’s done soon. Some nights it takes John over an hour to get home from work.

They can’t blame that on road construction. That’s what happens when you live in the suburbs. I watch the news. There are always traffic jams. I remember them from when I lived with Grandma. She had a nice house in Corcoran until she got sick, and the state took her house so she could move into a nursing home. She died there, at that nursing home, and we’ve been on the streets ever since. Five years of couch surfing, shacking up, shelters, and anywhere else Mom could find for us to spend a night or two.

Hello, you must be, Samantha, the woman says. I’m Charlotte Randal. 

I read a book about a Charlotte. She was a spider. I don’t say that aloud, for Tommy’s sake. I don’t want things to be any worse for him than possible. I settle him onto my hip and try to respond, but it’s as if my throat is locked up. I cough and try again. Hello. That was weird, having my throat not work. I sounded weird, too. 

And this must be Thomas, she says, tickling Tommy under the chin.

He smiles.

I should be happy that she didn’t make him cry, but I’m not happy because I’m the only one who tickles him under the chin. The only one he smiles at. 

I twist sideways, blocking him so she can’t tickle his chin again. Tommy. His name is Tommy. 

Okay. She slides both of her hands into her back pockets. Tommy it is. Do you like to be called Samantha or Sammy? 

I shake my head again, so my hair is over my face, and shrug. It doesn’t matter what she calls me. Why should it? This is all temporary.

Well, you can call me Char. She smiles and shrugs one shoulder. If you’d like to. Mrs. Randal sounds so… She wrinkles her nose into a grimace. Formal. 

I shrug again. It doesn’t matter what I call her, either. 

Still smiling, she nods. It looks like you have Tommy, so I’ll help Mrs. Johnson carry your things.

Like it’ll take both of them to carry two backpacks. 

Whatever.

At least she doesn’t have pink hair. It’s blonde and pulled back in a ponytail. Neatly. That makes me reach up and run a hand through my hair. My fingers get snagged on a mass of snarls. I pull my hand out, flinching at the hair that comes out. I flick off the hair and use both hands to hold on to Tommy. Who cares if my hair hasn’t been brushed since yesterday?

Not me.

I don’t have a comb or brush. There wasn’t one in that pink backpack. There is a Minnie Mouse toothbrush in it. A pink one. I used it this morning, and the toothpaste. There’s also a mini bottle of shampoo, a coloring book and crayons, and a stuffed toy. The blue bag has the same, except the toothbrush is blue, Mickey Mouse. I used it to brush Tommy’s teeth before I’d brushed mine with the pink Minnie Mouse one.

Have you had breakfast? she asks.

They had donuts and milk, Mrs. Johnson says. But that was several hours ago.

Does Tommy still use a bottle?

No, I answer. I don’t know if she was asking me or Mrs. Johnson, but I’m the one who knows the answer. He hasn’t had a bottle since he was nine-months-old. I don’t bother to explain that he’d bitten the nipple off his bottle and Mom never bought him another one. Even though I kept telling her he needed one.

I see, Char says. How old is Tommy, Samantha?

He’ll be two in two months. November eighteenth.

And you are fourteen.

I nod, but she already knows that. Mrs. Johnson would have given her that information over the phone, while asking if she’d take in two foster kids. One boy and one girl. Brother and sister. For seventy-two hours.

When is your birthday?

She’ll know that once she reads the placement report. I sigh. June.

June what?

Sixteenth.

No way! My husband, John, his birthday is June sixteenth.

Great. Wonder if he dresses like a candy cane, too. For a brief moment, I wonder when her birthday is. Char’s. Christmas Day? That would be fitting.

Oh! Here comes John, now, Char says. He decided to wait until after meeting you to leave for work this morning.

Am I supposed to be glad about that?

Whatever.

I look over, glad to be out of the whole birthday conversation, and see a man walking towards me, smiling. His blue shirt and black pants don’t have a wrinkle on them. He’s wearing a tie, too, a black one. This really could be a Hallmark movie. Which I’m not trying to diss, some can be pretty good, but seriously, who lives like this? In this perfect looking house, with a perfect looking yard, and perfect looking clothes. Sheesh, I bet their bathrooms are always clean, too. No toothpaste stuck to the edge of the sink in this house.

Fake news! Everyone has toothpaste stuck to the side of their sinks.

Hello, Samantha. I'm John Randal.

Okay. He’s holding his hand out, all business-like. I hold mine out, and feel a tremor race up my arm as he takes a hold of it. I don’t like men. Any of them.

It’s nice to meet you, he says, and sort of squeezes my hand.

Um…Yeah. Hi, I reply. Why does he act like that? All like…Formal. That’s it. Like Char said. Because he’s an actor. They are all actors. Acting like they want to help two kids whose mother overdosed, and they don’t have anyone else who’ll look after them. I don’t need anyone to look after me, and Tommy has me to look after him.