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  Margaret didn’t give a good first impression. She looked at Mackenzie, studied her. Then she scowled at me as if I was the one who had beat her up. She looked at Ozzie and shook her head.

  “You two have names?”

  “I’m Cam. This is Mac.”

  “And the mutt?”

  “Ozzie.”

  Margaret looked at Mrs. Goldbloom. “We’re full, Ruth. We can’t take in anyone else. And we don’t take dogs. You know that.” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Mrs. Goldbloom smiled at Margaret, and the two of them just looked at each other for an awkward and long few seconds. Then Margaret sighed. “Let’s go inside, shall we?” she said.

  In the living room, a bunch of kids were lounging around, some doing what looked like schoolwork, some just chatting. I thought I recognized a face or two from school. They watched as we walked past them and into the kitchen. A couple of girls petted Ozzie along the way.

  It wasn’t an ordinary kitchen. It was more like the cafeteria kitchen, only smaller. We sat down at a wooden table. “You can see we already have a crowd,” Margaret said.

  Mackenzie looked really uncomfortable, and I could tell she didn’t like this Margaret Sampson at all. “I’m not sure what’s going on here,” I said. “We didn’t ask to come here.”

  Margaret made a face and looked at Mrs. Goldbloom, who turned to Mac and me and began to explain. “Margaret is a retired social worker. She quit her job because she saw the system was failing so many kids. She opened her home to some of them. She doesn’t get any government funding, so she has to fundraise. I help her with that sometimes.”

  “It’s been a bit rough this year,” Margaret now added. She’d lost a bit of the edge in her voice. “What with the economy and all.” She was looking at Mac, but Mac had moved off into her own world. Margaret looked back at me. I held her gaze. I could see there was more to this woman than I’d first thought. It was like she could read my mind, conjure our story. She knew we had no place else to go.

  “We have rules here,” she said suddenly. “Lots of rules.” She handed me a sheet of paper. She was right. There were a lot of rules. Strict ones. Old-fashioned rules. “Not everyone can live by them.”

  As I studied them, I began to see some hope.

  “You two in school?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good.” She studied Mackenzie some more. “She been to a doctor?” she asked me.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “If you want to keep the dog, you’ll have to sleep in the basement. It’s not pretty, but it’s warm and dry. You’ll have to fix it up yourself. But there are no guarantees. We might lose this place tomorrow. Anything can happen.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “And the rules?”

  “We’re good with the rules,” I said.

  “You two talk it over, make sure it’s what you both want to do,” Margaret said, and then she and Mrs. Goldbloom left the kitchen.

  Mac was crying now and leaning into me. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she said.

  “We can do this,” I said. “Together.”

  “I’m not sure I even understand what kind of place this is. Where are we?”

  “We’re home,” I said. “We’re finally home.”

  Lesley Choyce is the author of eighty-four books for adults, teens and kids. He runs Pottersfield Press, teaches at Dalhousie University and lives at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, where he surfs year-round. A recent book, I’m Alive, I Believe in Everything, is a collection of his poems written over forty years and was short-listed for the Atlantic Poetry Prize. His website is www.lesleychoyce.com.