What is this place?

Anton was an optimist. You had to be, living the kind of life he lived. 12 years ago, he hadn't even been on this earth - and already, he was fully capable of taking care of himself. The only annoying bit was that nobody over the age of 18 seemed to agree that he was indeed capable of doing things on his own.
He liked his life - and the freedom it afforded. The first year after his mother died had been tough - emotionally, and financially. Though he'd been stealing and begging coins off rich people for years to keep her fed and his needs met, it was still a shock to be completely on his own.
Anton, though, was not only an optimist - he was resourceful. It was nearly a year and a half after his mother's death that the cops first caught him. He fought like a hero, but 11-year-old boys are rarely victorious over determined militia men, and it was then - 3 months ago and only four days shy of his 12th birthday that Anton found himself seated in a hard-backed chair, arms folded across his skinny chest, staring at the wall directly to the left of the officer's head. Eye contact would be admitted defeat - and, though physically they could bring him to this place, they couldn't force him to talk, or maintain eye contact. Now it was a battle of wills - and he was not the least bit concerned that his stubbornness could not outlast that of the officer.

The officer himself - a slightly overweight man who'd forgotten to take his hat off when he'd entered the building, was no pushover. His experience told him the moment the boy sat down what kind of an evening this would be. Here he saw kids from all different backgrounds - and it didn't take a genius to be able to tell a home kid from a street kid. Home kids were easy to spot - by the time you got them here, the Juvenile room at the jail, they were scared to death that you'd tell their folks. They'd fidget, and stare at the floor, and sometimes they'd cry. They usually volunteered all the information about their crimes before you so much as yelled at them.
There were different kinds of street kids, too. Some would be drunk - some loud, and some, like this one, hiding something. There were kids who would stare you in the eye, daring you to be the one to break eye contact. They were the easy ones - trying to prove how strong they were.
The boy before him proved to be a bit more of a challenge - his refusal to make eye contact at all showed his determination not to reveal whatever it was he was hiding.
After staring at the skinny kid for several moments, the officer began.

"So. What's your name?"
The silence that followed his question was not surprising, and he continued without hesitation.
"Obviously you don't get it. You're in my office now. You play by my rules here. This is how it goes - I ask a question, you answer me. Got it?"
The boy almost imperceptibly nodded his head, and the officer settled back in his chair.

"I asked you what your name is. I won't wait all night."

"My name is Anton."

"Last name."

"I don't know." It was a common answer, most often the kids were lying.

"If you lie to me, I'll break your head open. Now what is your last name?"

"I don't remember. I'm not lying." The boy was composed, but there was a slight tremble in his voice.
The officer stared hard at him for a moment, then shuffled the papers on his desk briskly. He'd learned that this had a rather unnerving effect on his charges.

"So you don't remember. Do you have parents?"

Again, the slight nod.

"Where do they live? I want to talk to them about their 10-year-old son being caught stealing."

"I'm not 10, I'm almost 12."

"I don't care how old you are. Where do your parents live?"

Still the boy hadn't made eye contact. He sat silently, wondering how he might escape this situation. Absently his eyes wandered to a painting of a stern-looking man on the wall. He remembered hearing about the man in school, several years back. For the life of him, he couldn't remember the name...

A sudden pain in his left ear brought him back to the present, and he realized the officer had left his desk and was now holding Anton's ear in a powerful grip.

"I told you once, boy, I don't have time to play games here. If you don't want to cooperate, I'll lock you up forever, and your parents will never see their little boy again."

Anton held out for a moment longer, but, after nearly having been lifted off his feet, gave in.

The secret he'd held and guarded for so long came spilling out.

"I...I don't have parents. I don't live anywhere."


Now, as he sat on a bus, Anton thought back to that night three weeks ago, when that one admission had changed the entire course of his life. It was somewhat upsetting, but, being the optimist he was, the 12-year old merely sat back wondering how best to take advantage of his situation. If there was one thing he'd learned on the streets, it was to be flexible. Work with what you've got, and make the best of every situation. If you couldn't do that, you'd be dead sooner than you knew.

The bus on which he sat was a typical one - the lady seated next to him had come all the way to the detention center in which he'd been living to 'collect him', as they put it. She was a nice lady - something about her put him at ease - she was pretty easy-going, which was unusual. She was rather plump, and smiled more often than most, and she confessed as soon as the bus was rolling along towards his new home that she loved eating sunflower seeds, as though this were some sort of underhanded habit. Anton was rather surprised when she offered him a handful of the small black seeds, but for a good half an hour afterwards they sat in companionable silence, holding the sunflower seeds in one hand, spitting the shells into the other, and staring out the window at the passing scenery.

After a while, the woman started up a rather one-sided conversation. Anton was still guarding himself, and purposely refused to volunteer information or appear interested, but that didn't seem to bother her - in fact, she seemed to expect it.

"So, has anyone told you about this place you're going to be living in?"
He sat silently for a moment, then just shrugged his shoulders. Let her think he didn't care.

"I figured as much. They never seem to think you care. It's your life, and they don't even think to inform you of the facts, just pack you up and away you go with some strange lady."

Anton was listening intently now.

"So this place is a boarding school. It's got a little over a hundred kids right now. It's for kids who...well, who have a hard time in school."

"For idiots." The interjection was harsh, as Anton was more than a little insulted at being sent to one of these 'special' places.

"No, not idiots. Well, I mean, lots of people say that, but our kids aren't stupid. They're just...the kind of kids nobody wants to understand. They need help, and we try to help them."

His silence was not meant to hurt her - he was simply processing the way she'd explained things.

"Anyway, it's an orphanage, too. There's about 25 kids who, like you, live there year-round. You go to school on campus. We have a big, nice dorm building to live in, and not long ago we built a new kitchen & cafeteria, so you'll get to enjoy that. The roof of the old one collapsed - too many winters, I guess. Anyway, we just store cabbage and things in that building now - this one is right off the school building, which is nice, 'cause when you go to lunch from class, you don't even have to put your coat on - you just go straight to lunch and straight back to class. And we have a infirmary, and it's really quite beautiful in our village. Have you ever lived in a village?"

In spite of himself, Anton was becoming endeared to this chattery woman.

"No. I lived with my mother in the city, near the circus. You know that area?"
She nodded her head vigorously.
"Do I know that area! Of course I do! My brother lived just across from the big yellow department store when he was studying in the University."
"The one with the escalator?"
"Yeah, that's the one. It didn't work when I was staying with him, though."
"I go in there all the time! We lived in building number 49, on the 7th floor. Do you know where that is?" Somehow, this woman had made Anton completely forget to protect himself - he let his guard down completely for the first time since being caught by the cops nearly 2 months before.

"Sure I know where it is, my brother lived right next door, in 47. He was on the 2nd floor, though. His neighbor was this old lady who had at least 10 cats, and she named them all 'Jack - Jack 1, Jack 2, and so forth'."

Their chatter continued rather pleasantly off and on the remainder of the trip, and Anton learned more about his new home than he could have, had he demanded the information. He was relaxed, but nonetheless filing away all the information she was giving him for future use.

He was capable of taking care of himself. If anyone thought differently, even this nice woman, they were sorely mistaken. And they would have to learn that he was going to take orders from no man - he was his own master, and, after nearly 2 years of living solo, he did not take kindly to the idea of being told what to do, and how to do it.

As they exited the bus and walked toward a large brown building, Anton squared his shoulders. He would size this place up, see how things were, and, if necessary, take off at the first opportunity. No four walls would keep him from doing as he pleased - and, at the moment, school didn't sound all that appealing.
He'd stay, for a little while. You had to try something before you gave up on it - but, as he followed the lady up a small wooden walkway, a noise caught his ear.
He stopped to listen, and realized that it was a woman's voice - yelling from somewhere above him. He craned his neck and saw an extremely blonde head of hair peeking out the 2nd-story window of the building which he was now approaching, then looked and located the child at whom she was yelling.
"I said no playing in the rain! Come inside this instant, you'll catch your death out there. You don't even have your rubber boots on!"

No, sir. This place just might not work out for Anton, after all. The mere thought of someone yelling at him like that made his stomach turn in disgust.

"C'mon, then, Anton - let's get you to the nurse. She always wants to read the medical papers, even though it was only several hours ago they checked you for everything from lice to altzheimers, and you look perfectly healthy to me. It's procedure, I guess."
The nice lady led the way to the infirmary, but Anton's thoughts were already on one thing - if the food here turned out to be bad, there was no way he'd stick around.