Brenda got off with Lauren, then a few stops later Amy said goodbye and pulled the cord. Keri was left alone in the mostly empty bus as it made its way further south to the largely empty industrial area around the airport. She spotted the big steel fence around her father's junkyard and yanked the bell cord, then got off. The street was pretty empty. There was nothing on the other side but waist high grass and a few trees.

Her father's junk yard, or "Salvage Center" as it said on the twenty foot high fence, occupied almost the entire street and went back at least a block. It was an enormous area, filled mostly with junked cars and small metal sheds and shacks, along with all the huge, noisy machinery necessary to turn a big family stationwagon into a two-foot-square block of metal.

Keri walked in through the big gate and passed around the tall piles of treadless rubber tires and a giant sea of mud, then walked down a narrow lane lined with automotive parts. She walked into the big steel and wood "shop" that held her home.

In front, was a giant 8-bay garage, packed with junked old cars and the pieces of hundreds of others. Through this mess was where she and her family lived – a small wing of nine rooms that kept her father, four brothers and sister, as well as her. It wasn't exactly a palace. In fact, it was an incredibly ugly building that was freezing in winter and roasting in summer.

The only redeeming thing about it was that she had her own room. Her little sister, Jody had her own room, too. Her brothers shared their bedrooms, two in each.

Her dad had sold their "real" house when their mother had died about three years ago. He'd built this addition to the big, barn-like garage and moved them all in. It was kind of an interesting place, at least it had been when she was a kid. Now she was embarrassed to bring anyone here. It was like living in a giant, ramshackle corrugated shed.