Saving Mia Read Free

she was sitting at a table with her family who laughed and talked as they ate to excess. She watched them leave food uneaten on their plates and they didn’t seem to care. It made Mia want to scream at them that they should care that people were going hungry. But she didn’t because they wouldn’t hear it even if she did scream at them.
    The excesses of life in the Hill district was disturbing. She didn’t understand why no one saw the truth. She’d had her eyes opened when she had been trapped in the Slums overnight when she was eight. Since that night a horrid sadness had filled her at the poverty her friends Marcus and Raven lived in. She could never be in her glittering world without pain of that knowledge filling her heart.
    That night so long ago Mia had been a spoiled little girl who’d been just as blind as her family. She hadn’t seen the truth until after talking with Raven and Marcus in the wee hours of the morning because she’d be afraid to fall asleep. She’d already been shocked by sitting at their table with only oatmeal and two apples that the family had shared for dinner.
    Not that she hadn’t already been stunned that night at the gate by the guard’s refusal to allow her to go home. She was grateful that Toby had forced her to come home with them after the guard had threatened to stun her. At the time she’d thought he was being stupid, but now she realized that they would have shocked her with the stun gun if she’d stepped near the guards at the gate.
    When Toby had carried her away from the gate and she’d finally seen the house they called a home. She’d thought it was a trick. Only all the houses they had passed had looked the same they were aluminum houses built with dirt floors and no real doors, just a cloth blanket to insulate from the nights cool air. She’d sat at the table when they said they were going to eat and expected exactly what she was used to getting. When what was served was oatmeal, she’d asked rudely for something else. Marcus’s mother had politely told her that this was all they had to offer.
    She’d thought the woman was being mean and insisted that she wasn’t going to eat that slop. At which point Marcus had called her a Hillie brat, and she’d been even angrier. Toby had apologized to her about the meal and offered his portion of the apples. She’d eaten them silently watching the family. Not understanding what life was really like for them until later that night when Raven and Marcus had told her about the reason that Marcus worked when she’d finally asked her rude question.
    She was lucky that the brother and sister were forgiving because she’d been a spoiled child used to getting her own way, and unsure why no one would let her go home. When they’d made it to the gates the next morning Toby had talked to a friend of his in the guard named Carl. He’d scanned her to find that she was the lost child everyone was searching for, and her nightmare had been over. Only it had opened her eyes and she saw the truth about the difference in the classes.
    The slum workers were paid pittance wages that barely fed them and not a single one could afford to get a better education. Only ones from the whore’s district in the slums had even a chance of betterment. Although, many chose to stay in the Slum’s even though they could move up into the life of the lower Hill. They didn’t because even then they were not accepted by the people who lived in the hill district. It was hard for Mia to live with the understanding that her whole life was made on the backs of people who were practically slaves.
    Mia glanced up at the window which took up one wall and smiled. Standing outside was Marcus. He was waving at her wildly trying to get her attention.  She got up, excusing herself. Telling her family she needed to use the restroom. She headed to the door walking out into the street. Seeing Marcus leaning against the wall near the alley she headed towards him. She