The name's Natalie. Natalie Green. I'm a 5'6 tall, 15 year old girl with blue eyes and wavy brown hair that goes to the middle of my back, and I live here in New York by myself. Yep, you heard that right. I'm alone in New York. I ran away from my home in West Virginia at the age of 8 because my parents made me do EVERYTHING for them, and the fact that they abused me. Mostly the second reason. Our house was near a train station, and, one day, I decided that I couldn't take any more, so I jumped in one of the box carts before they closed it and decided to let it take me away from the place I used to call home.

I ended up in New York. I didn't know where to go. I walked around town for the rest of that day, trying to figure out where I could go. When night fell, I decided to just stay in one of those huge garbage bins in one of the alleys. It looked old and seemed it hadn't been used for a very long time. That bin is my home today.

When I moved into that bin, life for me became different. I dropped out of school because I couldn't pay the school fees, but I really wanted to go and learn. Now, I keep the nerdy side of me hidden so others can't bully me for it. I got attacked within the first month of living there, so I taught myself some attacking and defensive skills. I missed watching tv, especially my favorite show Space Heroes. I jumped onto fire escapes and window sills at night, when no one was out, to see if I could find any spacenicks watching Space Heroes. I eventually found one only a couple blocks down from my garbage bin home who has his own marathons with the Space Heroes DVDs and has them on 18/6 (18 hours a day, 6 days a week). Score! Since I'm alone, I tend to get bored easily. When the guy didn't have the marathons going on, I pranked people. Pranking soon became a hobby for me. Because no place was hiring an 8 year old girl for a paying job, I got into the habit of begging from people walking down the street, dumpster diving, and stealing. Yeah, yeah, I know stealing is bad, but look at it from my perspective. I'm a poor, lonely girl in New York!

I've gotten used to this life for the 7 years I've been here. I've made my garbage bin home more homey since I first slept in it. I found a mattress, hair brush, a working watch, a flashlight, some old school books, and a couple clothing articles that fit me perfectly while dumpster diving. I was also able to get some clothing articles and some batteries from quite a few people on the street by looking all sad and using puppy eyes on them, which, by the way, I'm really good at. I tend to start fights with people I find walking down the alleys. No reason for starting them, I just have nothing better to do, although I have been told that I have anger issues. Maybe that's the reason. The guy with the Space Heroes marathons spotted me one of the times I came over to watch and invited me into his place. He's actually really friendly, unlike the majority of New Yorkers. His name is Jared and he's a 5'10 tall, 28 year old man who was released from the military after serving for three years. He's never told anyone why he was released though. We're friends now. I go over to his place a couple times a week and sometimes spend the night there. He also keeps the window unlocked so that I can come in anytime. For food, I ate a couple meals a week with Jared, took leftover food on the tables sitting just outside of restaurants, stolen food from local grocery stores, and, a couple of times, taken food right out of people's hands. Yeah, yeah, again, I know stealing is bad. Around these parts, I soon got the nickname Nat the Rat, as in a person who frequents a specified place. For me, it was New York. I'm trying to apply for some kind of job right now, but I'm having trouble trying to find places with open positions.