If you made it through your childhood without seeing your mother get arrested, you've got one on me. On a late August night, I watched from the porch, helpless and frozen, as I saw my mother, thin as a rail and still in her pajamas from last night, get cuffed by a police officer. She put up a fight, which was probably a side effect of the drugs she was on. The people in our neighborhood in Queens were all out on their porches, watching the drama unfold. Someone getting arrested was always way more entertaining than evening television.

Her idiot boyfriend, Rafael, was also getting cuffed, cussing something in Spanish. I couldn't care less if he got thrown in jail. In fact, I celebrate it. It gets him out of my hair for a few days. But this was the first time my mother was going with him. Usually, she was the semi-reasonable one. But now, my only parent was vomiting as the officer led her to the cruiser.

A good daughter would have defended her; convinced them that they had it wrong. But I wasn't a good daughter. I just stood there, unable to move. How should I know what to do in a situation like this? I was thirteen years old and in the 8th grade.

An officer stayed with me on the porch and was making a phone call to child services. I'd heard stories from other neighborhood kids and my classmates about what happens when your parents get arrested. They drop you in some stranger's house for an undetermined amount of time. They might be great, or they might be total douchebags. They might even be abusive.

"Nora Thomas?" The police officer asked me. I nodded wordlessly. "You're gonna come with me. We have a placement for you for foster care. You can go ahead and pack a bag. Put in a few day's worth of clothes because I'm not sure how long you'll be there."

I was glad to be given a task to do. I found my tattered backpack and went into my tiny bedroom. It was barely big enough to fit a twin-sized bed and a dresser. I had to sit on my bed to open the drawers. I pulled out 5 pairs of underwear, a couple of shorts, and several of my ratty t-shirts. And of course I grabbed my skateboard and buried a couple of my little notebooks at the bottom.

I was in the car for about 10 minutes when we pulled up to a house not that dissimilar from my own. There were several teenage kids hanging out on the porch, drinking soda. I felt a little intimidated, and that sometimes caused me to lash out. I didn't like anyone thinking I was inferior. I grabbed my bag and followed the officer to the door. He knocked and a woman in her 50's answered the door, a toddler clinging to her legs.

"Mrs. Vasquez?" The officer asked.

"Yes," she replied, over the sounds of yet another child crying in the background.

The officer handed her an envelope of paper work. "I have another one for you. From Queens."

The woman sighed, obviously already overwhelmed with the kids she had. Nevertheless, she took the folder and opened the door wider. The house smelled like sour milk and there were toys all over the floor. I just stood in the living room, not knowing what to do or say. After Mrs. Vasquez had a few words with the officer, filling him in on my case, the screen door closed and she came inside.

"Nora Thomas?" She said, looking at my file. "Where do you go to school?"

"Altman," she said.

"Good," she commented, dropping her file on the coffee table. "A couple of the other kids go there so I won't have to call for the bus. The rules here are simple. Clean up after yourself, do your homework, stay out of trouble. No drugs or alcohol. Can you handle that?"

I shrugged and she sighed.

"The bedroom on the right is for the girls. There's only two others in there right now. Just grab a bunk and find a sleeping bag in the hall closet."

I gladly walked back to the bedroom, but immediately wished I hadn't when I saw two girls, about my age, already in there chatting away. One of them I recognized from my middle school. I hated girls my age. I could feel their eyes sizing me up, wondering how they could mess with me. One of them popped her bubblegum.

"Let me guess," the one I recognized from my school said. "Prostitution?"

I tried to ignore the comment and dropped my stuff of one of the empty bunks. Unfortunately it was on the bottom. I was going to feel watched all night.

"No, she doesn't even have any boobs," the other one laughed. "And she dresses like a boy."

Apparently, dressing in t-shirts and jean shorts made me a boy. I continued to bite my tongue, not wanting to start something in the first five minutes I was there, but one more comment might push me over the edge.

The girl from my school eyed me a little closer. "Hey, don't you go to Altman?"

I didn't answer but she continued anyway. "Oh yeah! I remember you! You got busted for drinking in the bathroom last Spring. And didn't you suck some guy off?"

That was it. That had been a vicious rumor last year and I couldn't let it go. I stood up tall and walked over to where she was sitting. She immediately got up and met me toe to toe.

"You have something to say, skank?" She asked me, jabbing her face in my direction, trying to intimidate me. I didn't flinch. I'd encountered many like her before. She was all talk but was a sissy when shit went down. I grabbed her hand and started twisting it outwards, causing her body to twist to the right in pain. I then used my other hand to start punching her in the face.

The other girl was apparently not much of a friend because the first thing she did was fling open the door and call, "Fight!"

The other kids came running, crowding around the door as I started to pound her. Her long hair was down, so I grabbed it, pulling out chunks and used it to fling her around the room. She was crying like a baby.

Finally, Mrs. Vasquez came in yelling and pulled me off of her. "You stop it now! There's no fighting in this house!" She slapped me across the face. The other girl sunk to her bed, holding her cheek in pain. Such a baby.

"You!" She glared at me angrily. "Come with me." She grabbed me forcefully by the arm and dragged me to the kitchen. She picked up the house phone (who still has those?) and called the police department, which she had on speed dial.

"Yes, I need to speak with Officer Wilson," she said, and waited a few moments. "Yes, officer, I need Nora Thomas picked up right now. She just started a fight with another girl. She physically assaulted her. Yes. Thank you."

She told me to go wait on the porch. About 15 minutes later, the same cop car that had dropped me off half an hour before pulled up. The officer got out and sighed. "Get in the car," he told me simply. I picked up my backpack and skateboard and got in.

I could feel the officer looking at me every once in a while in the rear view mirror. "It's not often I get a call to pick up a kid 30 minutes after I dropped her off."

He must have expected some witty comeback, but I didn't give him the pleasure. I couldn't let that girl insult me to my face like that. In my neighborhood, you couldn't let stuff like that fly. We pulled up to an ominous looking building. I saw the sign – Juvenile Detention Center.

I was booked in by a female officer and taken to a single cell. All that was there was a metal slab, which was supposed to be a bed, a small, thin mattress, a toilet, and a sink. I collapsed onto the bed and put my arm over my eyes, exhausted. Hopefully mom would get out of jail in the morning and I could get home. Not that home was that appealing, but it was better than juvie.

Somehow, I must have fallen asleep because I was woken up by officers shouting in the hallway, announcing it was time to get up. We had 10 minutes to make ourselves presentable, then we'd all go down to the mess hall for breakfast. I was so hungry I scarfed down the entire meal even though it was tasteless and disgusting. As I was finishing, an officer called my name. I followed her out of the mess hall and into an office. Another social worker.

"Hi, Nora," she greeted me with a smile. She was young – probably in her early 20's. She hadn't been jaded by the system yet. "How are you today?"

Why did adults even bother asking that? How did they think we were, waking up in juvie. "Fine," I answered, like I was expected.

"Well unfortunately, I've got a bit of bad news," she began. "They're bringing charges against your mother for drug possession, drug dealing, and child endangerment. So you'll have to be in juvie until her trial goes through. Do you have any family in the city?"

"No, ma'am," I said politely. All my life it had been just me and my mom, plus whatever dumbass boyfriend she was dragging along that month.

The woman sighed. "Have you ever known your father?"

"Nope," I said. "Mom took off before he knew she was pregnant with me."

"I see," she said, clicking around on her computer. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the screen. "Actually, I have your birth certificate here. There's a name listed for your father."

"Really?" I asked.

"Mmmhmmm," she said, rubbing at her chin with her index finger. "That can't be right."

"What?"

"Must be someone else with the same name," she commented. "It says Lin-Manuel Miranda."

If that was supposed to mean something to me, it didn't. I'd never known my father's name was on my birth certificate. My mom had never bothered to tell me and I had never bothered to ask. I had just accepted I didn't have a father and didn't honestly think about it that much. Tons of kids at my school had single mothers.

She must have seen my confusion so she filled me in. "He's a broadway actor and composer. Have you heard of Hamilton?"

"Maybe," I said, thinking it sounded vaguely familiar. She'd seen a few TV pieces about some period piece where all the actors rapped.

"I'll have to look into this," she said. "If I get in contact with him, would you be interested in staying with him?"

I thought about it for a few long moments. Anyone who had gotten trapped in my mother's web was probably just as pathetic as she way. I was probably better off in the foster care system. "Maybe," I answered evasively.

"Okay," she said, writing a few notes on a paper. "I'll look into this today and see what I can find out. I doubt anything will happen today, but we might get something going by tomorrow."

I nodded, not thinking much of it. I wandered back into the mess hall, where everyone was starting to get lined up to go to whatever crap school they ran in this place. As I joined the line, I prepared to become another brick in the wall.