Whatever it Takes

Like most of the kids who’d ended up alone and on the streets after the start of the war, thirteen-year-old Joey and her friends had become largely nocturnal. It was easier to remain unseen in the dark. And remaining unseen was very important. As disorganized and uncoordinated as it was, the government was still trying to take responsibility for its youngest and most vulnerable citizens. The problem was, they weren’t very good at it.
No one knew what it was about housing large groups of children in institutional settings, but such places nearly always turned out to be nightmarish places. There was never enough food, older kids frequently terrorized younger ones, and discipline always seemed to devolve into corporal punishment of the worst kind. Joey and the boys had heard terrible stories of the abuses kids had suffered in the state run children’s homes, and they were determined to avoid them.
So Joey and her friends decide on a desperate gamble. They will leave the relative safety of their city, and the only life they’ve ever known, to escape the war that has cost them the lives of parents and friends. Their greatest obstacle - the land of their enemy lies between them and freedom. Eight children, the oldest sixteen, the youngest only four, set out on an odyssey that will change their lives forever.