Publisher's Synopsis
Jeannie was a rebellious 13 year old who has found herself in trouble on more than one occasion. Once again, she and two of her friends were arrested for 'Juvenile Mischief' and found themselves sitting at the Juvenile Detention Center waiting for their parents to come and pick them up. Her friends have already been picked up but she just sat here alone waiting for her Mom to come and get her. She has already been suspended from school a number of times and they all knew her at the Detention Center. Her Mom, Bobbie Stangler, was a single mom who worked two jobs to make ends meet. Needless to say, she was not very happy to have to take off work to pick up her daughter. Bobbie had gotten pregnant in high school. The father was a senior and she was a junior. He vanished after graduation and she never heard from him again even though he seemed happy at the prospect of being a father and had promised her that they would get married and he would take care of his new family. Her parents, angry and upset over her pregnancy, threw her out of the house and she ended up in a shelter where she had the baby and struggled to make a go of it on her own. That was over 13 years ago. Now Jeannie sat in the Matron's office once again at the Juvenile Detention Center. The Matron told Bobbie the path that her daughter was currently on could one day lead her right into adult court and detention center if she didn't change her ways. And that was not a very nice place to be for a young girl. She had seen it too many times over the years. Bobbie said she would do everything she could to help Jeannie but she had to work two jobs in order to pay the bills and provide for Jeannie. She wanted so much more for Jeannie than what she had but was at a lost as to what else she could do. She knew something had to happen or she may lose Jeannie. If anything happened to Jeannie, she knew she wouldn't be able to continue on. Things appeared to have settled down with Jeannie over the next few weeks. When Halloween came around Jeannie asked to go trick-or-treating with some of her friends. Wanting so much for her daughter to have a normal childhood and knowing this was probably the last year for her to go out, she gave her approval. But Halloween turned out to be more than Jeannie could have ever imagined and what happened that evening haunted her for some time to come and had a profound impact on her life and on those around her.