Refugee Boy

While the staff are busy, Alem takes his bag and escapes out of a window in a broom closet. He scales the fence around the children’s home, cutting himself on the barbed wire at the top. He walks down the road and spends the night in a barn. In the morning, Alem continues down the road and realizes that he must have made a wrong turn because he ends up back at the children’s home. He decides to go back to the home because he does not know the area, and he feels tired.

After the staff clean his cuts and give him breakfast, Mariam arrives. He tells her about Sweeney and why he ran away. He says that he does not want to stay in a place where someone will hurt him over French fries. Mariam reminds Alem that many of the children in the home have also undergone trauma, even if it is different than his, and some of them do not have a family waiting for them. She introduces Alem to Sheila, a social worker who can find Alem a foster home.

On the way to the foster home, Sheila says that they must stop at the Home Office for a screening.