Leaving Home

Ten-year-old Shane Stenlund resented life on the farm. With his parents and sister, Danni, four years older, Shane lived on a productive farm in Minnesota’s Red River Valley. To Shane, life on the farm was oppressive and boring. Instead of daily chores—picking eggs, feeding pigs, and milking cows—he dreamed of life either on the open range where he could ride his closest friend and companion, First Mate, his shetland pony, or in the big city free from the onerous daily farm duties.

His dissatisfaction with life on the farm was fueled by his perception of his older sister who, in his opinion, did nothing but fix her hair or smile at herself in the mirror. A Christmas vacation ski accident commenced a series of events that intensified Shane’s troubling rejection of life on the farm. Academic deficiency during his high school senior year and a devastating conclusion to the senior prom served as the final ingredients in his decision to leave home.

Shane sought refuge in the big city, ironically, in his sister’s Minneapolis condo. With dismay, he discovered life in the big city did not comply with his earlier vision of the freedom life there would allow. Not until he met Max Hawkins and Alisha Sanders, both homeless teens, and Nick Karpin, a local entrepreneur, did his life begin to change.