My name is Amelio and I was having a good life up till I was twelve, then it went all downhill. It was a good life I had toys and good friends with a good education. Once I hit twelve on my birthday, my mom came up to me and said now that your older, I am going to start to treat you more like an adult so you need to get a paying job and enough playing with your toys. My mom took me out of school and got me a job at the local dump. I had that job till I was sixteen.

Once  I hit sixteen, I had enough of working at the dump and I was being paid 10 dollars an hour. I was being paid almost nothing. I had decided it would be best to run away. I thought about where to go and how to get there long and hard. The next day there was an announcement on the radio that said “there has now been a big caravan that is migrating to the United States.’’ I thought it would be a good idea to join it because it is coming right by the little town I live in.

A couple of days later the caravan was in our town so I joined it. We were walking for a while and I was so tired, though I was going to pass out. Finally, it was night time and I could catch some sleep. That night I dreamed I was walking into the United States and finding a good job. When I woke up I looked around and only saw one other guy sleeping. I ran over to that guy and woke him up and said “where did everyone go?’’ He didn't know so we ran in the initial direction that we were headed in before we went to sleep. After about three minutes of running, we finally saw the caravan so we had lots of relief. I hadn't asked the guy what his name was yet so I did.  His name was Franko.

About ten days had passed, then something bad happened. It was just another casual day of walking and sweating. I couldn't sleep that night so was just looking at the stars. It was probably one in the morning when I heard a rustle over in some bushes. I stood up and was walking over to the bushes and something had jumped out and bit me and ran off! A lot of people woke up and some dude who said he was a doctor ran over. He said that the bite mark looked like a Mexican wolf bite. Another person rushed over and wrapped it in bandages. I couldn't walk too well so Franko helped me walk a lot of the way.

My leg has finally healed and I'm good to walk again. We were about thirty miles from the United States border and everyone was so happy. We all started running. Everyone stopped running after about two minutes because we were all very tired. The night was coming and everyone decided to rest and finish the walk in the morning. Once day had come everyone was walking again. We had finally made it! Once we got to the gate, about fifteen thousand United States soldiers aimed their guns at us and told us to get back but we didn't listen and we kept walking. After everyone got through the gate we were all arrested and sent to jail. I would have been better off staying in Mexico. The only good thing that came out of this is that I and Franko share the same cell.