My name is Antoine Terrell Revillier, and I am 12 years old. I have a younger sister, Anjelica (she is called "Peaches", on 'count she is so pudgy), who is nine, and a younger brother, Reynaldo, who is all but six years old. Until recently, we lived our lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, but then Hurricane Katrina came along and changed everything, and now we are staying at a family's house in Nashville, Tennessee, until our city can be fixed up enough to where we can return.

I miss my home in New Orleans, Louisiana; I miss my friends, and I  miss school and Miss Wormwood, our teacher, and I miss going to the French Quarter and to the Riverwalk with my family and friends. I am so bored here; there isn't really anything here for a kid like me. I am used to heat and humidity, not hilly terrain and trees that change color, and I am not used to the chilly temperatures at night! I am also not used to the city here, and I don't really know if I like it here or not.

Oh, the lady we are staying with is okay, as is her husband and her kids, but they ain't my family, and most of them don't even look like me. I am just glad that my little brother and sister are here with me, but I miss my mama and my papa very much, and I wish they didn't have to die in that stupid hurricane like they did. So now New Orleans is a mess, and until she can be fixed, I guess we be stuck in Tennessee for the time being.

I am going to school at Donelson Junior High, but I don't like the kids here; they make fun of my Louisiana accent, and half of them talk way too fast for me to understand just what in the heck they are saying! But Miss Crutcher, my teacher here, is nice, and she make sure that I have an easy time of it while I am here. She knowed that I was in Hurricane Katrina, so shse keep telling the other kids to be nice to me, but they don't listen. They also make fun of me coz I like the Saints (but last Sunday they be the "AINTS"; they lost really bad, something like 52-3! *OUCH!*), and Tennessee is Titan Country, and they like the Titans here. So I guess I am outnumbered.

I do like the family we be staying with, but it make me homesick and miss my mama and papa, and I wish they still around. But I AM glad that I have Peaches and Ray-Ray to look after; after all, I AM their big brother, and it is my duty to watch out over them!

I AM glad 'bout one thing, though: Miss Sandusky DOES make good Cajun cookin', and it like I am back in New Orleans, Louisiana. And she talk like a Cajun, and I like that! :)

~Written by Antoine Terrell Revillier, aged 12 (Hurricane Katrina evacuee, from New Orleans, Louisiana). :(