The Promise of Friendship: Friendship is forever. Isn't it?

They were children who had seen too much... "You'll be dead before you're five," those were the first words Joyce Ann could remember her grandmother saying to her, and the fact that she was almost nine did not make living any easier. Joyce Ann. Josephine, Kenny, and Janie- all the children had seen too much; dealt with too many "grown-up things" to be considered children in more than age. Josephine spent her days fighting to protect herself and her siblings from bigger kids who saw the children of a woman barely more than four feet tall as fair game. Janie spent her days wondering "when" rather than "if" one of her mother's numerous male visitors would decide to do the unimaginable. Kenny kept secrets from even his closest friends. How could a child explain life with a mother who managed every detail of every day of his life? It was only the "promise of friendship" that brought these four young people together in a story about the power of love and acceptance among friends.