----------plot as best I can recall.. So I'd say the 2 main characters are brothers. I forget what happened to the parent if they just died or disappeared but they are now living alone. On the way home the younger brother sees a Rabbit in a hutch, in somebodys yard. He steals it and hides it under his bed. There's almost no food in the house but he finds a wilted old carrot to feed it. He later gets fresh carrots but at this point the rabbits health is starting to fail.

We see the POV of the girl who owned the rabbit and what she goes through. He returns the rabbit near the end.

I don't remember much about the older brother, other than being coaxed by his friend into stealing a tool box off a worksite to be pawned.

There's another girl in her own weird home situation. I don't remember the circumstances other than her clothes we're always dirty. And she's obsessed with going to McDonald's. Apparently she went there once and it was the greatest experience of her life.

Her friend catches her in a lie when he sees the sweatshirt she's wearing is his, it has his initials on the sleeve He thought he'd lost it at the park. That's where she'd "found" it. It ends with said friends parent discovering their situation.

_------------- extraneous info Reading this at a young age, it came across as a dark version of the boxcar kids.

Now it rings of the sad reality of CPS. No child wants to be pulled from the family and home they know. But sometimes that's a necessary evil.

The boy loved the rabbit, but he didn't have the means to take care of it. It tore him apart to give it back, but he knew it was for the greater good.

I remember my mother read it sometime after I did and of course hated it.

I'd like to re read it again and see if maybe I'm giving it too much credit.