New House
Still 7 years ago:
It frightened us that we could never go back. We could not learn anymore, our families will find us at school. At 15 years old, we are on our own and living in an abandoned bus. I mean it could be much worse. We could be alone and living on the streets.
John: Well, where do we go from here?
Ty: Take it a day at a time.
John: Smart idea.
Ty: What do we do today?
John: Let's travel a little while to a store where neither of our families go and some food with our money.
Ty: Okay, I know a place.
We set off through the woods and avoided the roads. I do believe our mothers are looking but I do not believe that they care. All they want is to "fix" us. Never going happen. John took my hand as we skipped over fallen logs and as we slipped on wet leaves. Deer walked right past us and birds land inches from us. Nothing seemed to fear us, they all came near us. We walked took about two hours and we ended up in a small convenience store and bought a few bits. By the time we were walking back to our bus, it was turning night time and snow still continued to fall. It was the middle of December, my birthday is tomorrow on the 14th and I would be 16. We made it back and created a sort of shelving system to put everything on it. Then back to bed on the bus seat, which was kinda comfortable. Ty woke up before me and had some breakfast cooked.
John: Morning, happy birthday!
Ty: Morning, and it's just another day.
John: Nope not going to happen today.
Ty: What’s not going to happen and why?
John: I have known you for a while and you never celebrate your birthday so today we are going to celebrate.
Ty: Remember we only have a limited amount of money.
John: I got most of this with my mother before.
Ty: Okay.
John: Present first.
He handed me a box wrapped in gold paper, it made a slight rattling sound when it moved. Inside was a small silver chain with a small blue heart.
John: Aw, don't cry. Come here.
I walked over to him and sat down. He wiped off my tears and helped me put my necklace on.
Ty: I love it. Thank you.
John: Glad you like it.
Ty: How will I ever make this up to you on your birthday?
John: Don't worry about it. You are still crying, this is not how I wanted to start the day. We have a whole day planned.
He turned toward me to wipe the tears off my face again and gave me a kiss.
John: Let's eat before it gets cold.
Ty: It looks pretty good.
We sat down at our little table made of a bus seat for the chair and another bus seat propped up on a log for the table. John was really good at cooking or at least much better than me so breakfast tasted amazing.
John: Follow me. I found something amazing.
He takes my hand and drags me a couple feet to a pile of cars. Nothing that I could see was amazing.
John: Close your eyes and follow me.
Ty: I am scared.
John: Don't worry, I got you.
He leads me into an area with a lot of light and when he tells me to open my eyes we are in a massive room.
John: Do you like it?
Ty: I . . . I love it. How does it have power?
John: Solar panels, I had them installed here a few months ago.
Ty: Amazing.
John: This is our home now. I was planning on sneaking into our homes and taking some things.
Ty: At night?
John: Yep, your bed rolls up so we could take that and maybe a few other things.
Ty: Maybe we should do it in a few nights?
John: They might catch on and keep an eye out.
Ty: True we have only one night.
John: Tonight at eleven sound good?
Ty: Yes, but what if we get caught?
John: We run.
Ty: Okay.
I know he could hear the uneasiness in my voice because he wrapped me in a big hug and told me that we are going to be fine.
John: It's still your birthday let's not worry anymore. I have something else for you. Follow me again.
Ty: You do too much.
John: Like I said, most of this was done before.
He takes my hand and leads me to the little lake with the wooden bridge. On the bridge was a small cake lit up by four teal colored candles. We walked up and I blew out the candles. I made a wish and hopefully it comes true. The rest of the day was spent exploring the woods and gathering things to place in our new home. By the time we finished, stars were starting to show and we grab the wagons and head toward my house. It is a bit of a walk to get there but when we do the lights are still on.
Ty: What do we do now?
John: We wait. Maybe around the side of the house where I would usually climb up to meet you. I think the ladder is still there.
Ty: It is still there. They should go to bed soon.
John: We can wait as long as we need.
Turns out, we only waited two hours and I had fallen asleep during that time. We started to climb the ladder and made it into the unlocked window. John rolled up the mattress while I grabbed some clothes and a few other things such as pictures, my laptop, blankets, and pillows. After we grabbed everything, we had to carefully descend the ladder. I threw everything into a bag and loaded up the wagon.
John: My house, even though it is not home anymore, is next and that should give us enough time before the sun rises.
Ty: Just a few streets away.
John: Sure you got everything?
Ty: Yep.
We travel to his house and since his room is on the first floor, it was much easier. He grabbed his clothes, some pictures, fairy lights, and even his small television. We load up the wagons and put bags over our shoulder and headed back to the junkyard aka home. Once we got there we dropped our stuff off inside the house and went back to the bus to go to bed.
Ty: Morning.
John: Hello. Ready to chop some trees.
Ty: Yes, and why?
John: For tables and a bed frame.
Ty: Yeah, down to cut some trees.
John: Let's eat and head out.
We eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast head out with our saw to cut some trees. He spotted the perfect tree so we cut it down and drug it back to our home. Both of us work hard to cut it in even pieces and soon enough we made a bed frame with the tree and with a flatter piece of wood we had laying around. Next, we made a table with a big base and a nailed in flat piece of wood. We decided to clear out the bus in case anyone started to look for us and make a little door for our home so no one knew it was in there because now it looks like a pile of broken cars with random junk tossed onto it. Inside we rolled out the bed and nailed shelves to the walls for storage. He hung up fairy lights while I taped pictures to the wall.
Ty: Do you want to check the news and see if we are on it?
John: Yeah.
I open my laptop and search for news in our area. Two new stories. One about two boys who ran away from home and the other about a burglary in two homes. Both stories are about us. John starts to read the first story.
"Two boys have escaped their homes and education at the age of 15. The parents are worried desperately and just want their children back, they say they have programs to help them. Search parties will be sent out on 15th of December starting at three in the afternoon. If caught, they may be dangerous. . . ."
I started to fade out as he read this. How can we be dangerous and our fathers cannot be worried? Also, the search party could come here.
John: Ty, Ty. Hello.
Ty: Oh, sorry. Just zoned out.
John: Yeah, I can tell. What were you thinking?
Ty: Just that they can come here and drag us off. How could they think we are dangerous?
John: I cannot answer that. And we have to stay here, they can catch us in the woods. We will just have to boarder up the doorway with car parts and clear all trace of us outside.
Ty: Let's do it right now.
John: Agree.
We go out and erase all trace of us and go back in to close off our home. Before we knew it, it was three and we were waiting. And waiting. And soon they were here. We could hear heavy footsteps and lighter ones outside walking around and tapping things. John turns to me and we slowly slide to the floor. He takes my hand and whispers something I barely heard.
John: Just be quiet and they won't even notice we are.
Ty: Got it.
We sat there and waited. It felt like forever but eventually we heard them trail off. We waited some more to confirm it and then we could get up.