Young Writers Society

“Umm, Nichole? Do you feel that?”

Nichole looked over at her brother with a puzzled look on her face. Before she could respond to him, the rain began to pour out of the sky.

Nichole pulled open the umbrella and held it over her and her brother’s head. The rain was still hitting Nichole’s shoulder because she wanted to make sure that very little rain touched her brother. She couldn’t deal with what would happen if he were to get sick. Especially in the situation that they were in now. They walked slower towards the exit of the neighborhood than they were doing before so that they both would stay under the umbrella.

It had finally stopped raining by the time the two left the neighborhood, Byron held the drenched umbrella.

A little longer down the road, Byron began to feel uneasy.

"I'm hungry" Byron said, tugging on Nichole's sweater sleeve.

"You already ate. We have to conserve our food."

"But that was so long ago," Byron said, exaggerating, “and it spilled on the table, remember that?”

"Fine" Nichole agreed.

They had arrived at the park and sat on the bench near a less populated area. There were numerous animals coming out of their burrows during this time of the morning and the air was mixed with the mist of the morning rain.

She handed Byron a granola bar and juice box, while she drunk her own. She looked around the park and saw a family walk by. There was a mother, father and a younger girl walking around the playground. The father had picked up his little girl and put her in the swing set, then began to push her as her mother took a lot of pictures. They seemed happy, as if they were the perfect family with absolutely no problems in the world. Nichole was feeling sick, as if all of the feelings of fear and sadness overcame her at this very moment.

Nichole began to remember her father, she remembered when she was younger, when her family was just like the one that she was looking at. Nichole’s father was a lawyer, a professional one. He would have always put Nichole and Ashley first because they were the only family, other than his sister, that he had in his life. He loved them just as much as they loved him.

When Nichole was younger, her and her father would always go to the park and they would play all day whenever Ashley had to work. Nichole remembered on her 5th birthday, they planned to go to the local aquarium and look at the sea creatures that Nichole loved so much.

However, the morning of her birthday, Nichole’s father that he had to take his sister to the airport. Nichole understood and excitedly waited for her father’s return so they could go to her favorite place in the world. Hours past and Nichole continued to wait. Ashley ran down the stairs and saw that Nichole had fallen asleep on the couch. She picked her up and brought her to the car. After buckling Nichole into her car seat, Ashley sped off to some place that Nichole did not know off. She woke up to her mother sitting in the front seat of the car, in tears and sounding completely broken. Nichole looked out the window and saw that they were parked on the side of the road, police and ambulances were everywhere. She looked a little further down the road and saw that there were three cars that were destroyed and flipped upside down. One of which was her father’s car.

Nichole asked her mother if that was her dad. Ashley could barely speak, instead she got out of the car and climbed into the back seat with her daughter. Ashley was hugging her daughter tightly; her tears falling into Nichole’s hair. Nichole was worried and confused. She asked herself why was her mother crying, is that her dad in one of those crashed cars; her mother would not answer.

A couple of minutes later, a police officer knocked on the window and told Ashley that she had to move her car so the ambulance could get by. Ashley got back into the driver’s seat and followed the ambulance to the hospital. The only thing that Nichole remembers after that is sitting in a cold white room with her broken mother and hearing those awful words.

“He didn’t make it.”

Nichole began to cry.

Byron walked away to throw away his trash, when he came back, he saw his sister sitting with her face in her hands.

"What's wrong?" Byron asked, sitting next to his sister.

"Nothing," Nichole responded, she had forgotten where she was or who she was with. She stood up, grabbed her bag, then began walking, leaving Byron behind. He ran to catch up to her.

"Nichole!?" he called to her before catching up to her.

She glanced and her brother. "What?"

"Do you think we will ever go back home?"

His question made Nichole stop walking, which then caused Byron to almost trip on himself.

"Are you having second thoughts?” she asked angrily.

Byron looked at his sister’s barely covered eye again then shook his head furiously. A flashback of what he saw on the tape popped back in his head.

“Good because no we won't. We won't because mom will never realize that what she does is wrong and inhumane,” Nichole looked away, thinking that Byron would never understand because the abuse never happened to him. She sighed.

"Come on" Nichole said, walking faster.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

~~~~~~

The two arrived at a pizza place that Nichole loved going to when she was younger. She loved it because her father would take her here whenever Ashley was going to be late at work or didn’t make dinner that night.

“What is this place?” Byron asked, looking at the tall building across the street.

Nichole grabbed her brother’s hand and walked across the street.

When inside, Nichole looked around the building. She looked at the brightly colored and flashy game machines and remembered playing every one of them with her father. It was as if she could see him standing by one of the games and calling to her to “play this one” or see him saying, “come on sweetie, you love this game!” with the biggest smile on his face.

When Nichole had come back to reality, she realized that Byron had been tugging on her sleeve again, trying to get her attention.

“Nichole!”

She blinked a couple times then looked over at him.

“What?”

“Are we going to stand in this line all day?”

She looked away from him and at the host. She was stamping something onto the wrist of the family that had entered before them. The restaurant required that anyone who accompanies a child have a matching stamp on their wrist. This was mainly to ensure that no one's child left with the wrong person.

After the two received their stamps, ordered pizza and their tokens, they looked for a table. The place was empty except for a couple families that were there with their toddlers. As soon as they had sat down, Nichole instantly remembered what day it was. She began to feel a sense of worry and a flood of lies began to enter her head. Lies that she would tell anyone who asks her why they were at this particular restaurant on a school day and during school hours. She thought back to the people that she already interacted with and tried to figure out if they were wondering the same thing.

She picked the best lie she could think of and tried to think of every scenario that could possibly happen during their time here. Her thinking was interrupted again by Byron who wanted to play some of the games.

“Oh,” Nichole looked at the cheese pizza on the table, “Don’t you want to eat first?”

Byron shook his head, causing Nichole to give him a stern look and point at the seat in front of her. He sat down and began to eat the pizza.

“We can play the games after we eat.”

“Okay,” Byron said, excitedly.

Once again, Nichole began to think of the situation she and her brother had gotten themselves into. She did not have a clue as to what the next move for them was going to be or what the next hour for them entails. They did not even have any family members to call for help because, as far as Byron and Nichole know, they are all non-existent. Nichole even thought about calling one of her friends to see if they would be willing to let her and Byron stay there for a couple days but she couldn't think of a way to explain her situation to their parents.

So she just agreed with herself to just let the situation play out and see how things go. However, the one thing she was certain of was that she would do anything to prevent her and her brother from going back to their mom’s house.

“Nichole?”

She shook her head and looked at her brother.

“Can we go play now?”

“Yeah,” she looked at the table, there was a couple of slices of pizza left in the black pizza tray, “Do you have the tokens?”

Byron giggled and pointed at Nichole, “They are in your hand!”

She let out as much of a laugh that she could manage and led Byron to one of the games.

Byron and Nichole played games for hours until they ran out.

“Are you ready to go?” Nichole asked.

Before Byron could answer, they heard a scream coming from the opposite end of the building. Nichole grabbed Byron’s hand and tried to figure out where the scream came from.

A mother was yelling at an employee then she looked up at the obviously broken indoor playground equipment. On the very top of the playground was a tunnel with a gate that had been opened somehow. Also at the very end of the tunnel, it seemed as if it was beginning to break off.

“How old is this place?” Nichole thought to herself.

“Oh oh oh”, the woman began to scream again, “Can you go get my baby?!” she had yelled the question out loud but no one seemed to be willing to respond.

But before Nichole could even respond, Byron had already taken off his shoes and bolted up the playground.

She looked up at her brother in panic, but refrained from saying anything because she did not want him to lose his sudden sense of courage. Which would cause him to become clumsier and create an even worse scenario than the one that was already happening.

It only took Byron a minute to climb up there and grab the child and bring him back down.

“Oh, thank you so much”, the woman was crying, “If there is anything I can ever do to repay you just-”. She stopped talking to put the baby that she was holding in her car seat, then took out a piece of paper and wrote her phone number on it.

“If you two need anything just give me a call. You saved my baby from getting hurt and I have to repay you somehow.”

Byron took the paper and stuffed it into his pocket then smiled at the lady.

Nichole was staring at the lady, looking at every aspect of her appearance and how she talked to Byron as if he was the same age as her. She then remembered how Ashley would talk to Byron, even Nichole sometimes, as if they were dumb. As if they could not comprehend basic English. Nichole began to like this woman, she also felt as if she could tell this woman her problems and that she would not judge her.

“Can I trust her?”

“Okay, will do” Byron said to the woman, Nichole didn’t realize that Byron and the woman had been talking.

“Okay, it’s time to go Byron.”

“Aw really?”

Nichole looked at the woman and smiled, “Yes really.”

“Okay,” Byron looked at the woman too, “Bye!”

The woman smiled at Byron and picked up the baby in the car seat. Nichole watched as they walked to the front desk.

As Nichole and Byron were leaving, two tall, male cops walked in front of them, stopping them in their tracks.

“Where are your parents?” the one in front of Byron asked.

“Did they really let you guys come here on a school day?” the other one asked.

Nichole began to panic, however she calmly said, “it’s Friday.”

The two cops looked over at each other then back at the pair standing in front of them

“I think we would still like to meet your parents,” the one in front of Nichole said.

Nichole nodded, grabbed Byron’s hand and walked inside of the pizza place quickly. She looked around for anyone that she thinks could be a good looking mother for Byron, with a lighter complexion, and his sister with a darker complexion. After several minutes of searching Nichole began to feel worried. She looked outside and saw the police officers talking to each other, hoping they wouldn’t come inside before Nichole could manage to explain their crazy story to someone.

“Are you alright sweetheart?” a woman said, standing behind Nichole.

Nichole turned around and realized it was the woman that they just met.

“Well-”, Nichole paused for a second, thinking about what she was about to do.

“Nichole they are coming!” Byron whispered in a panic while tugging on his sister’s sleeve. In an instant, she told the woman everything as quickly as she could. After she was finished she instantly began to feel relieved. As if this lifelong burden had been removed from her.

The woman looked at Nichole, as if she were questioning her sanity. Nichole looked even more worried when she saw one of the police officers walking into the building. The officer found the three standing there.

“Are you one of their mothers?” the officer looked at the woman.

She looked at Nichole, tears started to form in her eyes.

“We are brother and sister,” Byron interrupted, actually sounding a little annoyed. Nichole couldn’t listen anymore, she hung her head down and thought of what would happen if they brought her back to her mother. Ashley may start to do even worse thing to her, what she could possibly do was a horrible thought to her. Worse than anything she could have ever imagined. Nichole had blanked out when she felt Byron tugging on her arm. She was looking down and there was a certain darkness in her eyes that he did not like. The officers were gone and it was just Byron and the woman standing there with Nichole. She looked at the woman and thought of what kind of person she had to be to help two crazy homeless kids. She knew that she was a helpful woman and she must’ve been clever too since she was able to get the police to leave.

“Nichole” Byron repeated, breaking his sister’s gaze.

She at Byron with a face of confusion.

“What?”

“She had asked for your name. What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Where did she go?”

“Who the woman?” Byron replied. “She said she had to go.”

“Let’s go,” Nichole said, grabbing Byron’s arm and walking towards the exit.

“Why? I want to stay here.” he said, running to keep up with his sister.

“I’ll take you somewhere else, I just remembered I don’t like this place.”

They walked outside and Byron stopped.

“What’s wrong, Nichole?” he said looking at her.

“It’s nothing. It’s getting late though, let’s just go back to the park.”

“Nichole, where are we going to sleep?”

She didn’t answer her brother, instead she grabbed his hand and the two walked down the road towards the park.