Road Trip part 1

Preface

“You are throwing all our money down the frickin’ drain! You don’t even care about this family anymore!” 

“I don’t care? Look who’s talking! You just quit your job because ‘they were too hard to handle’! If you care about this family, you’d be looking for a different job right now!”

“I am! Unlike you, you’re just using our money like it grows on trees or something! I had to sell our fricking sofa! Our SOFA!!!”

I closed the door lightly behind me and threw my books onto my bed. I sighed. This family was so impossible. I went over to my dresser and dug through the half-open top drawer to find my ipod. I pulled it out and put on the song “So What” by P!nk. I walked over to my shelf and took down my old notepad that was barely holding on to it’s spine. “Ashes fell like raindrops onto the victims of the fire. The smell of smoke filled my lungs as I walked through the ruined village. A small girl lay shivering under a table carved of rock. I scooped her up into my arms and she pressed her face into my hair, not caring who I was, as long as she didn’t have to be alone in the setting of this horrible tragedy that she had just witnessed,” I wrote. My brother opened the door and slammed it closed. He threw his backpack over to the dresser. I stared at it like I had no other choice. “I hate this family!” He said. I looked up to see fury swelling up in my older brother’s face. “I hate it! They never do anything but argue, and Sarah acts like she’s the queen of the world and forces mom and dad to buy stuff that she knows we can’t flippin’ afford! UGH!” He looked down at me and half smiled sheepishly. “You’re the only thing that keeps this family together, sis. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said. I smiled, “Same goes to you. He sighed and plopped down on his bed. “I hope you’re wrong,” he said,  “ ‘Cause if that’s true, then you’re toast when I go to college.” I raised an eyebrow. He was right. I was toast.

Three weeks later, the worst day of my life arrived. My brother left for college. I didn’t even go to the airport with my parents and the rest of my siblings. I couldn’t stand goodbyes, especially not with the one person who kept me from falling off the edge of this cliff they call teen years. My parents came in screaming at each other, and Sarah skipped up the stairs with a shopping bag in her hand. My other brothers didn’t come in at all. Probably went to a friend’s house or something, they always managed to find excuses to not come home. My mom suddenly came into my room and stormed over to my shelf. She started to rip my notebooks off the shelf. I immediately jumped up. “What are you doing?!” I screamed. She turned to me. “Your FATHER just bought something way too expensive for Sarah, so I’m going to sell your notebooks.” She said. My mouth fell open. That was it. This was all going way too far. “Oh no you’re not,” I said. My mother looked shocked. “Excuse me?” She said. I walked across the room and grabbed the notebooks from her arms and the rest of the notebooks from the shelf. “What are you doing?” She asked as I grabbed a huge suitcase from beside my bed. I unzipped the bag and threw all my notebooks into it. I pulled the drawers out of my dresser and dumped their contents into my bag. I went back to the dresser, grabbed a crystal heart necklace from the top of it, and clipped it around my neck. Then I zipped my bag back up and threw it onto the ground. I turned away from my mother and pulled my suitcase down the stairs. “WHERE are you going?” She screamed. I slammed the front door and threw my suitcase into the back of my government-payed mustang. I jumped into the front seat and speeded out of the driveway just as my mother threw open the door and screamed, “Get back here!” That was it. All there is to it. I never went back there.

Chapter 1: Seven Hours

The trees sped past me as I drove down the road. The ocean glistened under the sun, and warm ocean air filled the area. I sped out of this Heaven-on-Earth like it was on fire. I blasted “Where is the Love” by Black eyed peas on my ipod at full volume. I put on a pair of sunglasses and screeched to a rough stop at a red light. I rubbed bright red lip gloss onto my lips so they shined as much as the ocean. I saw my friend Martha wave to me from the sidewalk. I motioned for her to walk up to the curb. I pulled over a t the curb just as she ran up to it. “I’m leaving,” I said, and I hugged her. “What do you mean you’re leaving?” She asked. “Say bye to Mel, Hannah, and Elliot please,” I continued, “‘Cause I’m not coming back. I’m sick of this family.” Martha glanced at the suitcase in the back of my car and tears swelled up in her eyes. “Say by to Mirium and Jade too. Oh, and Grace and Rachel.” I said. I laughed, “Well, I guess you should just say bye to everyone. Love ya Marth.” Martha looked at me, the tears now spilling out of her eyes. “Love ya.” She whispered. I wrapped her up in a huge hug. “Goodbye Martha,” I said. I got back into my car and sped off, glancing at Martha staring at my car as I sped away into the distance.

I drove out of Malibu and into Santa Monica. I drove past Santa Monica and into Orange County, but I didn’t stop there. I had no idea where I was going, but I knew that I hadn’t gone far enough. I drove all the way to Bakersfield. I got too tired to drive anymore, so I stopped at a small hotel and checked in. I had all the money from my college fund and about three thousand dollars that had just showed up in my wallet one day. Also, I had all the money I had made from my part job, since I had been saving up to get a car that the government didn’t pay for, though I’m not sure why. The car I had presently was a cute red mustang that I didn’t have to buy, I didn’t have to pay the bills for, I didn’t even have to pay for gas for it. Why? Because the government let me drive around in the car as much as I want as long as I had a bumper sticker on the back that said, “Support Our Troops”. I’m not sure why they let me do it, but it was perfectly fine with me. I got a free all-payed car just for having a bumper sticker that I liked anyway.  I went up to my room and took out one of my notebooks. I was writing a story in it called “The Fall of Ashes”. “I took the little girl to my home and hid her in my loft, knowing that the soldiers would soon storm into here to make sure that not one villager had escaped their horrible massacre. Sure enough, five hard knocks rapped against my door about fifteen minutes after I had come in. I closed the loft door and shoved a large bookshelf in front of it, though it hardly showed anyway. “Coming!” I said. I ran to the front door and opened it to find not soldiers, but a wrinkled old man who had ashes covering his clothes and was hunched over, trying to walk without a cane. Obviously, he was also a survivor of the fire the soldiers had lit on the innocent village. I quickly ushered him in. I got him an umbrella to use as a cane, and then I quickly let him into the loft. Just as I pushed the bookshelf back in place, I heard another hard knock on the door. I rushed over and opened it. The soldiers had arrived.” I wrote. The book was about a war in a poor African country where a woman was attempting to hide villagers in her home. It was much like the story of Anne Frank, except it was from the point of view of the person who was hiding people, not the person who was hiding. Also, a lot more about fire was involved in the story. I put the notebook back in my suitcase and flopped onto the bed. I turned the television on and watched about two and half hours of cartoons. Then I went to sleep, my mind filled with questions. Where would I go? What was I going to do? What if I ran out of money? Who was I going to rely on? Who could I trust? And most importantly, what was I doing out here alone?

To be continued...

© 2009