Footprints

Chapter 1 - The Police

So, my name is Bethan, or Beth, for short.

I'm a triplet to the most awesome people in the world, my sister, Hannah, and my brother, Jamie. As of right now, we're currently on the street, in a dark, dusty alleyway, graphitised by thugs and rebels. It smells of pee and B.O, probably not the best place to hide... But for now we have nowhere to go. Our parents mysteriously disappeared in the middle of cooking lunch, and the house burned down, along with all our belongings. We reckon the fire was caused by the oven or something electrical, but it could have been something completely different, who knows. I mean.. they are my parents. I don't believe them to be dead. I still feel their presence around me.
I managed to scavenge my phone, which was in my pocket at the time, and my piggy bank. Hannah grabbed her stash of sweets and Jamie grabbed entertainment, seeing as the thing closest to him was his art set. I don't know why we all grabbed something, I suppose we all had those thoughts of house fires and grabbing something on the way out.

"I'm hungry" blurted Jamie out of nowhere. I looked at him quizzically,
"Eat something then," while passing the jar of sweets over to him. He swiped three Haribo Tangfastics and shoved them in his mouth before we could notice. "JAMIE!!" Hannah and I scolded, "They were the last ones!" Jamie opened his mouth to speak but didn't say anything, since he had so much in his mouth that he couldn't.
"We could've shared those you greedy pig!". (Is it clear that we all love tangfastics yet?) With a mouthful of sweets, he managed to say - "swowwy".
"SORRY? IS THAT ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY? WE HAVE NO HOME, THIS IS OUR ONLY FOOD UNTIL SOMEONE FINDS US, AND TAKES US TO SOME SORT" - And at that very moment, a man with a battered rucksack charged past us. About a foot away from, something shiny fell to the floor with a clink. Jamie got up and went to investigate. Ar first glance it looked a bit like a shiny rock, but on closer inspection, we were astounded to find it was our mothers very own pearl necklace, along with matching earrings and bracelet. Then, two policemen on motorbikes raced past us, and another stupid looking man huffing and puffing behind them. He'd obviously been trying to catch up, and wasn't very fit. The policeman was extremely fat, and had beads (sorry, buckets) of sweat falling down his face. He stopped by us as if he were panicked, and asked us a question in one of those tones that adults try to use on kids to persuade them to do something.
"Hello, kiddies, who are you? And why are you out here in this dirty, stinky alleyway?"
Despite being a policeman, we knew better than to be truthful.
"We're camping!" I said in my most innocent voice possible. The policeman looked at us again, as if he was looking for something.
"Where's your tent then?" The policeman questioned. I racked my brain for more excuses, and ingeniously, with a load of sass said, "We can't afford one. After all, we're only children!" The policeman huffed with impatience ringing in his voice, "Where are your parents?"

"Oh, erm" I exchanged glances with my brother and sister. Thankfully, Jamie saved us. - "The other side of the country! They left us with our grandmother, so we ran away. She force fed us stewed cabbage. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Awful... awful. They went on holiday by the way. They didn't just leave us." He said this in a way you would without really thinking of it. The lie rolled right off his tounge. Anyway, back to our charming little argument.

"What's your parents' phone number?" The policeman snapped. I hated this fool more every second.
I'm sure it was the same on his behalf too.

"Dunno sir" replied Hannah. In my contacts she's known as 'Mum' so I dunno." The policeman turned to Jamie and I. "You two?" We obviously knew our mothers phone number.
"Nope" I said.
"Not a clue" Jamie followed. The policeman huffed, and turned to walk away. We were all ready to heave a sigh of relief, but the policeman saw us exchange grins and stormed back towards us. "You lot, are coming with me!" He yelled. "I'm not stupid, you're homeless kids, I'm taking you back to the orphanage ." We looked at each other, horrified, and worried.
Back?
"What orphanage?!" I demanded, sounding much more confident than I felt. The policeman smiled with a chuckle. "The one where you came from." He said, while pulling out three pairs of handcuffs from his holster. We obediently stood up and followed the policeman. We were forced to leave all of our stuff there, even my phone!! It took everything in me to control my anger around this idiot.
We walked to the orphanage, handcuffs wrapped around our wrists.

Or so we thought....

The policeman had been so chuffed with his achievement, that he had completely forgotten to put the handcuffs on us. We hadn't even noticed it ourselves, since we were so busy thinking of escape plans of the orphanage that we weren't even going to. I tapped Hannah and whispered as quietly as possible in her ear, "We haven't even got any handcuffs on! Tell Jamie" Hannah whispered the glorifying news to Jamie and we all started tip-toeing backwards. The policeman walked jollily along as though everything was right with the world. We waited until we were a few feet away. We were about 3 meters away until we started running. And about 20ft until the policeman actually noticed the lack of foot steps behind him. We saw the fat and unfit policeman jogging behind us, and we ran even faster back to our alleyway. Within about 5 minutes we were back, scrambling to pick up our stuff and sprinting further down the alleyway, and taking a left. We stopped dead in or tracks. There was huge wood facing us.
"Do you seriously think this is a good idea?" Hannah asked." We could easily get lost and hurt."

"She has a point" Jamie agreed.

"Yeah" I said.

"YOU STUPID KIDS GET BACK 'ERE!"

"It looks like we don't have a choice."

We ran faster than we ever had before. Deeper and deeper into the woods. We kept to the tactic of running in a straight line, so we could find our way back. After a while, the policeman's huffing and puffing died down a little, and we slowed down. Jamie collapsed to his knees.
"Well. I'm glad we did that cross country in school". He puffed.

"COME... *PANT* BACK!.... *pant*

Jamie got to his feet and took a right. "Jamie!" Hannah exclaimed, "THIS WAY!" She said. "NO!" Jamie ordered. We followed Jamie reluctantly, and sprinted like the wind. We ran for 10 minutes straight until we heard our sign of defeat.

"FINE! FORGET IT!" The policeman bellowed. You could hear his voice fading away in defeat. He must have been miles away from us, as we were struggling to hear him.
"I'll send in dogs, to sniff you out! There is no way you're going to find your way out now!" It seemed that the policeman was making his way out, so we made our way to a massive tree next to us, and sat down. We panted for what seemed like hours, but was really about five minutes. After our 'mini panting spree', Hannah said,
"You do realize that he's sending dogs in to sniff us out". I replied with a yawn and fell to the ground. The soft, lush grass felt like a bed. Within two seconds I fell asleep. Absolutely worn out.