Hideaway

Chapter 5: Preparation

I'll admit that I hesitated as we walked down the sidewalk. I thought of all the other kids I left behind. We were too busy thinking of ourselves and we left them all to spend their childhood in that god forsaken place. I wouldn't even call it an orphanage. To me, and everyone else walking away from that place with me, it was a insane asylum. We were selfish, but Zest gave me a dirty look when I peeked a glance back a it. Apparently, he had no feelings for the others, but I did. Christina grimaced at me though. As if to say, 'We did the best we could.' Sure.

It then hit me. Crap! We were in over our heads. We didn't even plan out what we would do once we left. I looked back upon the memory of the owner's smile as we left. She knew we would struggle. And what about cops. What would a cop do if they saw six random kids walking alone at night aimlessly? And no inns would accept us too. We were screwed. That meant we would have to live in the forest. I wasn't a first grader, but the thought of sleeping in a tree that was most likely infested with all sorts of insects terrified me.

I think that they realized it too because most of them stopped dead in their tracks like a deer in the headlights and Zest spat out a four letter curse word that my Mom would most likely ground me for. We all knew. Everyone was in panic, but didn't show except by the looks on their faces. Zest was still cursing up a storm and I didn't have to read his lips to tell he was pretty ticked. Georgie began to bawl his eyes out which I believed must have been a norm for him. Because he stopped after about thirty seconds. I was also crying and swearing. But it my mind. I knew I had to something before we attracted the attention of nearby people.

I was smooth. Possibly saving us all. "Hey, we'll make do with the situation at hand." I knew my choice of words had no effect on Zest and bounced off him like he was a trampoline, but the others perked up. I continued.

"We all brought money, right."

That was it. That convinced all of them. I definitely didn't expect it to, but it did. We jogged to the nearest grocery store to pick up non-perishable foods. Unless I expected us to be able to have a fridge in the wild, that was the only option. We joyfully pushed around a cart which we filled with items such as bread, peanut butter, chips, fruit snacks, graham crackers, and much more things that you would find in a pantry in a normal home. We also bought things such as plastic items, cups, plates, napkins, and water. Water is all we would have to live off of when it came to thirst. We bought gallons of it to be sure we had enough.

I think that Zest really did save our skins though. He looked way older than he was and somehow already knew how to buy groceries. As we got to the checkout line, the blonde cashier lady eyed us suspiciously as she scanned our groceries. Specifically looking at Zest.

"They with you," She asked, still studying Zest.

"Yeah. Babysitting. Gotta love it right." She looked to be around 18 so I figured she had had a fair share of babysitting herself. And I was proven to be right. Because after that, she stopped asking questions and finished bagging everything.

Carrying all of the bags out of the store took an effort from everyone and we walked down the street to the camping supplies store, and bought six sleeping bags. Again, we were given many questions and we decided it would be the best if we didn't visit stores often.

We were at full capacity when it came to items that we could carry and at this point, I was very sure that everybody wanted to just go to sleep. Including me. It was time to set up camp.