Castle On The Hill

Chapter One

Josh and I ran from our high school campus holding hands as our principal chased after us yelling and raising his fist, demanding we give him back what we took off his head. When he reached the edge of school property, he stopped in his tracks while we ran down the hill towards State Road 36. Once we reached downtown Mount Morris we both stopped, leaned against a building and started laughing.

"I still can't believe you did that!" Josh sighed when we stopped laughing.

"All I did was rip off his toupee." I shrugged with a smile.

Josh smiled and kissed me on the cheek. He has the most magnificent blue eyes that he hides behind black thick rimmed glasses and shaggy brown hair. We've been together five months now and are both troublemakers. Another thing we have in common is we're both foster children and we currently live in the same home.

I've been in the foster system my whole life. My biologicals had me then I guess they decided they didn't want me, so they dropped me in my car seat outside the Geneseo fire station in nothing but a diaper and pink onesie and took off. I was two weeks old.

"I'm thirsty. Let's go to the gas station and grab a pop." Josh suggested.

"Sounds like a plan. I need to put this thing somewhere anyway."

"What thing?"

I pulled the toupee out from my hoodia pocket and we both grinned.

"You didn't throw it in the dumpster there like we told him?"

"No, I figured it would be more fun to let him dig through the trash and not find it, then someone go to the gas station and spot it."

"How do you know someone will recognize it?"

"Come on babe, we live in a small town and he's the principal over the elementary, middle and high school. Everyone knows who this red mop belongs to. Everyone just might have known it was fake."

We laughed again and started walking towards Kwik Fill. I try not to let the fact that my parents left me for dead try to ruin my spirits. I love pulling pranks and making people laugh. The sound of laughter and good spirits covers up any dark feelings that try to creep up.

I turned seventeen two months ago and Josh and I both just started our senior year of high school. His story is that when he was six his dad took him, his mom and siblings hostage, then killed his mom during the hostage negation, yelling that if he couldn't have her than nobody could. Nobody would take the three of them together, so they all got split up. He was already at the home we're at when I got placed here six months ago. He turned seventeen a few days ago.

When we reached Kwik Fill I started scanning the parking lot for a place to put the toupee on display. My eyes landed on the ice chest next to the doors to go inside the store. This thing is bright red, so nobody will miss it. We walked to the front door and as he went to open the door, I tugged his arm.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Over there." I replied.

I dragged him to the ice chest and went to pull it out of my pocket, but he stopped me.

"We should get our drinks first. We don't want to put that there, go in the store, then come back our and the cops be waiting. We want to leave after placing it." He suggested.

"Good call. Let's go get you that Dr. Pepper fix babe."

Josh grinned and dragged me in the store. He grabbed a Dr. Pepper, I grabbed a Mountain Dew and we went to the register. We had to count change so I had the cashier give us the total then take care of other customers so they don't have to wait on us. When the change was counted, we cashed out and left the store. I walked back over to the ice chest, set my drink on top of it and pulled the toupee out of my pocket.