The Angelos Chronicles: The Otherworldy adventures

Chapter five- I almost get caught

It all starts with something I suppose, I thought while ducking in a small corner of the baggage room on the plane. I was hiding behind multiple tall suitcases while holding onto one of the pipes on the wall. The ride had been- so far, at least- very, very bumpy in the room (Well to be honest it was more of a compartment) where the baggage was piled up recklessly. Let's rewind a couple hours. I had been awoken unexpectedly to the sound of a loud annoying ring of my alarm. My bleary eyes blinked, looking around the room like a scared duckling. My hand reached for my phone blindly, quickly turning off my alarm as I remembered what I had set it for. I felt much more awake now, as I was tying my shoes up fast, grabbing my bag and double checking everything in there before I unlocked the window and pushed up the glass. A cold breeze quickly filled the room as I looked out on the starry night sky. The temperature of the air was stinging my nostrils as I inhaled a breath of the fresh, dew smelling air. I looked out the window to the ground. A particularly rocky part of the stream was just beneath my window, but it didn't matter as I jumped out of the casement and onto the rocks and cold running water, which was flowing into my shoes making them soggy, I bit back a dramatic sigh, knowing it would be hell to walk around Italy at night with my feet frozen and my shoes collecting snow and slush. So I just rolled my eyes irritably and started running the path towards downtown. We lived on the outskirts of the town, a couple miles away to be more precise, but in our town everything was close together. Not many people knew who we were when we walked into the shops on our weekly trips for food and necessities, and the ones who did either knew my mama well enough to think of us as wonderful people, or just knew that we existed and thought we were an odd bunch for simply existing far enough away from the group. I ran at an even and fast pace until the dirt path turned to pavement, a sign that I was getting close to the edge of town. I slowed down, I had time- a lot of it, as I didn't need to get to the airport until slightly before four, I was only running so that I could get out of my mom's vicinity quickly. I rounded the corner, jumping the pothole that was coincidentally directly in my way. That corner had given me an unobstructed vision of the beginning of the real part of the town. It led down in a slope, with houses on either side of the road, by now street lamps with flower baskets hanging from the black metal had started popping up on the sides of the pavement- which was, in other words, around the width of two american sidewalks. This part of Italy- and in fact most parts of Italy- weren't exactly vehicle friendly, especially to cars. I happily skipped down the pavement, the stars becoming more and more obstructed by the town lights and old buildings appearing beside the new homes. I turned multiple corners, remembering my way towards the coffee shop I visited frequently, I rounded the corner to the street, a nice small one, dimly lighted but not creepy or uninvited at all, in fact the whole street was quite the opposite, giving a sense of freedom that always brings a small smile to my face. Tonight was no exception, as my smile grew brightly as I clutched my backpack strap a little harder, Breaking out into a fast paced skip as I bopped my head to the song playing in my headphones. I stopped abruptly, pausing the song as I reached the shop. The sign was in place, and it was open even at this ungodly hour of the night- or as the shop owner would say- early morning. Why he always opened this early was a mystery to most, including me. But for once I wasn't bothered by his times as I walked with a bounce in my step over to the front door. I opened it silently. The small bell sound rang from who-knows-where as the shopkeeper turned around drying a cup in his hand with a rag, turning to face me. His eyebrows furrowed as he grinned in half disbelief and half confusion with a sprinkle of mischief. His strong accent filled up the room as he talked, "Why, hello Liam! I haven't seen you in months, let alone at such an early hour of the morning." He tilted his head to the side as I conversed back, quite happy to see a familiar voice in the sea of silence that had followed me around- only drowned out by the music blasting full volume in my headphones. "Mr. Romano! It's so nice to see you again." He nodded at me, "Likewise kiddo." "It's been so long, I've been caught up with my school, I'm going to one in california now, I got in too much trouble over here." The lies slipped off my tongue easily, a talent I was lucky to have for the millionth time in my life, "I came over for winter break." "Oh, that explains the lack of visits recently, I suppose the time zone difference is why you're awake and up looking so happy at this time?" I grinned at him, "You know it! Can I have a hot cocoa and a chocolate filled croissant?" I said, grabbing my wallet out of my back pocket. "It's on the house, consider it a welcome back gift." I smiled at him and put my wallet away, walking over to a table in the back and sitting down, distracting myself with my phone. Mr. Romano came to my table with the food a couple minutes later, setting the food and cocoa on the table and walking off. I grabbed the white mug full of the best hot cocoa I had ever tasted- one of the main reasons this was my favorite cafe- and blew on it to cool it down. I ate my food and finished off the hot cocoa quickly. Realizing I had spent much too much time faffing around and that I needed to get on my way to the airport if I wanted to sneak into the plane before it was too late. I thanked Mr. Romano profusely for the inanely early breakfast and shuffled my way out the door quickly, starting at a fast pace to make it to the airport in time, but without trying to sneak in absolutely heaving and out of breath because I ran, so a speed walk would be good for now. Around twenty minutes later I reached the airport. It was dimly lit by a few lights and there were only around twenty people sitting inside on the uncomfortable chairs. I pushed my face away from the glass and walked to the side of the airport. In the side there were large crates and boxes and a couple huge trucks parked with several workers hauling in and out crates. I ducked behind the wall, deciding what to do. They would definitely be suspicious of a random kid walking through an area he wasn't supposed to be in, and it would be hard to sneak around them. I clutched my bag tightly as a brilliant idea shot through my head. I crouched even farther to the floor and grabbed a loose rock from the path, I threw it up into the air and caught it before it hit the ground. Yeah, this would work well enough. I peeked around the corner and lifted my hand, throwing the rock a far way away and running quickly behind a large crate while all the workers spun around to where I threw the rock with confused faces. They turned back around, shrugging it off before I could jump to another crate. They didn't see me. I waited until they weren't looking and shuffled briskly toward another stack of crates. A few seconds passed before I glanced out from behind the boxes. I ran to one of the trucks, hiding behind it and letting out a deep breath I didn't realize I was holding. That was until I turned around to walk to the plane. A man was standing there with a shocked and surprised look on his face, he was holding a coffee mug with 'world's best father' on it and a sandwich half-wrapped in a brown paper bag. He took one step towards me but before he could do anything I threw one of the smaller crates at his face. He swayed and loudly dropped to the ground unconscious, breaking his mug in the process. I winced at the loud sound of his body dropping and the glass breaking. Everybody turned to look but at that point I was out of sight, running towards the plane. I slid under the body of the aircraft and ducked down on the other side. I snuck over to the baggage area in the tail of the plane, two workers were there, piling in people's luggage. I looked down at the floor and grabbed another rock, throwing it behind them and waiting for them to turn around before running silently into the baggage room. I ducked behind a few tall suitcases right as they turned around. It took around ten minutes for the workers to get all of the bags inside and to close the door, the little light that was actually coming in had been shut out, and I was too paranoid to turn on the flashlight on my phone, so I sat in pure darkness behind the shuffling suitcases. Finally I gave in and turned on the flashlight, and suddenly, the entire plane started shaking, it was takeoff. I gripped onto the pipes on the walls tightly as the entire plane shook and all the suitcases shuffled and fell, finally I heard the muffled sound of the intercom lady talking through the walls. I looked down to the cold metal floor, deciding I should get some sleep while I could. This was going to be a long flight.