Autumn's Fall

II. A Party for the Children.

Angus watched from his hotel room as the waves crashed against the beach in a frightful way, powerful enough at their highest crest to break a man should he be unlucky enough to fall beneath them. A great wind had been blowing in from the sea for a few days now.

This was supposed to be their last beach bash. But they had all been forbidden from entering the now-dangerous sandy shores and rocky cliffs which they had enjoyed exploring in the early days of summer. Now the days weren't quite so long and the evenings were beginning to get cooler.

Autumn was coming soon. For this particular bunch of children this meant uncertainty, all had been made to leave their homes at the beginning of the summer. Not a single child had been allowed to stay in their small town. Not one of them had been given a reason why, but all of their parents had seemed to know something.

They never said anything, but Angus had seen his mom and dad talking quietly one day in the den when they thought no one could hear them. His father had been pale, his mother crying, clutching a piece of paper in her hand. He hadn't disturbed them and he never saw the contents of that letter. He'd asked around after he'd arrived.

More than a few of the kids had seen their parents with a strange-looking letter, a letter which they never saw afterward. One of the children claimed he'd seen his father burning it in his backyard grill, but no one claimed to know what the letter had said. All they knew was one day they were at home, the next they were loaded into buses and told they were being sent away to camp for the summer.

Now Autumn was nearly here and no one had mentioned anything about their returning home. What worried them even more, was that none of them had received any contact from their families in the last month.

Angus had not trusted any of the people in charge from the beginning. He and a few others had made it their sole purpose to find out why they were here and what was being planned for all of them. Two months of careful watching had revealed their purpose, and it wasn't what they had expected.

The truth was that all the children had been forced away from their homes, as they had suspected. But they were astonished to find it had been because of an official edict and not just a bunch of kidnappers or blackmailers--as more than a few children had feared. The focus was not their harm but their welfare.

Something, the messages they had discovered and conversations they had overheard had not said what, but something quite close to their town was making it dangerous for them to be there. Something dangerous enough that it warranted the removal of everyone under the age of eighteen for their safety. No one had said anything about when they could or would be returned.

It had been a little over two weeks since they had learned this truth, and Angus had had enough of waiting. He wanted to see what it was that was so dangerous. He wanted to find out if his parents were still at home or if he still had a home to go home to. And he'd be more than a little bit upset if he found out his prize baseball card collection had been destroyed in whatever calamity may have befallen the town.

He decided he'd had enough. He was going back home, but he couldn't go alone.

Thankfully, his sister Cecilia was just as adventurous as he was, and at thirteen she was just a little over a year younger than he. She wouldn't let him leave her behind if he was going home. The problem was their youngest sister, Sophia.

Sophia was a quiet, sweet kind of child--just a few weeks short of her tenth birthday. At first, he wasn't sure if she should come along. But once she'd heard him tell Cecilia about his plan, she refused to be left out of it. In a rare moment of stubbornness, she'd even threatened to tell the camp leaders about their plans to leave if they didn't take her along. "Just like a girl would do too," Angus fumed.