It was an average day at the old house we lived near. Shining brightly, the sun beckoned at me to come and play.
“Can I please go,” I beg my mother, who is trying to get the small amount of food she gathered last night distributed around to everyone.
We live in a small community in Duck Key, Florida. Although my family and I are homeless, I have never felt deprived of much. I have a great family and my best friend lives right next me! Literally, her family and mine live together and our moms try to earn enough money for meals. When your homeless and you have to feed eight children not including yourselves, you can get kinda stressed. That’s why my mom can be a little annoying at times. One of those times is today.
“Honey, can you please wait until I’m done with this,” she replies irritated.”I need to finish this before I can make sure you can leave and know where you’re going.”
“I’m going to the alley with Shiobhan. We won’t go too far, we’ll be careful, blah blah blah. Can I go now?”I say hurriedly.
“Don’t argue” she replies.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” I beg, not at all annoyingly.
“Just wait, Okay?” she says too loudly.
Walking away sulkily, I decide to go over to Shiobhan and see if she had more luck than me with her mom. By the time I get over there, her mom has managed to deny her our rights to go and play as well. When we meet up, all we have to do is look at each other and we slip silently away from our noisy brothers and overprotective mothers.
“I feel really bad for leaving.” Shiobhan mumbles.
“Aww come on,” I groan, “You know they were being unreasonable besides we deserve some freedoms! I doubt they’ll even know we were gone.” I urge.”As I recall a certain someone was still it!” I laugh as I dash out of her reach.
We run around ‘till I swear my lungs are going to explode. Bursting into giggles we drop to the ground exhausted. Shiobhan yelps as she jumps up from where she was just sitting. I pull out a bright green bouncy ball from the slightly squashed grass.
“Awesome, a bouncy ball!” I exclaim loudly.
Shiobhan picks it up and chucks it down the alley that we call the “family free” zone. I jump up and chase after the ball like an over excited dog. I reach the ball fist and chuck it hard. Unfortunately, the trajectory was a little off and the small, green form of entertainment goes sailing over a random gate.
“Seriously!” Shiobhan shouts as she runs up to me.
“What! The gate was in the way! It would have been perfectly fine if some random person hadn’t decided to build an unnecessary gate in the middle of an ally. I mean, who does that?”
Shiobhan gives me a really hard stare, considering it wasn’t my fault, and jogs over to the stupid gate. When she starts to climb I squeal and rush over to her.
“I know, I know” she mutters. “I shouldn’t do this, but…”
“No!” I yell excitedly” I’m just happy you’re doing something slightly bad for once! But if you’re going to be bad, do it right.” I explain as I walk over to the already slightly open gate.
“Oh.”Shiobhan says disappointedly. I open the gate and hold it open for her. She marches toward the gate and takes a tentative step inside. I gasp as a bright light makes me stumble backward. When I get back up Shiobahn is gone.
