Monday the 16th February
I woke up to the smell of a trash can fire and empty bottles of booze. It was sunrise but it was still a bit dark under the pier-maybe 6 or 7 in the morning. My eye lids flickered open, expecting to look up at the grimy under boards of the Newspaperless pier; but to my surprise, I saw 3 old men with bushy beards hovering over the chump and I. I let out a scream. Then rolled over and began furiously poking Patrick so he would wake up. He opened his eyes; If a scream was my reaction-imagine his when he saw 3 strangers staring down at him!
"Woa, boy! Calm down." One of the men reassured. I studied their faces more closely, convinced that I had seen them somewhere before. A birthday party, a school trip or maybe just looked like someone else. Squinting at them, I noticed that they all had really bulky knuckles- like they had arthritis on their finger joints or something. An image of my mom's chunky knuckles popped into my head.
"Do you guys have a sister named Janice?" I blurted, hoping I was on to something.
"Yes." They replied, sounding confused. "We're the Oberlight brothers."
OBERLIGHT. The name boomed in my head. Over and over like someone was beating up a speaker with a pillow. OBERLIGHT. It played again and again like something by Taylor swift on the radio. OBERLIGHT. OBERLIGHT. Suddenly, it hit me. That list of expelled students in the boiler room. One of the students was Janice Oberlight. She was expelled for...unplanned pregnancy. If those men were my mother's brothers and their last name was Oberlight, that meant that Julie was a bastard! A wicked smile split my face. Abrahmdale was merciless to bastards, I wouldn't have had to see her ever again.
"Perfect" I whispered to myself. The Oberlight brothers and Patrick stared at me. "Your sister is my mom." I added. They smiled at each other, then at me. We all went in for a hug, except for the chump because he was still having a mini break down. I had 3 uncles. One of which had a gun in his pocket- it was pretty cool.
After an oddly short reunion with the Oberlight brothers, the chump and I packed up our stuff and began our decent to the fort. Luckily, Newspaperless was never very big so it would only take us a little while to get to it.
"Well, you have three creepy uncles." Patrick announced.
I agreed. However, nodding along to his never ending statements of the obvious were not what I should have been doing. Despite my incredible street smarts, I had never been to Newspaperless before-in fact I had no idea where I was going.
"Hey, chump? You live on this island, right?"
"Yeah"
"Do you have any idea which way we should be going?"
He lowered his eyes at me. I could tell he wasn't impressed. "Yeah, sure I do. Because the first thing every little rich boy on Beadrimm is taught, is how to get in and out of Newspaperless."
His sarcasm was not helpful. So I pulled out my map that drew out when I was 8. It showed every inch of the mainland and Beadrimm island. There was a small blob on the paper that had the word 'Newspaperless' scrawled across it.
"We are here," I began as I put my finger on one end of the blob. "We need to get to here, which is also known as The Camma-Treata."
"All we have to do is cross the Collin boarder." Patrick chimed.
"Oh you are making this sound WAY too easy. 'Cause before we even get to the Collin boarder, we have to walk for 10 minutes through Newspaperless!"Patrick didn't seem too worried.
"Oh my god, are you scared?" He asked. I burst into laughter.
"Um, sorry to tell you this, but I'm scared for you, white precious! Let me try to make you look less rich boy more invisible." I adjusted his collar then took off his vest and... Just threw it away 'cause it was hideous. "Now you're ready. Let's go!"
It had been 3 hours since we started our journey and we had only just crossed the Collin Border. Patrick was getting anxious and we were both tired. However, if we wanted to get there by the end of the day we were going to have to move a lot faster.
"Hurry up! Do you want us to sleep on the streets tonight?" I snapped.
"I'm trying to not be recognised! People know on Beadrimm Island." He replied.
"You do realise that the population of the Collin border is zero. It's just a string of land the authorities created to protect the rich people from the losers in Newspaperless."
"I know but we're getting close to the end and this trail leads straight to The Camma-Treata. Tons of my prep school buddies live there." I sniggered at his excuse.
"It's a school day! Your snooty friends will be knee deep in over priced education by now. And look, The Camma-Treata is right there and the streets are empty! So just relax."
The fort was in the centre of the suburb, what felt like ages ago David, Julie and I went there for Halloween and built it. It was the best place to go trick or treating, full size chocolate bars and real brands, not cheap and gross like on the mainland.
"Just a little bit longer and we should be there by lunch time." I announced. The chump sighed and began to meander along the edges of the spotless gutters.
"How long will we stay there? I mean, what am I supposed to do when you leave? Can I stay there?" Patrick questioned annoyingly.
"Of course you can stay there. Besides, the raccoon infestation could last months and there is no way I'm going back if Julie's still there."
"Who's Julie?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot, I haven't told you about that. Julie's my older sister, she's in college and she always comes back for the holidays and makes my life hell."
"Oh, I know what it's like to have a crazy evil sister." He was judging me and it was obvious. His sister was apparently trying to kill him and there I was complaining about my sister.
"Shut up! You're making me feel bad!" I giggled. As we chuckled along the side walk, I saw the fort in a secluded alley ahead.
Creaking slowly, the small chunk wood (the door) opened to reveal a mouldy hole cut into a sheet of cardboard which we were meant to crawl through. Patrick cringed as he immersed himself inside; trying not to touch the edges of the hole. I climbed in next and sniffed the sweet smell of memories into my nose. But then, I smelt bad memories and began to cough and splutter them out.
"I haven't seen this thing in forever!" I bellowed. On the other side of the box was something hidden under a cloth. "Ugh! David left food down here!" I threw the small plate out the 'window' which was in fact just where I had fell through the thin planks of wooden wall. Someone cackled in the corner, I recognized the short messy blonde hair with prissy waves.
"What are you doing here, Julie?" I scowled.
"Do you honestly think Mom wouldn't notice you were gone? You left the clocks out of sync, you took your Go bag, it was obvious!" Julie pointed out.
"How did you know about my Go bag?"
"You think you were the first bad-ass around here? I know every trick in the book. It was pretty clear where you were going, too."
"How did you get here so fast? No one is allowed out of the mainland 'coz of the raccoons."
"The infestation was taken care of the very next day! I took the ferry and I've been waiting here for two hours." I shook my head in disbelief. She had managed to ruin everything.
"Why are you still here, if the infestation is over?"
"My business studies teacher wants me to take an internship somewhere and I chose Abrahmdale. Now, I'm taking you and this creep home." She pointed to the chump.
"He's not a creep, he's Patrick Hannings and he's running away from home. I promised him me could stay here."
"Hannings? No way, you're not staying in this box! You can stay with us for a while." I was puzzled a why she was being so...nice. Julie hadn't been nice to me or any of my friends since she started high school.
"Would mom even let us?" I asked waiting for her to say 'gotcha!' or 'just kidding, losers!'.
"Trust me, she'll allow it." To this day I wondered why I trusted her but for some reason, at that moment I believed that she would follow through. We each ate a granola bar from the Go-bag and then left; me, miserable and annoyed; Julie, proud and arrogant and of course the chump, who was optimistic but afraid. Overall we weren't doing that well.
Within fifteen minutes, Julie had dragged us both to the docks and we were waiting for the ferry. Staring at the disheveled beach of Newspaperless and where it contrasted with the scenic beach of The Camma-Treata, I noticed something small glistening in the water. In one slick and swift movement, I leaped over the railing and ran towards the object on the Newspaperless beach. The small object looked odd beneath the shimmering layers of water. A little key, one that looked like it opened a piggy bank or a diary. The key had a lime green string tied to a hole on the head, the spikes on it seemed quite simple but a vibe told me that it opened something very private.
"Katy! Get back here right now, we are going home!" Julie called as she marched towards where I was crouching. Instinctively, I hid the key and slipped it subtly into my pocket. "What are you doing down here, weirdo?" I shrugged and climbed back onto the docks. Julie followed.
