Boondox

Back Where it Started

I storm into Pink Crab.
"ALRIGHT MAGGOT! Listen up!" I scream at the assistant manager. He seemed to have been talking to one of the employees. All of the people in the restaurant look at me. I don't care. I am going to get Noah this job and nothing is going to stop me.
"What do you think you're doing?" Noah says.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you keep screaming..." The man says slightly hushed.
"Oh, is that so?! I'm trying to get you the employee of a lifetime, and you're just going to throw me out? Wow! What a manager." I say this turning and addressing the entire restaurant. Some people turn away as if embarrassed, but others just stare.
"Gabby!" I swing around. That voice is very familiar. Ashley and Caleb are getting up from their seats and walking briskly towards me.
"Gabby, I think we're done here." Noah nudges me.
I ignore them.
"You listen to me." I move in close to the man. I glance at his name tag. "Dave. You might not know, but there is only one Dave in Boondox. I WILL find you." I glare at Dave so intensely that he shifts uncomfortably. There's a silence that is so immense I almost want to shift too.
"Gabriella, stop!" I feel hands grasp my arms and start tugging me, but I can't leave now.
"Let me say this nice and clear, this here is Noah." I grab Noah by the arms and tug him next to me. "Noah, meet Dave." I say. "Dave, meet Noah. Dave, this is your new employee. He's extremely hard working and you'd be a FOOL not to hire him." I move in even closer to Dave. "And remember," I say in a whisper, "there is one Dave in Boondox, and he's not on great terms with a certain someone right now. And dare I say, I will go door to door until I find you."
Dave starts to sweat. The truth is, there's 150,000 people in Boondox. It is not easy to track people down. But Noah is getting this job.
"Fine! Whatever!" Dave finally says. And just in time too. Because just then, a couple Ro Po come in and I find myself in the big metal car with the same people who have been ignoring me for weeks.
🍂
Monarch Jones looks up. He looks like he got drained of all hope for me.
"Gabriella. Gabriella, Gabriella, Gabriella." He says taking his glasses off his nose and setting down the pen he was using. He glances to my left and right and sees Ashley, Noah and Caleb.
"And you brought your friends again." He says, grinning at his own joke.
"Well, I'm just not sure how to punish you this time." He says. "I understand that with your last offense came house arrest. Usually that's enough punishment to keep kids from doing stupid stuff again. There are worse punishments, such as..." He clears his throat. We all know what he's avoiding to say.
Every once in a while, in the middle of the night, a small pod appears our of nowhere, and hooks onto the ship for a couple minutes, then it detaches, and flies off as quickly as it appeared. The next morning, the person who belonged to whatever room the ship was attached to, disappears. Sometimes, someone else replaces them. But they also seem to have the same brain as the person that disappeared, just a different body. But somehow, they are different. There's something in them that just isn't the same. They act as if nothing happened, as if they've been there their whole life.
"Punishments such as longer house arrest, or going temporarily to the Jail House."
I try and push the thought of it out of my mind, and I realize what Monarch Jones just said. I step forward as if to say something, but last time I did, my friends didn't talk to me for weeks.
"Were you going to say something Gabriella?" He gives me a couple seconds, then, "that's what I though." He raises his voice so as to address the police in the room. "Take them to the Jail House." He puts back on his glasses and starts reading and signing his papers again as if nothing happened. As if he didn't just send people to Jail.
I feel metal on my arms and I'm hauled out of the Circle Office.
                                                                             🍂
"I never thought I'd say this, but I prefer house arrest." Caleb says with a smile.
"At least now we can say we've been here." Noah says.
I look around. There are four cells in the room that we were put in. Noah and Caleb are in one, and Ashley and I are in the other.
"We will be here for a while." I say sitting down on the cold stone floor. "So let's take this thick atmosphere, and let's do away with it." I hear a couple chuckles, but other than that, no one really makes a sound.
"I'll start. Ever since the whole," I stutter for a second, and then a cough. "The whole house arrest thing, I felt... Alone. I never really realized how much I love you guys. How much I can't live without you. I felt like the rest of my life here on Boondox was going to be me crying myself to sleep every night, and watching my grades get lower and lower." I realize I've been dodging everyone's eyesight, as if I was talking to the walls and not to my friends. So I look at each person individually.
"You guys... You guys are my friends. And without you, I had nothing." I looked down and I feel my eyes water over.
The last couple weeks run through my head. The failed papers, my grades plummeting from straight A's. The hours, spent talking with Molly, telling her how much I hurt.
"Gabby..." Noah pauses. "You must not understand that... That" Noah looks at Ashley and Caleb. "That we felt the same way."
I look up and a tear drops onto my knee.
"Gabby, you are our friend too," Ashley says. "Ashley comes and sits next to me on the floor, and throws her arms around me, and we hug. I feel her jerking as her tear ducts open too. I start to let the tears fall, rather than trying to hold them back. Ashley and I stay like that for a while.
"Goodness," I hear Noah say from the other cell. "Women are so emotional."
I look up at Noah, but I see that he's crying too. He smiles at me as he wipes away tears.
"OK," I say as I start to stand up. "Let's stop being hormonal freaks, and start being friends again."
"Agreed" I hear my friends say together.
🍂
For the next two hours, my friends and I almost die of laughter. As we catch up, I remember how much we used to joke. I wipe a tear off my face, and my cheeks hurt from smiling. I gasp for breath.
"Here is your meal." I hear, and turn my head to where the voice came from. A robot guard slides two trays under Caleb and Noah's cell door, then turns and slides two under Ashley and my door. I grab both of them, and give one to Ashley.
The guard walks away.  I scan the plate, and all I see is a bunch of mush the color of watery oat meal.
"At least we get meals." I say. 
"Yeah," Noah says. "We didn't get any when we were in house arrest. We didn't get electricity either."
I get up from where I was sitting and walk to the cell door. I drop the tray on the floor and kick it clumsily across the hall way between the cells, and it hits one of the bars on Noah and Caleb's cell. Caleb reaches through and pushes it to the opening, then snatches it up.
"Thanks." He says using his hand to wipe the food onto his plate.
"I'm pretty sure some of that was for Noah." Ashley says, giggling.
"Yeah Caleb." Noah says, coming up behind Caleb and pushing him playfully. "Give me some of that."
"You wanna go bro?" Caleb asks tossing the plate onto the ground with a clash.
"Caleb," Ashley says shaking her finger at Caleb like she was his mother. "Share..."
"Listen to your girlfriend, Caleb." Noah says. I stifle a laugh, and watch Ashley's cheeks grow a little red. They've never officially called themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, but everyone knows they are.
Caleb turns to Noah, and they both puff out their chests, and start playfully pushing each other around. Things escalate a little quickly, and soon they're on the ground, Caleb has Noah in a chokehold, and Ashley and I are on the ground laughing like hyenas.
Noah finally taps out, and they both lean against the wall panting.
"So," Noah says between breaths. "Are you going to give me some of that food?"
Caleb eyes Noah, considering, then reaches for his plate of food, grabs a handful, as if he was going to put it on Noah's plate, but he squishes it into Noah's dark hair instead.
Ashley and I burst into a new round of laughs, and a guard walks by, checking on us.
I realize I never want this moment to be over. I want us to be sitting on the floor laughing at each other forever. But I know one day, we'll have to move on. But hopefully this time, we don't completely leave each other. Like we did a couple weeks ago.
Noah shakes his head and food splatters all over Caleb and the walls.
"Hey!" Caleb says throwing his arms up to protect his face.
                                                                                 🍂
A couple hours later, we calm down. We start having decently deep conversations. I make sure not to bring anything up about what I've heard. Things about the glass dome and such, but sometimes we mention things. We try to not be very specific about names, or who we blame, knowing that we're on tape, but we still discuss some things about Boondox.
"One time," I say. "When I sat down in class, I noticed the back of the head in front of me looked different. I tapped on the shoulder, but when they turned around, it wasn't Luke, who is the normal person who sits in front of me. I remember seeing the face and realizing that he's been switched." I choke up a little bit.
I wasn't close with Luke at all, but the reminder that at any moment anyone close to me could be taken... that, that's what was choking me up.
We all stop talking for a couple seconds, and then Ashley puts her hand on my shoulder. I know what we're all thinking. We're thinking about if one of us was taken.
"We don't need to think about that now though." Ashley says, smiling. How does she do it. Lift all of our spirits when there is such a dark thought bouncing around the small room.
Another round of silence, then Ashley says, "we need to get that group chat back together." We all start to giggle.
"Lights out!" A guard yells, and then pitch blackness.
"Thanks for the warning." Noah mumbles.
I lie down on the cold stone floor, wishing for just a blanket, but knowing this is part of the punishment.
"Good night everyone." I say, as I try to find a comfortable position.
"Sweet dreams." Caleb says. We all chuckle, knowing that none of us are going to get a wink of sleep on the hard floor.