Sleeping Beauty-ish

Wanted Criminals

Lexi, Ty, Rosalyn, and I were on the run. Ty was breathing heavily, and we ducked into (unfortunately) a set of Porta-Potties. We'd somehow ended up next to a soccer stadium. Rosalyn wrinkled her nose. She and I were in one; Lexi and Ty were in another.

"We have five days," she told me, after getting over the unfortunate chemical smell. "It's impossible to find a true love and receive true love's kiss in those five days, especially with those guards after us. Are they the Queen's?"

"Those are England's police," I told her. "And this is basically something out of a fairy tale, so we'll probably find your true love. In theory. And Lexi said she'd found some leads..."

"What if my true love died?" shouted Rosalyn, sobbing now. "What if he lived thousands of years ago, and my family is doomed?"

I pulled her into a hug. "Hey," I whispered. "You don't know that. But Rosie, you've got to be quiet. Remember, the police are after us." I knew the English called them "bobbies", but they would always be police to me. I was American, even though I spoke about ten languages (maybe more).

She nodded and muffled her sobs in my shirt (which was the only one I had at the moment).

We waited there for an hour before I decided to step out. There weren't any police lights anymore, but I was pretty sure our hotel wouldn't be welcoming us back anytime soon. "It's clear," I called, and Lexi and Ty stepped outside.

"Lex, who's our closest lead?" I asked her.

"He only lives a block from here," said Lexi. "Also, while you told us to stay in the hotel, I ran a little errand. I figured the police would catch up to us eventually." She pulled a bottle of hair dye out of her bag and set to work dying her hair. Soon, brown-haired Lexi had turned blonde. She slipped on a pair of glasses. "Ty, you're up next."

By the time the sun rose in the sky, we all had different colors of hair. I, unfortunately, ended up the redhead. We looked almost natural. Lexi led us to the address, but before we could even talk to the guy, we saw him smoking and talking about how girls were "little sluts". He couldn't have been more than eighteen and he already had a tattoo.

"Yeah, no," I said, and Lexi agreed. Rosalyn looked horrified at how often and horribly he sweared. Ty followed behind, looking nervous. Finally he tugged on my sleeve.

"What's up, Ty?" I asked.

"I want to go home," whispered Ty. "Mom said in the hospital your dad would take care of us. She said even though he moved around a lot, he'd still care. Why is he so mean?"

"You know what, Ty, why don't you have him answer that question for you?" I told him, seething. If Dad wouldn't listen to me, maybe he'd listen to Ty himself. Plus, we'd arrived at a payphone.

"Jack, what are you doing?" demanded Lexi.

"Getting some answers," I told her. "Why don't you guys go on up ahead?"

I popped a few quarters in the payphone and dialed Dad's number.

"Who is this?" Dad said sharply.

"The guy who kind of wishes you'd go to hell for what you're putting Ty and Lexi through," I spat into the phone. "In other words, Jack."

"Jack, you need to come home," Dad sighed wearily. "Ty and Lexi will go to good homes."

"They'll be separated is what they'll be, and to be honest, you're being a jackass. But I'm not the one you need to answer to." I gave the phone to Ty.

"Hello, Mr. Collins," he said tentatively. "It's Ty."

He listened for a minute. "Why?" he responded sadly. "Mom said you'd help. That was one of the last things she said." He was gripping the phone tightly.