The Broken Record Player

Chapter 4

       "Welcome home!" Mother greets us at the door, Peter is behind her.

"How did you get home so quickly?" I ask Peter.

"We told the Redders we don't want a break at 5:30. And if we could have the break at 7 so then we could go home. They agreed. We left at 7! Instead of 8!"

"That has been the most interesting thing that has happened to us all day!" Says Alana. When she covers up something, she always comes up with a cheesy starter, and then she is fine. I look at her and we both smile.

        The next day, was a normal day. Nothing interesting happened. Alana, Peter and I went to work, we dug quite a lot, because there were Pops watching us, seeing how we are doing. Nobody talked, we just dug. They didn't give is a break because we aren't really meant to have one. And the Redders wanted to impress the Pops, so they will keep their jobs. When we get home, my mother greets us with a pre-sky day cake. There is blue icing on it saying 'Good luck, we will always be a family, who cares about the sky day'. Alana and I both laugh at it. After we eat the cake, we go to sleep. Ready for more inspections tomorrow.

        "Hey! Hailey! Wake up! It's 7:50!" Alana woke me up this morning.

"Wait, what? I have 15 minutes!" I jump out of bed and start getting ready. I get downstairs by 8 and shove down my food.

"Bye girls! Peter has already gone, catch this bus quickly!" We run out the doors around 8:04. We can see the bus in the distance, stopping to get everyone on board.

"Wait!" Alana screams, but the bus man doesn't here us and leaves.

"It's not worth running for." I say when we are about 50 metres away from the bus stop.

"When's the next bus?" She asks, as we get to the bus stop there is a sign saying all of the timings. I run my finger down it looking for the next stop here that gets to the digging area.

"There isn't one until 8:30, it's too late." I sit down on the bench and put my head in my hands.

"Hey, don't worry, can't we get your father to pick us up?" I look up to her, she still has hope in her eyes. Unlike me.

"He is working. And mother can't drive anymore." When I was about 6 my mother and I were in the car, we crashed. It killed my sister. Who was 4 at the time. I don't like talking about it. I don't think Alana remembers my sister. So I don't bring it up.

"We could start running again?" She asks, losing her hope now.

"You look more worn out than me, I think we will die if we did. It's a 30 minute walk. Running will make our legs come off. We're not Redders. Remember?" I don't know what to do. There are inspections, the Pops will notice if we are not there. Especially Alana and I. Yesterday most of the Pops were spending half their time watching us, and nobody else.

"What's going to happen?" Alana sits next to me, and leans her back against the brick wall.

"I honestly don't know, but I know it's something bad." Everyday we get there 15 minutes early, because the bus only takes 10 minutes. And we can't get any later, or we would be late. We always arrive there at 8:15. But now we won't.

        "Should we just wait for the next bus?" Alana looks at the times again up on the board.

"We could take the train?" I ask, suddenly remembering that there is a train, about quarter of a mile away, that could take us there.

"I've never been on a train before. I don't ever want to start taking it, did you hear about that girl last year that was on the train?" Alana looks frightened, she always is when she tries something new.