Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 14 - DON'T GET CAUGHT

There is now a pronunciation guide in the Author's Note to help you with all the Welsh Nonsense™. If you want any words/names added just let me know. Hello to Tanzania, Serbia, Greece, Lithuania, Finland and Egypt, who have joined us since the last update.

It was nearly lunchtime. The window above my head was throwing light onto my face. I was awake, against my wishes, but I was far too warm and drowsy to move anywhere. I also could've done with another few hours of sleep. I knew something must have disturbed me, else I wouldn't have woken before noon, and it didn't take long to figure out what. The chickens were serenading us.

"Shit, Bryn," I muttered. "Can't you make them shut up?"

He made a groaning noise and failed to stir.

"Yeah, Bryn, do something," Matty whined.

Another groaning noise. He must have been sick in the night, because it stank now and the bucket had moved places. He wasn't going to do a damn thing, so I rolled over and kicked Rhodri. "Hey, feed the chickens before we get busted."

He flipped me off and buried his face into his pillow. The volume of the clucking was increasing. Ahmed made a lunge for one of them, which didn't seem to help matters. Bryn tried and failed to sit up. He had to grab his bucket and dry-retch over it.

"What is Goddess' name is that noise?" someone asked in the kitchen below us.

"It's coming from the attic," another voice muttered. "Those bloody kids..."

Little Jess had managed to grab one of them, and she was stroking it to keep it quiet, but the other puffed up her chest and started screaming all the louder. And now the ladder was creaking, because one of the adults was climbing up to see what all the fuss was about.

"Shit ... shit. Ahmed, grab him, would you?" Bryn hissed.

"Her," I said very quietly. I was very, very hungover, and all the noise was not helping. It felt like there were wildebeest stampeding through my skull.

Ahmed lunged for the chicken again, but he only managed to scare it. She went flapping towards the ladder just as the hatch opened and my mam stuck her head up. There was a burst of very colourful language, loud enough to send the chicken back in our direction, but it was too late by then. Mam had seen.

She raised her eyebrows at the chicken, and then her eyes slid across the rest of the room. There was a lot to take in - chicken shit smeared everywhere, the smashed egg on the floorboards, the second chicken on Jess' lap, assorted bottles and cans from last night, Bryn still leaning over his bucket of vomit, Nia and Lily's empty beds ... and me lying on Liam's mattress in clear violation of three different rules.

"Leo, you have got to come and take a look at this," she drawled.

More creaking. Dad's head popped up beside hers, and he started laughing. I groaned and pulled my sleeping bag over my head. Too much noise, too many people staring at me so early in the morning, and I knew exactly what was coming next.

"This ... wow. This surpasses the gravy incident," he murmured.

It did not. I tried to wiggle down further into the sleeping bag, desperate for another few seconds of drowsy warmth.

"Outside," Mam said. "All of you."

There was no point arguing - in fact, it was worse than useless, because the more we dragged our feet, the longer she would make us stand out there. I crawled out my sleeping bag as fast as I could manage in my sleepy, hungover state, and I followed Liam down the ladder and out onto the front yard. We joined the growing line of kids beside the trees. We were all barefoot and half-dressed.