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Chapter 11

The boredom of being in the house drive us to run in the woods behind the house. Hours pass before we realize they may be back at the house already. We run frantically back to the house only to find that they are not there. I look at the large clock in the living room. 2:29 p.m. I'm a little surprised that they are not back.

The mess in the kitchen draws my attention. "Come on," I wave Max towards the kitchen.

"What?" he asks.

"We have to clean up," I reply.

"No we don't," he shakes his head.

"Yes, we do,"

"Ray just leave. Lets go back in the woods." 

"Help me clean up and then we will go back out. It will go faster with two people." Max's sighs but agrees to help me.

While cleaning, I keep expecting them to come home. My eyes darting to the door and to the clock.  I hope they will bring us something to eat. My stomach is completely empty and it's starting to hurt.

At 3:30, we go back outside. We stay there until it gets dark. Our aching stomachs bring us back inside. We have high hopes that they have returned while we are outside but still nobody is home. This time we are not really surprised. We both sigh and return back outside. We run to the tree that we climbed the other night. When we get bored with this, we walk to the road and lay on our backs.

We gaze up at the stars. Only when we see vehicle headlights do we ever move. We take turns trying to find the systems like the big dipper. Soon we get up and go back inside once again. I look at the clock. 10:53 p.m. My stomach and ribs hurting even more.

I go the fridge and look inside. It dawns on me when I see the Bisquick and milk right next to each other. I dash to the cabinet and pull out the brown maple syrup.

"Max! Pancakes! We can make pancakes!" I yell turning on the stove and putting a pan on top of the eye. When I turn around, Max is already reading the directions on the back of the box.

"There's no eggs," he says looking up at me. I take the box in my hands and start reading the directions. There in the directions it says eggs but I shake my head.

"It doesn't matter. We can make them anyway," I tell him as I set the box back down on the counter and pour the oil in the pan. My hunger winning out over the directions. MAx helps me mix enough batter to make six pancakes, but I turn them into three large pancakes, As soon as they were cooked, we gobble them up. We eat all of them.

When we finish, we start cleaning everything up. I wash the dishes and clean the counters. There can't be any evidence that we cooked. If Momma and Matt find out we cooked we will be in big trouble. 

After we are done with that, we both sit down in the living room. Five minutes later, Momma and Matt come home. They promise us that they are going to go get us something to eat but they never do. However it doesn't matter. That night we didn't go to bed hungry.