Escaping Calamity

(2) Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Crunch! I spun around, alarmed.

        "Sorry, sissy. I stepped on a branch" Emily confessed, a downcast look on her face. "Can we rest now? We've been walking for a million years!"

I sighed. Emily was exaggerating, but I knew it had been a long walk for the little 8-year-old. After all, my watch indicated that we had been going for over an hour already.

        "Alright, let's find somewhere to camp out until tomorrow. Why don't we check out that abandoned-looking building over there? It seems deserted" I suggested. Emily, upon hearing the news, happily skipped to the building. "Em, wait!" I followed her into the building.

By the time I had entered the building, Emily had already gone inside. However, when I looked in, all I saw were dusty storage boxes and piles of whatnot that collected dust over the years and now looked like giant dust-bunnies. I hesitantly walked into another room that seemed like the exact same of the first, except footprints were leading to another down on the other side of the room. They were small, about the size of an 8-year-old's footprints. Emily's.

Now forgetting to be cautious, I dashed through the second doorway and found myself in a room easily two times bigger than the ones I had entered earlier, also filled with dust and storage boxes, except that there were seven small mattresses in the center of the room, stacked on top of each other, forming two stacks. Emily was bouncing on one of the stacks giddily.

        "Mel, look at me! I'm flying! Whoa..!" Emily squealed at me from atop the mattresses. I watched in horror as she almost fell of the stack, only erupting in waves of giggles after bouncing right back. Feeling the need to cover my eyes, I stared open-mouthed at her for a few seconds before finding the strength to demand for her to get off the mattresses immediately.

        "Aw, sis, it's so fun! Come and try it!" she giggled while continuing to bounce up and down on the trampoline-like stack of mattresses. I finally walked up to the stack and jumped up to snatch her off the mattresses, only to having my plan backfire, missing Emily, and landing sideways onto the second pile of mattresses.

Emily erupted into giggles again, while I blushed and looked away. She urged me to do as she was doing, and I finally couldn't hold back any longer - bouncing almost high enough to touch the ceiling with the tips of my fingers.

        It felt as if I were a kid again, being pushed on the swings by my dad, going higher and higher each time, whooping with joy and looking behind be once in a while to shoot a grin at my laughing father. Those were the times. I looked over at Emily and tears blurred my vision. My parents died when she was six, so she didn't remember as much about them as I did. I wanted to be the mother that Emily will never have again. I owed it to her, being her sister, and very much alive and in the flesh.

        I looked over at her. She was laughing and screaming with joy, her curly hair flying in all directions, face drawn into a huge smile. I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled.

Things will turn out okay for us. I will make sure of it.

~~~

After our ecstatic time on the mattresses, I set up out camp while Emily organized our things inside the 6-person tent. I suddenly found a cloth bundle that I remember was given to me from Mary when we were escaping the orphanage. Inside the bundle were loaves of bread, homemade cookies, fresh fruit, two water canteens filled to the brim with filtered water, and a small plastic card that was a $50 gift card to Trader Joe's (a store that sold groceries as well as other food, beverages, and snacks).

I laughed upon seeing the gift card, remembering Mary telling me that every year on her birthday, she received a $50 gift card for Trader Joe's from Ms Scott - of course meant for her to get her ingredients and supplies from - and a $50 gift card for the Bargain Bin (a big warehouse club that sold pretty much everything, like Costco). I had always found this interesting piece of information rather humorous.

        "Mel, is dinner ready? I'm starting to miss Mary's delicious meals!" Emily whined from inside the tent. I picked up the items from the cloth bundle and entered our massive stakeout area. Emily had stashed all of our possessions in one corner of the tent, while making the table using a two-person camp-dining kit consisting of a small foldable table, two foldable chairs, and two sets of small metal utensils. The entire kit folded into their bag together could easily fit into Emily's small backpack, as well as being extremely light to carry.

I sat down at one of the foldable chairs and picked a few items from Mary's cloth bundle to serve as our dinner. Emily clapped her hands when I told her that she could have half a chocolate chip cookie for dessert, and heartily ate her meal. Realizing that it felt unusual not dining without having a window to look out of as we always did back in the orphanage, I zipped up one of the 'windows' of the tent and we looked out the window, watching the vividly-colored sunset.

After dinner, we cleaned up the dining kit and prepared for bed. Emily dragged in two of the small mattresses - which just barely fit into our tent -  then we brought out blankets that came with pillows from my backpack.

        Settling down in our beds, laying next to each other, staring up at the night sky - as I had unzipped the ceiling window - listening to the chirping of the crickets, everything was peaceful. I longed for it to stay this way, but I knew this was too good to be true. We'd run out of food or supplies sometime, and that sometime could be sooner than we thought.

I turned around on the mattress and faced Emily. She was already sleeping deeply, her breathing even and shallow. One lock of her dirty-golden hair hung over her serene face, and I fell asleep watching her in her slumber.

I didn't know that the peace and quiet of the night was not going to return the next morning.

~~~

Picture: Emily at Eight