The boy who loved to write

Chapter 4

The remaining houses flew by in a blur. He was a bit upset that only three other people had accepted the subscription but, that's life. Leo wondered if maybe next week he would get more people. It seemed unlikely, if someone didn't like what they saw the first time, why would they like it the second? Leo sighed and started to trudge through the snow, he couldn't think of much more to do.

A small shout rose from the other side of the road and Leo looked up to find the lady who was at the first house. "Hey, you boy, I'm sorry I was so harsh on you. It's just been one of those days, you know," Leo did know, he was experiencing one right now. "Would this make it up to you."

Her hand reached into a leather bag and pulled out what looked like to Leo as white pieces of bark. "Oh, thanks." He said, at least Bella won't have as much bark collecting to do. The texture of the bark seemed softer than normal, a lot softer...

"Paper!" He cried. His heart was overfilling with delight, the last time he had been given paper was when the postman had come with a card. Leo had certainly never been given paper. To him it was like being given a million dollars. "Everyone will buy my story now!" He shouted at nobody in particular, "Thank you miss."

At home, Leo was immediately swamped by his mum, "This is exactly what I was talking about, we are not a bloody charity!" Bypassing all that, he headed straight for the patio.

"Come on Leo," he started to put himself in someone else's shoes, "Imagine you're a lost boy looking for his family, there are murders, kidnappings and drug dealers, aaaaannd write." In no time at all, Leo was lost in his own world hiding from reality, but most importantly blocking out his mums screaming. He had a feeling that he couldn't wait a week to deliver the copies of his story. That meant the sooner he got this done, the sooner he'll make money for the family to at least stay alive.

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Bella sat at the fire, mixing up medicines for her brother Daniel. She could vaguely hear her mother yelling at Leo to do something. She smiled. Fortunately, some things never change.

She had a feeling that Leo hadn't had the best of days in his story business and hoped that he would do better next week. Even though the idea had seemed silly at the time, it might be the thing that the family needed to live through these tough times. Bella looked at Daniel, "I'll be back in a bit."

She found Leo sitting at his desk. He seemed to be writing another one of his bark stories. "Leo, if you need help collecting bark, I'm free," she told him. 

It took a while for her brother to respond, "Don't need to," he mumbled. Bella sighed and walked out of the room, figuring that he had probably found some on the way home. "Got paper," he continued. Her head snapped around, 

"What!"

Now Bella started to fume, "Where the fudge did you get paper from, I sure hope you didn't ask anyone for it."

"No, I didn't, a lady gave it to me," Leo replied, matter-of-factly. "She felt sorry for me as I didn't have paper." At least he didn't ask for it, Bella thought. "Could you help me deliver the copies," he said with a pleading look in his eyes.

"Sure."

Just as Bella said this, a loud ratatatat came from the front door. "A visitor, at this hour?" They heard their mother say. The door groaned open and a tall woman with a hat entered the house. "I would like to speak to your son," She said. Leo recognized the voice immediately; it was one of his customers. Their mother led the women to the patio, asking questions along the way:

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

"What has he done now?"

"Are you staying for long?"

The lady just walked right past her, ignoring her attempts of chit chat. Leo hid behind Bella and hoped he wasn't in trouble. The lady knelt until she was right next to Leo's face.

"You, young man," She started, Leo held his breath, "Are the best writer I have ever seen." He almost fainted with pride. The kind women looked him in the eye and told him that she had convinced many more people in the village to sign his subscription. Bella just stood there, looking from one to the other. After that, everything flew by in minutes. Sarah lied that she was supporting Leo as much as she could and the woman, whose name was Lily, told him of everywhere he had to go to deliver his stories.

The next day Leo and Bella were up in the early hours to pack the stories that Leo had written into homemade sacks. They both agreed to split up and cover the whole village quicker.

"Bye Leo."

"Bye Bella."

The two were off...

Leo walked down the road and in no time at all reached his first house. Coincidentally it was the same house that the old lady who had given him paper lived in. Deciding that it would take too long if he got a conversation going, Leo just dropped the story on her doorstep. The same went for Tammy's and all the other houses.

He was nearing the end of one exceptionally rich house's driveway when he noticed a herd of dear grazing a few meadows over. Just out of curiosity –but mostly the fact that he had plenty of time left to do his deliveries- he started to walk over to them. A few skittish ones ran to the back, but one particularly brave fawn came up to him.

"Hello sweetie, what's your name?" The fawn didn't say a word and Leo cursed himself for being so stupid, he knew dear couldn't talk. He decided to call him Stanley, after his dad. Leo laughed as Stanley let him pet him. The wind picked up and Leo was blown almost directly on top of Stanley. Stanley snorted and carried him into the next meadow. Leo bet that his brothers had never ridden on a dear before, let alone a fawn. "Calm down Stanley, I need to go home." The fawn dropped him off and Leo looked up at the way they had come. He started to trudge up the hill, Stanley still following.

"Come on boy, you need to go back to your herd." Leo looked over the hill, expecting to see the driveway. Instead all he saw was woods, woods and more woods. He started to panic but calmed himself down, the driveway was probably on the other hill. After another ten minutes of walking and looking, Leo realized he was officially lost. He also knew that if he didn't find his home quick, he would die of cold.

"Help!" he screamed, trying to attract someone's attention. Stanley had obviously wandered a lot further than Leo expected. Now it was just the two of them alone in the woods with no way of getting home...