Journey

Chapter 9

Rick and Shane left earlier to take Randal somewhere to be on his own. I wondered why he couldn't stay with us and I asked Carl about it.

"Dad says he's dangerous. It isn't safe for him to be here," he says as he carries me into the kitchen where Lori and Maggie are making a plate of food and talking. They smile and Lori ruffles Carl's hair.

"Hey, kiddos. What ya up to?" Carl sets me down on the counter and I grab a slice of cucumber and start munching on it.

"Journey's hungry," he says and Lori laughs.

"Okay, sandwiches sound good?" We nod and Maggie gets the stuff out.

"I'll take this to her," Lori says and picks up a tray and carries it off to I assume Beth's room. Maggie makes us each a sandwich and pours us some juice.

"Thanks, Maggie." We say in unison and start eating. I hadn't been paying attention to what she was making, but I grin when I bite into it. Ham, cheese, mayo and chips. My favorite. I grin at her and she gives a small smile in return. Carl had his chips on the side, but I liked mine on my sandwich. Lori comes back down.

"Is Bethy okay?" I ask her and she smiles.

"She's fine, honey. Just feeling a little under the weather."

"Can I go see her?"

"Later, sweetie. How are you feeling?" she asks. She's been asking me that nonstop ever since she found I had been in the car with her. She'd said sorry over and over again too. I understand why, but she's getting on my nerves.

"I'm okay. My tummy isn't hurting anymore," I say, smiling. That was a lie. It still hurt from time to time, but it's been feeling much better.

"That's good. Why don't you take this anyway?" she says and Maggie hands her the bye bye pain pills. I take them from her and swallow them down with the last of my juice. They've been giving me them every day and I'm getting sick of them. They hurt my throat when I swallow.

"Now why don't you two go play, yeah?" Maggie says and Carl pulls me off the counter and we go outside. We don't feel like playing, so we just sit down and talk.

"Give me a quote." He says out of the blue. We're laying side by side in the grass, looking up at the sky.

"What?"

"Give me a quote."

"About what?" I ask him.

"I don't know. The end of the world?" I sit and think for a moment.

"'What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly,'" I say finally, smiling. He looks at me, confused.

"What does that mean?" He asks.

"Grandma said that it meant that it meant that's not the end, only a new beginning," I say. We look back up at the sky.

"Do you think that it'll go back to how it was before?" he asks and I laugh.

"I'm six," I say. "What do I know?" He laughs.

"Yeah, I guess you're right, but what do you think?" I ponder that for a moment.

"I think that there's a line that has to be crossed before there's no going back," I say.

"Do you think we've crossed it?"

"I think we've destroyed it," I say and we both go silent for few minutes.

"You're really smart for a six year old," he says and I giggle.