Into the Abyss

Chapter Three

It was a Wednesday morning and mum got a phone call to say that Grandma was not well, not well at all and they weren't sure how long she had left. Thankfully we had all said our goodbyes a while ago when she first got really bad. Anyway mum and dad got the train that afternoon to go see her, and mum left in such a rush that she forgot to go shopping. This meant by Friday afternoon we had run out of food and mum did leave some money for food but the nearest supermarket was miles away and we had no way of getting there. And so we had to resort to our only other source of food, my God father's shoot.

It was 1.30 when we left, and by we I mean all of us my brothers all insisted on coming and I couldn't be bothered to stop them. We all crept into the woods, through the barley field and past or keepers hut, Peter Thompson wasn't there. Finally after a while we got into the thickest part of the wood which was best for juicy pheasants!

Alfie spotted a big one and I loaded my bow. Some twigs snapped in front if us.

"What was that?" Toby asked sounding like a little girl.

"It was probably just a pheasant" Oli replied with a uneasy feeling. Suddenly four men with dogs stood up out of the bushes, they had almost surrounded us. But out of the corner of my eye I saw a gap in their circle, I shouted at the boys and we all ran for it. George grabbed Toby and slung him onto his shoulders, and Finn scrambled up onto Oli's back, they were not good runners and would have been left behind otherwise. In my mind I knew where I was heading for, there was a castle ruins on the far side of my God fathers estate and it was perfect to hide from the men or loose them.

The old castle stood proud and tall just as it would of done many years ago. The majority of it was ruins but there was a big tower that was still upright. I had heard of many stories about if you climbed the slightly crumbling steps and went through the arch way and followed the small path, that clung to the edge of the tower, around to the left, you could get past the castle easily without going into the moat. And so after much hasty thinking I decided that this would be a wise idea, in order to get away from the keeper and his men. I spluttered out my plan as i sprinted through clumps of thorns, they didn't sound sure but it was the only idea I had unless we wanted to be run down and get into a lot of trouble.