War Of Survival

Chapter Four, Where Will We Go Now?

The drive to the house where we were allowed to park our fully packed truck was dead silent, I was too worried about my dad's safety to listen to my mum's mumbling. What if he has another episode where he forgets where he is and then performs a backflip with the truck or something? My mum often calls me a stress head since I worry about things all the time, I mean she's right but what can I say, How careless would I be if I didn't worry at all? The people who lived there offered us some coffee for the parents and juice for us, the kids. They seemed to be pretty nice people and their house was so tidy. I could tell mum was happy she had an adult to cry to and confess all her problems. She knows she has me to talk to but you can't exactly seek advice from a kid cause they'll never really understand the world, right?. I actually do understand everything that was happening, my dad is slowly dying, my mum is losing her mind, I've become a parent to my little sister AND my own mother, I have to talk positivity into her and make her believe everything will be alright in the end, right? Yeah, still not sure if I believe in that myself yet.

Mum took over the driving since Dad was exhausted. Sitting behind him staring at the back of his head, he always wears that cap of his. He is just barely sitting up on his own, slightly leaned to the left with his head resting on the foggy window. I bet his eyes are closed I think while silently laughing in my head. It was raining that morning, so it was a miserable day. Looking over to my right, Taina hunched over with her head resting up against Mum's seat. Mum just driving like usual, nothing special there. Sometimes I wonder what everyone is thinking. Pulling up our stretchy drive-way the rocks sing under the tires, letting the spirits know we are home. I won't get into detail with what happened the rest of that day because it's pretty dark but let's just say there was a lot of yelling and swearing. Why is it always us who gets treated like the bad guys when all we want is just to live in peace? Life is always really unfair to us.

The end of the day finally came and it was time for the sun to go to sleep. The shadows of the night slowly crawl around until they eventually fill the whole sky and among them, the eyes of the demons fill the sky creating patterns everywhere, we call them the stars. I'm here just filming my last musical.lys in the car before we officially leave. Dad limps up the bus stairs and falls into the driver's seat. He slowly turns the key and I watch as the tires roll down the driveway, only for mum to chase after the bus shortly after he disappears from my sight. A thirty minute drive later and it's time to get dinner. We never order takeaways but since we have no kitchen we had no choice but to order a small burger at the Burger King. The dog's stinky breath contaminates my own personal space bubble as he pants over my shoulder at the smell of burgers. I guess he is hungry too, so I fed him a piece of my food so that he wouldn't feel left out.

We get to a small caravan park and Dad checks in at the reception. We park our bus far away in the corner away from all the other vans. There we stood in the rain, the lights from the other bus and vans were bright but faded as it stretched all the way to us. Mum ordered us to get to bed, so we obeyed her. Laying in my bed that night with shivers traveling up my back and my feet so cold I can barely feel them anymore. My mind was racing with thoughts as I couldn't sleep. Dad passed out in his bed and my mum was standing in the kitchen down the hall but only three steps away, guess she made herself a cup of tea, she does that sometimes when she can't sleep. I remember I still wanted to get out of my bed and go sit next to her but the next thing I knew, the sun was burning my eyes off as it creeps through my window by my bed. In my onesie and sore body I slowly crawled out of bed to see dad sitting by the table drinking a cup of something, whatever it was, it didn't look very tasty.

Mum made us shower in the communal bathroom since the water in our bus isn't working at the moment. Over the next two weeks my dad was recovering well. He could now communicate without zoning out and actually answer our questions. Mum and Dad made a plan to move to Napier and try to make a living there. I knew we couldn't just leave the bus there in the park and that would be my parents next worry, finding somewhere to park it while we go to Napier because we can't just drag a bus with us all the way there and find somewhere to park it. Luckily for my parents, the people where we parked our bus offered for us to park our bus there while we went to find a job and a place to live. Dad drove the bus all the way up their twisty road to get to their house and we stayed there for a few more days before leaving for Napier on the 11th December 2016.

To be honest, I don't remember much of the drive to Napier but based off on the photos I took, I was talking to my pet bird in the car. We went to our old-ish kinda friends house. My parents have known them since I was a baby, about two years old when my parents didn't have any money they bought some food for us and my parents and them are still friends. Since their house was small and they already had a baby and six year old son, we couldn't stay there for a long time and invade their space like that. My mother posted an ad on Facebook asking if there was anyone we could stay with until we got back on our feet. What really bothers me is that my dad kept referring it to as "on vacation" instead of recognising that we had no house and nowhere to go.

These lovely people who took us under our wing had a huge house and made us feel right at home. One night she would make dinner for us all and the other night it'd be my mum's turn. We even helped them buy groceries and clean up their house. They had two older daughters that left the house, one daughter that is close to my age and a five year old son.