Runaway Children // Isac Elliot

Chapter 1: Groceries

"Joey! Hurry up! You're going to miss the bus!" I heard my dad yell from downstairs.

"I'm coming!" I yelled as I brushed my hair stressed. I was in the bathroom of my bedroom which was on the second floor. Putting the brush on the counter I got my phone to see what time it was. 8:30. First class, math, started at 9:00, and with the bus it took about ten minutes to get there. I started brushing my teeth with my electric Justin Bieber toothbrush. The toothbrush started singing 'Boyfriend' as I was brushing, and it kept on singing for two minutes. Then I spat in the sink and quickly got out of the bathroom. I ran downstairs and into the kitchen where my dad was making eggs.

"You want some eggs?" he asked.

"No," I said. "do we have curd?" I opened the fridge to look for the little package of curd. None.

"No, I don't think so. You'll have to go to the grocery store after school today, okay?"

"Mm" I mumbled and closed the fridge. See, this was the only time of day my dad was sober and nice. When I get home from school he'll be all drunk and joke around with his friends in the living room. I honestly don't think that's him. Like, that's not my dad. My dad is a caring and happy dad, not an alcoholic, abusive dad. He started acting like this a couple of years ago when my mother passed away. My mother was a beautiful woman, always kind, always loving and caring. I snapped out of my thoughts about mom when dad dropped something on the floor.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing" Dad assured me when he bent down to pick up an apple he'd dropped from the fruit bowl on the kitchen island. Our home was very modern, black and white. My mom used to love that sort of theme.

"Well dad, I'm going" I said and walked out of the kitchen, into the living room and grabbing my backpack. Dad walked towards me as I was tying my sneakers.

"I'm sorry" he said truthfully. I turned to tie my other shoe.

"Yeah, right" I said when both of my shoes where tied. With that I grabbed my jacket, opened the front door and stepped out into the cold November weather.

The bus stop was about a five minutes walk from my house. I usually think about school during this walk. Like, what will happen today? What do I have to look forward to? What do I have to avoid? Question number 2 always has the same answer. Nothing. As I said before, I used to get bullied. Not as much as the people who commit suicide are, but much enough to call it bullying.

When I reached the bus stop, there was no one there except for a woman I've never seen before. She seemed to be in the middle age, like 30, and had brown hair with a fringe. She was looking down at her phone so I didn't see much of her face, but I could tell that she had great fashion taste. She was wearing a grey coat and a purpur-colored scarf. Now I live in Finland, and in November in Finland it is very cold, so I didn't understand how she could be wearing leggings.

The bus finally arrived, after being two minutes late, which is good because this bus is always like 15 minutes late, and the woman stepped on it before me. When I walked into the bus I saw a lot of people from school. Although none of them were the actual bullies, I didn't want to sit next to someone who knew the bullies. There were not many seats available, so I had to sit next to an old lady. I like old people, so that wasn't anything bad in my eyes. See, this bus isn't a schoolbus, it's a regular bus which all people use to get to school, or work.

It took the bus ten minutes, and after that a five minutes walk, to get to school from the bus stop. Math started in five minutes, so I hurried to my locker to put my backpack in and take the books out. By the time I entered the classroom it was 9:00.