CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

            There is no fortuitous slowing down of everything as he approaches this time.  No distracting sounds from the far side of the yard.  No time to move from the spot where I've slowly pushed my crouched (but still horribly visible) body into the dark green hedge.

            Twenty feet away.

            I watch his face as he approaches me so that I can know the moment he sees me.  The more time I have to react to this, the better.  I think as hard as I can about not being seen by him.  I want to be invisible.  I want to blend in.  I want him to walk on by me without taking any notice.  I know it won't happen, but I want it to happen with all my heart.  I don't want to fight a cop.  I don't want to hurt a human.

            Ten feet away.  The flashlight's beam is swinging through the bushes to my right.

            I prepare my body to leap.  If I move fast enough he won't know what hit him, and then maybe I can escape before he realizes what happened.  I don't want to, but I will.  I will hurt a person if it means I will live.  I won't kill him, but I can hurt him.

            But I really don't want him to see me.  Just keep walking past me, I think at him.  Get to the front yard as fast as you can.  Don't stop here.  Ignore these bushes.  Nothing here but us bush mice...and a scared kid.  The last thought makes me smile, and I wonder if I really am scared (Not that I have much time to think about it right now, but no, I'm not.  I remember fear, and when I should feel it, but I'm no longer actually afraid.  It's a nice transition.).

            Five feet away and closing quickly. 

            I watch his eyes from my position next to the ground, and I keep thinking, Don't stop.  Don't stop.  You don't see me.  Something bad will happen if you stop.  Don't make something bad happen.

            Two feet away.

            Run! I think at him as hard as I can. 

            And he does.  As he passes my ridiculously open and ineffective hiding position in the bush - his left foot landing within inches of me - he breaks into a run.  It's a few stumbling steps at first, but it quickly accelerates into a full jog before he clears the side of the house.

            And then he's gone.  I'm safe (I’m sitting next to a bush in a hiding place that would be embarrassing even in a six-year-old's game of hide and seek, but it worked.) and the officer never even looked down at me.

            And he ran.  When I told him to run.

            He didn't look down to see me when I told him to not look down.

            That couldn't have just been a coincidence.

            Could it?

            Either way that's a question for another day, and I'm done pushing my luck for the night.  Closing my eyes, I listen for a few moments to make sure there is no one else near me (Both the men are in the front yard, and it sounds like a heated conversation is going on.  Wonder if I was the cause of that?), then I take off for the neighbor's backyard playhouse to grab the bags and head home.  Well, as much as an abandoned warehouse can be home.

            During my pleasantly uneventful jog to my new home, I realize I'm getting hungry again. 

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