by Anh Do
‘Gwen,’ said Rupert softly, his hand on my shoulder, ‘we can’t stay here.’
I heard soldiers closing in.
Rupert helped me to my feet. He was right, we needed to get into the safety of the forest. I fought down my rising despair. If I was ever going to find my parents, we had to keep going.
Together, we fled.
We sped along in the foliage beside the road, easily outpacing the pack of soldiers on our tail. Their voices faded further and further away.
Although we had escaped, I felt an empty sadness mixed with anger.
All of the prisoners – including my parents – had been shipped off to some unknown place. Our efforts had been for nothing.
The trucks left big, easy-to-follow marks in the dirt and I led our pack to higher ground so that I could keep track of the road.
After several hours, I finally felt we had lost the soldiers. I called for the pack to halt.
‘Tiny,’ I said, ‘can you hear the soldiers?’
The little chihuahua swivelled his ears around, concentrating.
Then he wagged his tail, which told me there was no sign of them.
I forced myself to stop and think. We were all starving. It might take days – or weeks – to track the trucks to wherever they were going.
It was time to start looking after my pack again.
I opened one of the backpacks the dogs had brought and emptied out all the dried meat we had left. The dogs watched me with watering mouths.
I nodded to them, and they rushed in, chewing and swallowing furiously. I took out some water bottles and poured them into bowls. I took some meat and tore it in two, handing half to Rupert.
We ate everything. I was usually more careful with the rations, but we needed to nourish our moods as much as our bodies after all the drama at the compound. Besides, we could always find more food now that we were back in the forest.
We set out more slowly than before. We had to pace ourselves and keep an eye out for things to hunt. As we walked, Rupert cleared his throat.
‘Gwen, I umm . . . I . . . have something . . .’
‘What is it?’
Rupert frowned with that worried, thoughtful look of his that was starting to become familiar.
‘I’m really sorry, I don’t know how—’
I put a hand on his shoulder to interrupt him and said, ‘You’re not to blame for them getting my parents away from us. You did some great stuff there . . . and you shut all the power down! I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.’
‘I’m good with computers,’ he said, still looking worried. ‘But there’s . . .’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘There’s something I have to tell you and I don’t know how to say this, but you should know . . .’
Rupert took a deep breath. ‘I really am sorry. I’m . . . I’m not sure if I really saw your parents at the compound.’
‘What?’ I stopped in my tracks, eyes flaring. The dogs echoed my motion, sensing my anger.
‘I just . . . I really wanted to rescue my mum and dad. I thought that if you thought yours were there too – and, I mean, they might have been – that you’d help me.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
‘I promise to help in whatever way I can,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I swear. And I’ll never lie to you again.’
I wanted to leave him there to fend for himself, the liar! I think he saw that in my face.
‘Wouldn’t you do anything to rescue your parents?’ he asked. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I growled at him, deep in my throat, and my dogs watched attentively, to see what I would do next. I looked back at the road.
I remembered one of my own lies. Before trucks and soldiers and dogs and eagles.
My parents had always told me not to throw things in the house, but I had a new ball that needed testing out, and it was raining outside. I stood in our hallway and threw it as hard as I could, watching it ricochet off the walls and ceiling and into the living room.
Straight into Dad’s antique grandfather clock.
It made a huge crack in the glass.
My sister Kate used to get told off for dropping her schoolbag near the clock, because Dad was worried the glass would crack. So, when Dad saw the crack, I said that Kate must have done it with her bag.
Kate heard me and looked at me, glowering like thunder. Dad saw the look on my face and wasn’t fooled for a second. I immediately burst into tears.
Kate stormed out and didn’t talk to me for three days. Dad gave me a big hug as my apology came out broken by my sobbing.
‘As long as we’re true to ourselves, and each other, we can fix just about anything,’ Dad whispered.
‘Kate huh-huh-hates me now,’ I gasped.
‘She’s mad at you now, but it will pass. We’re family.’
I wanted that hug back. I wanted my sister back, talking to me or not.
I wanted my family back, and I was going to get them.
Maybe my parents had been in those trucks and maybe they hadn’t. The thing was, I didn’t have much else to go on.
‘Come on,’ I said to my dogs, nodding ahead. We turned away from Rupert and began to move off.
Then I looked back at him and saw the growing fear in his eyes as he wondered whether we were going to leave him there alone.
‘You too,’ I muttered.
A pack was a pack, it seemed.
Together we went into the forest, as unsure of the path ahead as ever.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .