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Shook Chapter 2: Runaway
Dyan was able to escape the house fire, but there's somehing else she feels like escaping too...
In less than a second she burst through the back door along with a bunch of smoke. Her shirt was drenched with sweat and clung to her back.
She ran to the house right beside Mrs. Moleti’s and banged on the door. A lady with blond hair and glasses opened the door, her forehead wrinkled with worry.
“What’s causing all this banging?” she asked.
“I’m in trouble-I’m in trouble-help! Help! Please!” Dyan said, tears coming to her eyes.
“Woah there, slow down so I can understand you. What’s going on!?” The neighbor’s expression looked even more worried than before.
Dyan took a moment to gather her thoughts. “My house is burning!”
The lady leaned out the door to look at the house on the curb. Her eyes widened and she covered her oval-shaped mouth. “Oh my lord! I have to call the police! Wait here!” The neighbor yelled, and then ran back inside her house.
While Dyan’s heart was still racing, she knew one thing. Kayla’s advice had worked! She had made it out of the house alive, and with her book bag and notebook! All her stories of Spirit were safe.
The neighbor had called the police and firemen, who showed up quickly. Police monitored the fire and spoke into walkie talkies while the fire fighters scrambled around their truck and fiddled with the fire hydrant up the street.
The neighbor came back to Dyan with her phone in hand. “I finally got Miss Moleti on the phone.”
Dyan thanked the neighbor and took the phone. She put her mouth to the speaker and said, “Hello?”
“I told you not to call me when I’m at work! Didn’t you read the note on the gosh darn fridge!?”
Dyan looked confused. “Didn’t the neighbor lady tell you? The house is on fire!”
“Wha!? How? What did you do!?” Miss Moleti yelled at Dyan once more.
Nearby a police officer put his hand up and began to walk over to Dyan, and she leaned the phone over to him.
“Seems to be something near the house entrance that caused the fire, since that’s where most of the flames are.”
“You must have gone and messed with something!” Miss Moleti yelled.
“I didn’t!” Dyan said truthfully. “I didn’t even go into any rooms! I came here and went straight to the kitchen to do my homework! Everything I own is still in my backpack right now! Though, I did hear a weird whining noise that sounded like a machine from the room right next to the door. But I didn’t go in there since I remembered your rule about not going in closed doors.”
Miss Moleti was already talking over Dyan. “I can’t believe this is my life. I have to apply my makeup, get my hair done, rush off to work, and take care of a foster kid!? And now my house is burnt down! No, no, no. This is too much work. Oh, I’m still on the phone? Uh, Dyan, since the house is burnt down, you’re gonna have to meet me at the police station.”
Dyan’s eyes widened. “What!?”
“Yeah. It’ll all be okay, but since my house is burned down I have no place for you to stay. We’ll have to find another caregiver for you to stay with.”
Dyan had just gotten to Miss Moleti’s house and already she had to move again? Who knows where she would end up? What if she had to move out of town? Out of state? She had never left Raleigh or its neighboring cities EVER, and she didn’t want to.
“Please Miss Moleti, don’t make me go to the police station! I’m tired of moving from foster home to foster home, when no one can take care of me forever. I’ve lived in 9 different neighborhoods in ten years!” Dyan teared up for the second time today.
“Well there’s nothing I can do about that. Just tell one of the police men to take you to the station with them, and I’ll try to pick you up in the wee hours of the morning, see if we can find you a new person to stay with.”
Dyan wasn’t getting out of this, so it was no use arguing with Miss Moleti. Better not to get attached, anyway.
“Okay. Bye Miss Moleti.” Dyan handed the phone back to the neighbor, who gave her that all too common ‘I’m-so-sorry-for-you’ smile.
Dyan absentmindedly watched the firefighters shoot water out of their large hose at the fire that was eating the front of Miss Moleti’s house.
A police officer leaned down to Dyan’s head level, giving her a smile.
“Hey there. Let’s take you back to the precinct so you can regroup with your mother-Hey! where are you going!?”
Dyan turned and ran away. She ran past the firefighters and the other policemen, even as they began to stare at her.
“The little girl’s running off!” The policeman yelled.
A policeman tried to grab Dyan. She dodged him. She didn’t stop running.
She couldn’t now. Once she had ended the call with Miss Moleti, Dyan decided she was not going to the police station. That policeman was the last straw. She was gonna run, and not look back.
Dyan got to the beginning of the street and ran across the road to the next block.
“I can’t sleep at a police station waiting to be given away for the tenth time in my life. I’m now a runaway! I won't be passed around EVER again. Never!” Dyan yelled.
And so Dyan kept running, leaving behind the Clanger Road sign she had just strolled by not an hour before.
Find out what happens next in the next part!
Hey there! I’m Shila! I’ve loved books since I could read, and decided I would write books I wanted to see written for others! Check my children’s book Imagination on Amazon!
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