If I hadn’t been sent to that house, I would have had a normal eleven- year-olds life, but in that house, there were no ifs allowed. There were also no ands, buts, or whys. A full list of rules hung on the inside of my bedroom door, just to remind me that in that house, I had no freedom and my opinion was worth as much as the scum on the side of the road. The insane psychopaths actually thought that I was going to obey them. Yeah, they knew nothing about me.
Their first mistake was leaving a window wide open. As soon as I was left alone in my room, I poked my head outside to see how high up from the ground I was. The window was at a pretty standard height for the second floor. Then I noticed that a part of the roof angled downward right below my window. When I was walking in, I had noticed that a separate part of the roof covered the porch. This was the roof that I was looking at right now. Well, this is the shortest time that I have ever stayed in a house before, I thought. Without a moment’s hesitation, I swung my legs over the window sill and planted my feet on the roof. After making sure I had my balance, I scooted down to the edge of the roof, and let my feet dangle until I was only two feet from the ground. I let go of the roof and thumped onto the ground- only to realize that Mr. and Mrs.Gumblegin had been sitting on the porch this whole time. I could tell by their faces that they were not pleased to know that I wanted to escape from their house after only ten minutes. “How dare you dare to run away!” He growled. The corners of my mouth twitched as I fought to not smile. Normally I was able to keep a straight face, but puns always got to me.
“Don’t take it personally. I’ve ran from hundreds of houses before, this isn’t the first.”
“Well, don’t you like it here?” Mrs. Gumblegin screeched in her nails-scratching-chalkboard voice.
“Oh, of course. Every eleven-year- old loves long lists of rules, chores, and requirements.
Mr. Gumblegin glowered at me until his fury broke out. “We give you a home and you thank us with running away and insulting us.”
“I simply said that I love living here.” I said in my best innocent baby voice.
Mr. Gumblegin slapped me across the face. Fortunately all his neighbors were outside and saw the whole thing happen. One of them ran over and put her arm around me protectively. I pretended to cry and immediately more of the neighbors ran over and formed a semicircle around me that put them in between me and Mr. Gumblegin.
“What’s your reasoning behind the abuse of this child?” asked the woman that had come over first.
“She tried to run away.”
“Well, I think I would run away too if I had an abusive parent.”
“This is the first time I hit her!”
“You know what? I think that if you’re just going to abuse this girl and lie about it, I don’t think she would be safe sleeping in the same house as you. You might try murder her in her sleep. So she will be spending the night at my house.”
“I would never murder anyone, much less a child. Also, you do not have any proof that I have abused her before this, and you cannot just take steal my child.”
“I wouldn’t be stealing her if she wanted to come over.” For the first time, she looked at me. She wore her black hair up in a spiked Mohawk with every spike dyed a different color. I knew nothing else about what she looked like, because I couldn’t peel my eyes from her exotic hair. “What do you say, do you want to spend the night at my house, I’m ordering pizza.” I was utterly shocked. Half because I still couldn’t get over her hair and half because it was the first time that I ever had a choice.
I could barely get the words out. “Yeah, I’d love to.” This time I wasn’t being sarcastic.
We walked over to her house. “By the way, I’m Sildrena.”
Her parents probably had problems deciding on one name so they must have just mushed three into one, I thought. “I’m Ashlen. I like your hair.”
“Hey, I figured that if I was going to have a crazy name, I mine as well have hair to match.” We both laughed, and a new friendship was formed.
