Michael

Meet a new character, Michael.

She figured she was 3 miles out of town when she spotted a little colt. She was a chestnut filly with a white star and socks on 2 legs. Fly couldn’t help herself, she rode to the fence line and parked her bike. Putting her hand out she let the colt sniff her hand. Its velvety soft nose touched her hand and it jumped back and gave a small winny. It bounced and pranced around for a moment before sniffing her hand for treats. She quickly reached down and grabbed a clump of grass and held her hand flat for the colt. She sniffed it and gobbled it up quickly. Fly gave her rub on the forehead and headed off again as the mother came snorting over at the new shape near her colt.

She smiled as she recalled the little colt and found new motivation from the little colt and doubled her speed as she zoomed down the quiet country road.

She was thinking about that little colt when all of a sudden her bike hit a rough patch in the road and lost control. She yelled and lurched to the left, falling hard onto the rocky stones.

Time seemed to slow. Her bike tipped, she slid off the seat and her left shoulder hit the stones. She was hit with a searing pain that left her with stars dancing across her vision. She felt a warm, wet stain spread across her ribs. She moved her right arm and swung onto her back, the movement jarred her arm. She caught her breath and thought on what to do, she could breath, she could see, she could move, but she was in pain. Sitting up slowly, she slipped her good arm up under her shirt and gingerly touched around the wound on her ribs. She couldn’t see it, but by feeling it she could tell it was only superficial but was quite large. At it’s deepest the wound was about one inch across and half an inch wide. That was the bleeding part. The rest of it fanned out in that same oval shape as it got more shallow. In total it was about 6 inches long and 3.5 inches wide. The outer inch or so was just a scrape that would be red and bruise, but it was still painful.

Now what, she thought, I can’t very well bike around with a gash in my ribs. And I can’t just let the pebbles and road dirt stay in that wound. I packed my purse and there’s some tissues in there. I’ll use that and some water from the bottles to clean it and then I’ll wrap a t-shirt around the wound with some tissues as padding. With her plan in order she began to move toward her backpack which had bounced several feet away on impact. She crawled over to it, creating several more scratches in her hands and knees. She pulled open the zipper and rifled around for a water bottle and her purse. She wet one her her tissues and peeled her shirt up. She mindfully began cleaning, from the inside out so she didn’t re-contaminate the wound.

She stuffed two more tissues on the wound and wrapped her t-shirt tightly around it and tied a double knot. The shirt she was wearing over her make-shift dressing had a large lump under her shirt.

Well, that’s that, I guess. It’s gonna be hard to bike now. Fly thought miserably.

She stood up and took a deep breath, it hurt her ribs. She positioned her backpack back on her shoulders and re-tied the rope on her bike’s basket and hopped on, hoping with all she had that the rest of this trip would progress without complications. As she began to move she reminded herself to keep her eyes on the road.

She rode longer and the thought finally occurred to her, Maybe, she thought, Maybe, I should have planned my trip or brought a map instead of just heading out. Too late now, if I turn back it’ll be sunrise before I’m able to head off again, then it will be too late and I’ll have to live with Daisy for another week. A week I may not have if her threats weren’t empty… The thought was depressing. She hoped deeply that she’d never have to go back to Daisy after all this was over. She hoped Daisy never saw another child again.

It was now midnight, Fly had been riding for two hours, she peered ahead into the inky blackness and managed to make out the lighted sign ahead of her, “Springfield”. She knew she had to keep riding, Springfield was only a 45 minute drive from the cafe, the police would find her in no time, besides, there was no place to hide until she reached Winterly anyway. Springfield was too small of a town. If anyone saw her the whole town would know within minutes, then she’d have no place to hide. The darn town was too small for alleys and had no abandoned buildings. She didn’t even know if it was technically a town, it had only 756 people the sign said.

Fly sped along the highway until she heard the Winterly church bell ring, and looked down at her watch and realized it was 6:30 AM. Fly realized she’d been riding since 10 PM so she’d been riding for what… 8 ½ hours? She blinked several times to bring her surroundings into focus,  her eyes felt like there was sandpaper behind them. Fly never knew she had that ability. Once, when she was 6, her and her old friend Marlee had had a sleepover and stayed up until 3 AM watching movies. Back then she’d felt like she couldn’t even stand. Now she’d been awake for over 24 hours, riding a bike no less. So this is what they mean when they say emotions can give you superpowers, like mothers lifting cars to save their baby. Or-or fathers moving walls to save a son from a fire. She rode another block or so and then turned into a cleanish looking alley. She leaned the bike against the stone wall, laid her head on her backpack and fell asleep immediately.

Fly had a nightmare. She dreamt that Aunt Daisy had kidnapped her while she slept. She had taken her to the cellar that was full of spiders, and Jack was there. They said cruel things to her like, “You are worthless!”, “You don’t deserve to sleep safely at night”, “It was your fault that your idiot parents died!”. She screamed as something hit her head and she passed out, she heard a gun c**k and she woke in a cold sweat.

She shook the dream out of her mind as she remembered where she was. She looked at her watch, Good, it’s only noon Fly thought It’s Saturday and Aunt Daisy won’t expect me down in the cafe for my shift until two o'clock. She had at least five hours until the police were swarming the area. 2 hours until she was missed for her shift, another 2 for Daisy to wake up and find her missing, another hour or two for the police to search the house to make sure she was actually missing. Then there was also travel time as well. Fly was pleased with herself that she knew all this and could therefore plan accordingly.But she knew she needed to get going soon anyway, cars could travel about 5 times faster than bikes and she was exhausted as it was. She’s never be able to outrun a car if it came down to it.

Fly opened her backpack and the tiny silver locket fell from its place in the leather pouch. She opened the tiny clasp and remembered the day she’d gotten this wonderful gift.

It was a month after her mother’s death and the time for mourning was over. Fly was only 8 years old. She remembered her father’s gentle voice calling her from her room. She’d come willingly down the oak stairs and into their old house’s cozy living room.

Her father was sitting there in his day clothes with a tiny chain managing to slip through his tanned fingers. She sat down facing him.

“Charlotte,” he began “your mother, a week before she died, called me into her room and told me to give this to you.” Her father pulled out the glittering silver chain followed by the outside of the beautiful locket. “It was your great-great grandmother’s locket. Then she gave it to her daughter, then she gave it to her daughter after her, your grandma Spears, who gave it to your mother. Now it’s yours. Take care of it, it will remind you of your family and the struggles of it.” Her father opened the tiny locket, and for the first time, the tiny pictures inside were revealed to Fly. On the left side was a picture of her mother and father on their wedding day, and on the right side was picture of her mother and father beaming at the camera, holding a tiny baby in their arms. It was the picture taken the day Fly was born, the one that hung in her room, in her father’s room, and stood up in a frame on the kitchen windowsill. Her trembling fingers took hold of the locket and for what seemed forever she held it, just admiring it and remembering those happy golden days when her mother, father, and herself had lived together in this happy home.

About a minute later her father had asked, “Charlotte, may I put it on you.” She had merely nodded and pulled her long chocolate hair up as her father pulled the locket around her neck and let the clasp close.  Up until this day she never forgot how smooth and cool the locket felt. She never got mad because the chain got tangled in her hair, she never ripped it off, she always set it nicely in its box after polishing it every night before bed. The locket almost became a part of her, and it seemed to store her favorite memories in it.  Every time the other children would tease her about wearing something “that looked like something their grandmother would wear”, she simply nodded and went on her way, comforted by knowing that the locket represented her family, and all it had been through to finally be were it was then. She touched the locket’s front as she’d done so many times to comfort herself in times of hardship.

Then she turned to the ring. What a sad day that had been. Her father called her into his room and motioned for her to come to the side of the bed. He leaned close to her and whispered, in a weak voice

“Charlotte, once again, tragedy has struck. But I don’t want you to think of this as goodbye, more like a see you later. So, until we meet again, I’m giving you this ring.” He slid the tiny golden ring into her trembling hands. It was beautiful.  The beautiful ring was simple, it was a gold band about a centimeter thick. It had 2 small gems set into the gold, not sticking off like her mother’s. There had been an add-on when she was born, a tiny diamond offset on the top. It was so similar to her mother’s ring, the only difference being that her mother’s had the gems offset and not set in the gold. The gems were amethyst and topaz, that is the birthstones of her mother and father. February and November.

“It was my wedding ring, your mother was buried with hers, but this one, I’m giving to you, my darling princess.” With those final words, the twinkle left his eyes and a final breath escaped his lungs.

Fly remembered crying for weeks after that. She dared not re-live the memory of the days following, she needed to be tough now, she was on her own. Fly always wished she’s had the rich topaz like her father or the bold purple of her mother, but she’s gotten plain old August, that dull green color wasn’t anything like May’s emerald, which was bright and shining. No- she got the dull one, the light boring one.

Just then she heard a shoe drag across the concrete. She sat a little taller and strained her neck trying to see who it was. A very tired and dirty looking boy stumbled into the alley, probably thinking he was alone. He looked to be Fly’s age, he had brown hair and very, very dirty clothes.

Three hours later the strange boy came to, he had passed out the minute he’d set foot in the alley. The first thing she noticed was his eyes, open they were a  startling grey color. Fly had cared for him the moment he’d blacked out.  The moment he began to fall, Fly was up to help him, despite her own exhaustion. She’d cleaned his face and covered him with her jacket and put her pack under his head as a pillow. By the looks of him, he was a runaway too, although he’d been out here much longer.

The boy groaned, rubbed his eyes, blinked and looked at her.

He sat up and immediately and said, while extending his hand to her,“Hi, I’m Michael, who are you?”

“I’m Charlotte, but most people call me Fly.” she replied.

“Well, by the looks of you, you’re a runaway like me” Michael inferred.

“You’re right. Wow, look at that goose, he’s beautiful. I wish I could fly freely as he could.” Fly blushed because she’d actually said that out loud. Fly was always embarrassed when people learned the meaning of her nickname. Michael chuckled.

“So that’s how you get your nickname, Fly.” Michael said.

“You hungry?” Fly asked eager to move to another subject.

“No, but I could use a shower.”

“Go down Lanie street, till you see the high school. Go in the front door and tell the attendant on duty that you are homeless. The school always has a free homeless aid program on Saturday,”  Michael seemed to ponder her words for a moment as if deciding if they were true. He decided to believe her and ran off towards Lanie Street.

When Michael got back he looked a lot better. So the two of them headed off to find some place better to stay. By now the police would be hot on their trails. They headed off towards the Winterly Forest.

They arrived at the forest just before nightfall. Quickly Michael looked at Fly and said,

“I’ll get firewood and start a fire, you put up the tent.”

Fly nodded and hurried off to put up the tent she’d brought.

In no time a good sized campfire was pouring heat and light into the ever darkening night. Michael had taken care to collect extra wood to keep the fire going during the night. They had a large stack of twigs, and 11 or so large sticks and logs. Fly hurried and put the tent up. While Michael was putting stones around their makeshift fire pit, Fly opened her pack and removed 3 granola bars and two bottles of water. She gave one granola bar to Michael and ate the second one then they split the last granola bar in half. When they’d finished that she gave Michael his water bottle and told him it had to last for as long as possible. It was getting late and Fly and Michael went into the tent. It was cold, even with the fire. They weren’t close enough to appreciate its warmth. So they laid close together to keep warm and laid their meager belongings around them in a sort of nest, they thought perhaps it would make a wall the would keep them warm.

They fell asleep talking. Fly told Michael about all the times her old dog had chased squirrels up trees and slid down wooden hallways. She told him of the camping trips they’d had. Michael told her about his father and mother and how he used to have brothers but they grew up and moved away. He told about the many times he’d fallen into rivers on fishing trips with his dad and how he’d once taken a bath with the family cat when he was little.

Naturally, with the luck she’d been having lately, it was 11:30 when Fly finally woke up, she began to panic, she urgently looked around for Michael. Did he abandon me? Fly thought desperately to come up with an explanation but her thoughts were cut short when Michael poked his head in the tent and said, “Hey, what’s up. I thought you were up. I wanted to let you sleep, I knew you were exhausted and all so...”

“O-Okay thanks. It’s just when I woke up and you were gone I kind of panicked because I thought you had abandoned me,” Fly explained sheepishly.

“That’s crazy Fly! We’re friends, we have to stick together, I’d never do that to you!” Michael voice was loud, angry almost, but then he calmed down and finished quietly, “But I-I understand about being abandoned.”

“Yeah.” Fly replied plainly. “What about some breakfast, although, I suppose now it’s nearly lunch time.”

“Sure, let’s have a faaaaancy brunch in the woods. Special price of $5.99 per person.” Michael said in a deep, funny voice. They both cracked up at the joke, though, it hit home in more ways than one. They were stuck in the woods, they wouldn’t have real food for a long time, and they couldn’t afford that price.

“Okay-okay,” Fly began trying to control her giggles, “How about we set the granola bars by the fire and warm them-you know, to make them more gooey. Then we can make pine-tea out of the pine needles. That’s about as fancy as we’re going to get.”

“Okay, that’s coming right up ma’am, I’ll tell the chef that you don’t want rabbi tracks through your food,” He tipped an imaginary hat at Fly and scurried off to get the granola bars. Fly stifled another laughing fit and gather some pine needles from around the small camp site. On her way back to the fire, Fly noticed a small raspberry bush and gathered up the few ripe ones, thinking it would be a gift, however small, to lighten the mood.

“I got berries,” Fly announced in a sing-songy voice when she saw Michael in the clearing.

“Really? What kind?!” Michael asked excitedly.

“Raspberries. The bars done yet?”

“Um, yeah. How ‘bout the tea?”

“Oh, that won’t take long, maybe five minutes. We can drink it after the bars to wash them down… like that fancy stuff they have at restaurants that’s supposed to ‘clean your palate’ ”

Cracking up again, Fly poured water into her kettle and put the pine needles in after it boiled.

“Would you like a spot of tea?” Michael offered in an English accent as he poured the tea. Fly, who had a sip of tea in her mouth, was launched into a coughing fit that was spurred by laughter.

“Don't do that! You're making me laugh too hard… I’m going to get a stomach ache!”

Michael just grinned at her.

With that the two of them ate their warm granola bars and drank hot tea.

“Michael, can I ask you something?” Fly asked in the middle of breakfast.

“Sure, anything” Michael replied.

“Why did you run away in the first place?”

“Well, that’s easy” Michael began “I was 10, and my father got sent off to war, my mother was already dead, and so I had to go live with my Uncle Jack. I hated living with him, he’d always make me work: milk the cows, feed the ducks, collect the eggs. While he’d sit inside playing poker with his friends. Then I’d have to make dinner and then do my schoolwork and go to bed. The worst part was that he made me sleep in the barn, even though he had three spare bedrooms that he never used. I just don’t think he even liked me, can you understand that?”

Fly thought for moment and then said, “Yes, I can relate to that.” She then went on to tell her story to Michael.

“Man, that’s tough, Fly. I’m surprised you haven’t snapped yet. That’s a lot to handle,” Michael replied after Fly had finished explaining her story.

“You should talk! That’s practically the same thing that happened to you!” Fly cried.

“Yeah, but my dad might still be alive!” Michael pointed out.

“Hmm, I guess you’re right,” Fly admitted.

“My life’s mission, since my dad was reported missing in action, has been to someday find him. He was smart and strong a-and brave. I will not believe he’s dead until they find his body with his dog tags. He’s out there, I just know it!” Michael declared with very evident belief in the statement.  

“We should keep moving, this is Winterly, only 80 miles from my Aunt Daisy’s cafe. We need to get as far away as possible.” Fly said.

“You’re right” Michael agreed with a sigh.

“Can you take down the tent? My dad never taught me to put up or take down a tent,” Michael condided shyly.

“Here, I’ll teach you,” Fly began, “ First, you have to take out the stakes, like this,” Fly said as she showed Michael how to pull out the stakes, “Now you try.”

Michael nervously approached one of the stakes as if he was afraid it would hit him. He grabbed it like Fly showed him and pulled with all his might. One second, two seconds, nothing. With a third pull, Michael and the stake were propelled down the nearest hill and came to an abrupt stop when they hurtled into a bush.

Fly stifled a laugh and ran down the hill to help her friend.

“Are you okay?!”

“Fine, and thanks for not laughing.”

“Don’t worry about it, it took me like 6 tries to not do that when I first learned. I was only 6 the first time I tried it. Come on try it again,” Fly encouraged Michael.

Fly offered her hand and Michael took it and allowed himself to be pulled up. They walked back up the hill towards that half blowing over tent. Fly didn’t say anything, but she knew the real reason Michael was happy she didn’t laugh was because his father had been and outdoorsy army man, but Michael couldn't even put up a tent.

“You know, I really appreciate you, Fly,” Michael said, “You like, umm, get me, I guess. Like, you didn’t laugh at me. Even though my dad was an outdoor lover, I never got to really spend time with him. He had to serve when I was 6.”

Fly was heartbroken for Michael. She hadn’t realized his dad had been absent for that long. She thought it was recent. Then a worse thought occurred to her, his mom had been gone before he was even 6.

“I’m so, so sorry Michael, I had no idea he was deployed so early,” Fly said gently, her voice breaking. They hugged, they just hugged. And, at that moment, that was all they both needed. They stood there for a long time, Michael pulled away, “ I know, Fly, I know. To be honest, I don’t know who’s supporting who right now. We both need support.” Fly was glad he was joking again.

Author's Note

Ignore grammar and spelling problems, I only want reviews on plot, charaters, etc.