Trouble Brewing

Jake:

Journal, Day One

I used to think that if something bad happened, such as someone kidnapping me, I would be a hero like the people you see on T.V. I always wished that someone would try and kidnap me so I could escape and appear on the news to tell everyone how brave I was. My plan would be to talk my way out of any situation that I got myself into. I would slowly work on my capturers until they untied me. Then, when they least expected it, I would escape and lead the police back to them.

I took pride in the fact I was always prepared for anything that might happen. If I got in trouble with a teacher or was late coming home, I would simply create an excuse. I believed that I could think my way out of any situation. My grades in school were fantastic, leading me to believe that I could outsmart people. One day, I realized that there was a difference between being book smart and street smart. Some people learn the easy way, but I, contrary to them, had to learn the hard way that this was not always the case.

My lungs were burning, but I kept on running. I could hear the footsteps behind me getting closer. I tried to run faster, but I didn’t have any energy, and my legs started to seize. There were only thirty yards left. Suddenly, I saw movement to my left, and my heart kicked into overdrive.

My friend Kelly ran past me in a five kilometer race. I felt a burst of adrenaline, and put on more speed. I was neck-and-neck with her. With ten yards to go, she passed me again. At this point, I was completely out of energy. We finished the race. Kelly came in fifth and I came in sixth.

Normally I would be embarrassed to have been beaten by a girl, but Kelly, she wasn’t an ordinary girl. She was probably the most athletic girl in school. I took pride in the fact that I finished just behind her.

“That was a good race.” I told Kelly, breathing heavily. “I would have had you if I didn’t run out of energy with about fifty yards to go.”

“You were pretty distant from me,” Kelly told me, “but I started to sprint with about one hundred and fifty yards to go.”

“Yeah, I need to get in better shape for next year’s track team. I think that next year our freshmen long distance track team may have a chance to win it all.”

It was extra smelly in the locker room. Everyone engaged in some kind of track and field event, from the 100m dash, to the 5k run, to long jumping. As a result, we were all sweaty and smelly. I went inside and took a shower, after which I dried off and searched for my clothes. It is rather uncomfortable being around a large amount of people wearing only a towel. I couldn’t remember if I put my clothes in my locker. I looked all around the locker room, then in my locker, but I still couldn’t find my clothes. Someone was probably playing a prank on me.

“Hey Paul,” I said to my best friend, “have you seen my clothes anywhere?”

I've known Paul since I was about seven years old. He is the definition of a jock. He is the captain of the school’s basketball and football teams. Just like every other jock, if you ask him to do school work, he simply won’t. It’s not to say he isn’t smart, because he is. He does well in English and history. Give him a good book or a documentary, and he will sit, engrossed, for hours. He barely cares enough to get good grades in those subjects, and the other subjects just aren’t interesting enough for him. He keeps his grades just high enough to play for the team.

“Sorry Jake. I haven’t seen your clothes,” he replied.

He put on his clothes and helped me look mine. After five minutes Paul said he had to go to class because he couldn’t afford to be late again. I looked in the shower to see if anyone was trying to play a prank on me by hiding my clothes there.

I heard a noise behind me and turned around, only to discover three kids standing by the door, looking at me and laughing.

            “Looking for something?” Kevin asked me.

Kevin was the leader of these three kids who insisted on making life for me and a bunch of other kids miserable.

            “Yeah, I'm looking for my clothes, have you seen them lying around?” I asked him, even though I knew that he and his cronies had stolen them.

            “Nope, why would we do something like that? We just got to the locker room a few minutes ago. How could we have taken your clothes if we got in here after you?”

His two friends, who were behind him, could not contain their laughter. That confirmed my suspicions that they had taken my clothes. I just needed a way to prove it.

“Hey guys, can you just give me my clothes? I'm going to be late to my next class.” I tried asking nicely.

            “Your clothes? We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“C’mon guys, if you don’t give me my clothes, then how will I be able to get to class?”

            “I don’t see how that’s our problem.”

I realized that I was wasting my time with these guys. If they weren't going to give me my clothes, then I would just have to tell the principal. I know what you’re thinking: this guy is a tattle tale; he’s going to tell on those kids, blah blah blah. But take into account that there are three of them and only one of me. There’s no way I could have overtaken them. Maybe if Paul had stuck around, the odds would have been even.

Fortunately, I kept a spare change of clothes in my locker. I quickly changed and made my way to class. Even though I was approximately ten minutes late, my teacher, Ms. Robertson, didn’t give me detention because she one of those teachers that actually care about her students and don’t want them getting into trouble.

After class, I walked downstairs and into the principal’s office. I told her about the three guys who had taken my clothes and caused me to be late to class. She asked me to describe them and told me that I should come back after my next class to see if she had gotten my clothes for me.

I did exactly that and sure enough, the principal had gotten my clothes back for me. I stuffed my clothes in my bag and headed to my last class of the day, my last class of the year actually. After this, it would be summer break and I would be out of school. I was so happy to survive this school year, but next year I start high school and that’s a whole new monster.

The last bell rang; we got out of our seats and began to exit the school. At the stairs, I saw Kevin and his wingmen who stole my clothes from gym class. I decided to exit the school from the back to avoid them. If I ran into them on the way out they would try and get me back for telling the principle.

I went down the back stairs, but one of them was waiting there. No worries, all I had to do was wait until a teacher decided to leave and they couldn’t hurt me. However, the problem is that teachers didn’t leave until 4:00 p.m., and I had soccer practice at 4:20. I wouldn’t have enough time to get home, to change, and back.

I pretended that I was going back to the main stairs and waited for about a minute. I peeked around the corner and the guy had left. I started to walk down the back stairs when I heard their voices behind me. I ran inside of a janitor’s closet and waited. The voices kept getting closer and closer. My heart beat was getting faster and faster. It seemed the closer the voices got the faster my heart beat. Closer, faster, closer, faster. The voices were right next to the door. My heart was about to explode I could hear their voices right outside the door. The doorknob turned and the door was pulled open.

            “Hey! What are you kids doing here?” The janitor shouted.

They slammed the door shut and muttered something that I couldn’t hear from the other side of the door. Looks like Lady Luck was shinning on me today.

I ran out the back of the school and began the long walk around to the front. As I was walking I heard footsteps behind me.

Kevin and his two cronies had followed me out the back of the school. I took off and chased after me. I ran around the football and soccer fields, and through the baseball field. I looked back, and they were still behind me, but luckily, they looked pretty tired and out of breath. I finally arrived to the front of the school.

My best friends, Kelly and Paul, were still waiting for me at the steps of the school. To be honest, I'm surprised they waited that long. There were only forty minutes till soccer practice and it was really hot.

 

“Let’s go get some ice cream.” I said as the ice cream truck drove by. The thing about New México is that the air is very dry. So in the summer, you’re always thirsty. We shouted at the ice cream truck driver to get his attention and he slowed his truck down. As we walked to the truck, Kelly asked: “Do either of you have any money?”

“Nope, I thought you had money Jake.” Paul replied.

“I don’t have any money either. What are we going to do?” I said to both of them.

“We can always make up something and hope they feel bad for us and give us free ice cream.” Paul said.

Paul possesses a really big imagination and more times than not it gets all three of us in trouble.

“That’s such a stupid idea, what if they tell our parents and we get in trouble?” Kelly said.

Kelly, on the other hand, is very conservative. She will never do anything against her parents will. In her eyes, her parents are always right. We sat down under a tree to get out of the sun and the ice cream truck drove down the street.

“Who cares about ice cream? The more time we spend arguing about this, the longer we’re out in the hot sun.” I said, “Let’s go inside already.”

I was getting very thirsty, and since we didn’t have any money, there was no point arguing about ice cream. In regards to my personality, I guess you could say I’m in the middle, I like to have fun but I know when to stop and be serious. My biggest problem was that I was influenced by my friends too much and sometimes they would get me into trouble.

“Let’s see if we can make a deal with the ice cream driver.” Paul said, getting up from under the tree.

“We still don’t have any money.” Kelly complained, also getting up.

I stood up and we started to walk down the street. We were listening to the ice cream trucks music, trying to determine its location.

“Yeah, but what if we got the ice cream now and then paid the guy later after we went home and got money.” Paul told her.

“And how is the ice cream truck driver going to believe that we’re not just going to run away without paying him for the ice cream?” Kelly asked him.

I don’t know about those two, but I was getting pretty hot. We were either going to get ice cream or we weren't, I could care less. I regretted that I even brought up the subject of ice cream.

“Guys, how about we just go over to my house, I have ice cream at home. It’s better than being out here in the hot sun and burning up.” I told them.

“Okay, okay. You’re the one who wanted ice cream in the first place” Kelly said looking around, “Look where we ended up.”

We looked around and saw that we were on the edge of town, by the warehouses. Not only had we lost the ice cream truck, but we were also far away from our houses.

“Great,” I sighed, “Now it will take twenty minutes for us to get home. Then we have to go back out for soccer practice.”

Usually, we would come home from school and have a snack before heading out for soccer practice. Then we would hang out for a while until it got dark.

“I have an idea” Paul said after a minute, “Why don’t we try and get into the ice cream warehouse so we can still get ice cream while we wait for practice?”

The ice cream warehouse is where they held the ice cream in freezers until the next day. We heard about older kids sneaking in the warehouse and getting a lot of ice cream, but we had never tried it. “That’s stupid Paul. We don’t even know which warehouse has the ice cream in it.” I told him. There were about twenty to thirty warehouses that all looked the same.

“That’s okay, I’ll find where it is.” Paul told us, and he headed off to find the ice cream warehouse.

“I don’t know…it seems kind of risky…” Kelly said to me, “What do you think Jake?”

“I think it is better than having to walk home and then coming back out for practice.” I replied.

If we went straight to soccer practice from here, we would still be thirsty, and our coach wouldn’t let us get any water until he decided to give us a break and only god knows when that will happen. If we tried to go home we might not make it back in time for practice, and if we were late for practice, coach made us run a lap for every three minutes that we were late. So our only solution now was to try and find the ice cream warehouse. Or show up to practice thirsty.

“Okay, but if we get caught, I’m going to blame it on you two.” Kelly said. “I still think we should just go to practice, who cares if we would be dehydrated? It’s better than breaking into a warehouse.”

“You can do whatever you want,” Paul said as he returned, “but I'm going to get me some ice cream.”

“Did you find the warehouse with the ice cream?” I asked him.

“Yeah, there was a warehouse that said freezer storage and ice cream has to be stored in a freezer. And there's no one around for miles.”

“Fine, let’s go before someone does come.” Kelly said, “You guys know my parents, if I get caught I’ll be grounded until next year.”

“Just relax,” Paul said to her as he led the way to the warehouse, “You worry too much. I saw an open window while I was looking around the warehouse” He motioned for us to follow him.

As we approached the warehouse, we saw that the window was seven feet above us. There would be no easy way in. The front and back doors to the warehouse were locked. I guess Paul had forgotten to tell us about this problem.

I turned to Paul shaking my head “How did you think we were going to get up there?”

“Well,” he replied, “With you coming up with ideas and Kelly being able to climb like a monkey, I figured there would be some way.”

Kelly stared daggers into Paul: “Don’t ever call me a monkey again!” It was true that Kelly was very athletic and could climb very well. She could also run really fast. But that was no excuse for calling her a monkey.

“Well it’s not my fault you climb like one!” he replied, Paul was starting to get upset. He didn’t like it when people shouted at him even when he deserved it.

While they were busy arguing I had carried some crates and stacked them up. I was just short of the window sill. I decided to jump and hoped I didn’t miscalculate so that I wouldn’t break my back. Right when I jumped, I heard a soft cracking sound. I had safely made it onto the window sill, but in the process I had broke one of the crates.

Kelly screamed at Paul: “If you ever call me a monkey again, it’s going to be the last thing you do!”

“I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, because I would kick your butt any day, and Jake wouldn’t…hey, where is Jake?” Paul asked.

“I'm already inside.” I told them from the window sill. I looked around and saw a bunch of dusty crates and some of those mechanical machines used to lift heavy things.

 “How did you manage to get inside?” Kelly asked.

“I used those crates over there to climb up to the window.” I pointed to the crates that I had pilled on top of each other. Paul started to walk towards them and I said: “But I broke one of them while I was climbing up here so I’ll open the door for you guys.”

While I was walking through the warehouse, I noticed that there weren’t any ice cream trucks parked inside or any freezers. It was a big warehouse though about fifty thousand square feet.

“Hey, guys.” I said when I opened the door for them, “I don’t think we went into the right warehouse. This one doesn’t have any ice cream in it.”

We searched the warehouse from one end to the other, but there was no sign of ice cream. Things had gone from bad to worse, now we barely had any time to get back to practice or we would be late. And someone was bound to notice the crate was broken and would want to investigate.

“Great going genius, you couldn’t even find the warehouse with the ice cream.” Kelly said to Paul.

“I’d like to see you do better.” He said angrily to her.

“Bet you I could find one on my first try.” She retorted.

We were walking from the back of the warehouse to the front when we heard the warehouse doors open.

“Hide!” Kelly whispered to us. We went inside of the biggest crate we could see. Luckily for us it was mostly empty. The only thing the crate had in it was notebooks.

“Nice going idiot, now we’re going to be late to practice.” She complained.

Now we would have to wait for these people to leave the warehouse. Then we would have to walk about twenty minutes across town to get to practice. By the time we get there, we will have to run about ten or fifteen laps. One lap for every three minutes we were late.

“Practice?” I said, “I just want to be home in time for dinner.”

If I didn’t show up for dinner, my parents would ground me for a month. My parents had a strict policy about being late for dinner, mostly because of past experiences with me. They knew that any time I was late for dinner I was up to no good. And this was no exception.

“Shut up both of you.” Paul said, “Those people will be gone in a few minutes and we will get out of here.”

I wished those people would just leave already so I wouldn’t get in big trouble. I would be in trouble for missing soccer practice, and I would feel guilty for lying to my parents, but if these people didn’t leave soon, all three of us would be grounded in the foreseeable future.

There was a loud noise outside of the crate and we all looked at each other. Every noise scared us because it was dark in the crate. We didn’t know what was going on outside. The men might be right next to this crate listening to us.

“What was that?” Paul asked in a whisper.

“How are we supposed to know? We’re in here just like you.” Kelly said, a little too loudly. It was a stupid question, but Kelly should have kept her voice down. With these people so close by, any noise might indicate to them that we were hiding there.

“Guys quiet, I think they’re coming closer.” I said to them.

“So, boss wants us to take those crates over to the airport?”  A voice said from outside.

“Yeah, those three crates over there”

“Oh great, now they’re going to take our crate and find us inside.” Kelly said, “Do you know how much trouble we’re going to be in?”

Things gradually went from bad, to worse, to even worse. If those people found us hiding in this crate, who knows what they would do with us! If they called the police, my parents would never let me outside of the house again unless it was for school. And even then they might home school me.

“Shut up or they will hear us.” I responded in a whisper.

We felt our crate being lifted in the air, and for a while, all we could hear were grunts from the men who were carrying the crate. I hoped none of them looked inside the crate to see why it was so heavy. Then we dropped onto something with a loud thud. Everything was quiet for a few minutes, and then we felt like we were moving. We listened closely, but aside from the sounds of the road, we couldn’t hear any noises. I guessed we were inside of a truck or something of that sort. I couldn’t believe our luck, bad luck that is. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Our luck was just atrocious. I can’t even begin to imagine what my parents are going to do to me when I get home. That is, if I get home. The truck stopped abruptly, putting an end to my raging thoughts, and everything was quiet.

“I’m going to go and see where we are.” Paul said after a moment.

He lifted the lid of the crate, peeked out, and looked around for a minute. He closed the lid of the crate.

“We’re in the back of a truck. There are a bunch of other crates in here with us.” he said.

“Jake, what do you think we should do?”  Kelly asked me as the truck started to move again.

“How come you always ask Jake? You know there's a third person in the crate.” Paul said to her a bit testily

“Well that third person is the same person who got us into this fine mess so forgive me if I'm reluctant to ask for his help.” Kelly replied. “So Jake, what do you think we should do?”

“How should I know?” I replied. Paul was right, why did everyone always ask me when they had problems? It’s not like I had all the answers in the world.

“You always do have the best ideas,” said Paul admitted.

“That doesn’t mean that I have an idea for everything that happens.” I snapped.

We felt the truck slowing to a stop.

“We have two choices,” I said to them, “We can either stay in the crate and wait for them to leave, or we can leave the crate and hope we don’t get into that much trouble.”

“We’re already in enough trouble,” Kelly replied.

“So then, what’s a little more trouble?” Paul said to her, “Who knows where we will end up if we stay in the crate?”

He was probably right, because we would gain nothing from staying in the crate, and we were probably really far from our houses, so we wouldn’t be able to walk there. Maybe someone would be kind enough to give us a ride back.

“Fine, let’s go and see if anyone can help us.” I said.

We left the crate, and as we opened the back of the truck, we saw that night had fallen.

“Oh God, my parents are going to kill me.” Kelly whispered.

I felt really bad for her because her parents were, by far, the strictest of all our parents. Paul and I would be in major trouble when we got home, but whatever trouble we got into would be a walk in the park compared to what would happen to Kelly.

“They can’t kill you if you never get home.” Paul whispered back to her, attempting to lighten the mood.

“Shut up Paul, this was your idea. I don’t want to hear you talk unless you figure out a way for us to get home.”

“Even if it was my idea, you two were stupid enough to follow me. It’s not like I forced you guys here, I just made a suggestion.”

“Yeah, but if I didn’t go with you, you would have made fun of me and told everyone that I was too afraid to go with you and Jake inside the ice cream warehouse.”

“Guys, stop fighting. It’s not going to help us get home any faster.” I told them, trying to stop their bickering.

“This is between me and Kelly, so stay out of it. I don’t want people blaming me for stuff I didn’t do.”

“Well maybe if you didn’t do so many wrong things, then no one would blame you for anything.” Kelly retorted.

“Well, we can’t all be Ms. Perfect and do whatever our parents tell us to do.”

“Oh, so it’s my fault that I listen to my parents?”

“Yeah, do you know how many times my parents ask me why I'm not ‘like Kelly’? It gets really annoying.”

“You know what else is annoying?”

“Guys, stop it! We have to find a way to get home; fighting is just going to delay us further.” I tried again to stop them from fighting.

“I guess you’re right.” said Kelly.

“Of course, you always agree with Jake, it’s like he is your brain or something. It’s always, ‘Yes Jake… Okay Jake… I agree Jake…’” said Paul.

“Better than agreeing with you,” Kelly retorted.

“Enough arguing, let’s go find help.” I told them, beginning to get frustrated.

We walked around looking for someone to ask for directions. We finally reached a building. We looked inside of the window and saw three men sitting inside. They all looked up at us when we walked in.

“Hi kids. How’d you end up here?” one of the men asked us.

“We were umm…. exploring your warehouse. Then, when some men came, we hid in a crate because we didn’t want to get in trouble. But then the men took our crate and put it on a truck, which is how we ended up here. Can you please get someone to take us home?” I asked the men.

“Well, we aren't the ones in charge. We will have to talk to our boss.” One of the men said to us.

“You don’t understand, were going to be in a lot of trouble if we don’t get home.” Kelly said.

“Oh, you don’t realize how much trouble you’re in right now.” one of the men whispered.

“What did you say?” Paul asked him.

“I didn’t say anything. But don’t worry we’ll have you home in a few minutes.”

The men walked into the other room.

Paul whispered to me, “I don’t like the look of this.”

“Just remember, you’re the one who got us into this mess.” I whispered back to him.

The men returned into the room and one of them said:

“Our boss said that you’re going to have to answer a few questions before we can let you go home.”  

“Questions? We don’t have time for questions! We have to go home!” Paul screamed hysterically.

“I apologize for the inconvenience, but it will all be over soon.” 

“What do you mean by that?” Kelly asked, starting to get nervous. We were all starting to get hysterical. If we didn’t get out of here soon, we were all going to go crazy.

“Relax yourselves. I only meant that you will be able to go home soon.”

I stepped forward to shake the man’s hand and thank him for not getting us into that much trouble when I felt the cool air from outside hit my back. I heard two thumps that sounded like bodies hitting the ground, and when I tried to turn around, I felt something hard hit my head, and everything faded into blackness…