Chapter two

Shannon woke with a start. The first thing that came into her young mind was “school!” The word excited her to her very toes! Her mind began to race with thoughts of what she will do today. She thought of Rachel! She thought of all the Caching up they would do! She thought of the things that they would do at break time! Would they play with the boys as they had done the year before or would they do something else?

 

                     Then she thought of something else! What if Rachel had changed? What if she had made a new friend in the summer holidays and didn’t want to play with her anymore? Or worse still, would Rachel not want to play with her because Chelsea had to tag along with them? Oh no! Trust Chelsea! “I hate her” Shannon whispered.

 

                     As these thoughts went through her little mind, never once had Shannon opened her eyes. Never once had she even noticed that the room was swaying. Now as these disturbing thoughts went on in her head she was disturbed and so she opened her eyes to see if it was any time near up time!

 

                     It was light! “Good Mummy will be in, in a minute!” she thought! She was board! “Oh I’ll wake them up anyway!” she decided when Mummy was taking too long to come in! So up Shannon got, but she didn’t get far! She sat up and looked around her. Where was she? This was NOT her room! It was white and bare! There was only the bed that she was on in the room!

 

The door opened a little! A gleam of hope swept across Shannon’s face as she exclaimed - “Mummy!” But instead of Mummy’s face looking in; it was a very dirty and almost ugly face of a young boy who poked his head in! Shannon’s eyes widened as she screamed in fright!!

 

School was at Nine o’clock. Mrs Nelson would have normally got the children up at half past seven, but not this morning! She had had a bad night the night before, and Mr Nelson was away early and so she had got up early to see him off and to lock the door again! Mr Nelson would have normally went in to see the children before going off to work, but this morning he was in a hurry, and did not go into their rooms. Had he went in he would have found Shannon’s bed empty and investigated into it, but as it happened he did not! Mrs Nelson was just about to back upstairs to lay down for an hour or so as it was now only half past five, when she suddenly noticed that the kitchen window was slightly open! Weird! “How stupid of me to leave it open!” She chided with herself, annoyed! She closed it and then went back upstairs �" she was even more annoyed when she saw mud on the stairs! “Paul!” she exclaimed angrily, about her husband, even though he was not there to defend himself! “Men!” she picked it up and went on up to bed!

 

She did not wake up again till quarter past eight! How she jumped out of bed, not even stopping to make it! “On Chelsea’s first day too!” she cried to herself, predicting that this would not be a good day for her at all! She went to the hall and down to Bobby’s room first, hoping within herself that he would not be as hard to get up as he had been the year before. To her joy, Bobby was already up and going through his school bag again! Mrs Nelson gave a weary smile and told him to hurry up and come down stairs for breakfast! She moved on to the girls’ room. She was glad to see Shannon’s empty bed, “one less to drag out of bed!” She woke Hope and Chelsea, asked Hope to help Chelsea dress and told them to hurry, as she was late already.

 

Shannon was not down stairs or in the kitchen anyway! Mrs Nelson poked her head into the living room; Shannon was not there, nor in the study, nor the playroom, nor the garage! She could never have reached the keys to go outside, besides the back door was locked! Hope was sent up stairs to look in all the rooms. She came back down with nothing to report! Shannon was NOT in the house. Bobby was sent outside to check out there, just in case she did, somehow, get outside. But there was no joy there either!

 

Now Mrs Nelson was mad! The open window and mud on the stairs where forgotten. It was now quarter to nine. The house was searched again �" nothing. Nine o’clock. Quarter past nine. Half nine. Mr Nelson was called home from work. Not really bothered he rang the police. Mrs Nelson ran the other children into school, but Bobby and Hope could not concentrate. They seemed to be more worried than their parents. Ten o’clock �" no word �" the police were searching the country. Twelve o’clock �" nothing. The police spent the whole day roaming the country looking for the lost child. Come nine o’clock at night she was still not found. The police said that they would get notices up, and would get a private detective unto the case.

 

It was not until late that night when Mr and Mrs Nelson where getting ready for bed, did Mrs Nelson remember about the window and mud. They decided that they would not tell the police; it would be too much bother for them!

 

The door was closed again, but Shannon could not bring herself to open her eyes again. In fear she muttered “Mummy” and “Mummy” and “Mummy” over and over again, while all the time she knew that even if her Mummy was there, there would be little chance that she would do anything, for she knew, young as she was that she was hated by her parents.

 

She opened her eyes at the wrong time for now a woman was standing at the door. The bay had disappeared again. Her eyes got bigger as her little heart pounded faster and faster. By the door was a middle-aged woman, if you could call her a woman, and as she came closer Shannon hid herself below the so-called blankets for her bed. The woman smelled bad and her long black which-like hair hung around her filthy face.

 

The woman was now by the edge of the bed. She sneakily pulled of the blanket, which was hiding the scared girl, away from the bed, and into a heap on the floor. Shannon could not hide her fear any longer but she screamed at the top of her voice inwardly hoping that someone would hear her and come to her rescue. Unfortunately for her she was reworded with a sharp slap on her tear stained cheek.

 

The woman spoke now. “There, there child.” She said surprisingly nice. “Stop that there crying, there’s no need for it, is there? I’m not going to hurt you.” With that she pulled Shannon of the bed and to her feet. She led the girl quite roughly through the open door and into the next room. It was only now that Shannon actually found out that she was wearing different cloths not the nice tiger pyjamas that she was wearing, instead she was wearing a big and very baggy t-shirt.

 

In the next room sat a man with a black beard and piercing eyes and a young boy about eight years old. The woman spoke again.

 

“This is her, Tommy”, she said, and gave Shannon a shove, sending her to the floor as she herself sat down on the only other chair.

 

“Huh, well, she’ll do the job, if nothing else” the man named Tommy growled. “Well . . . what’s the matter with you child? Something frighten you? Ha!”

 

He laughed at his own stupid joke, so did the woman and the boy.

 

Shannon cried all the more. Who were these horrible people?

 

“Well”, started the man again, “I’m Tommy and that there is my wife, Peggy. He and he nodded to the boy, “is Rodney. You do everything that you’re told to do and you won’t get hurt, if you don’t, there’s a stick under my bed. First you can change into these here cloths . . . come on, get a move on. Do I have to get the stick out already?”

 

Shannon trembled as she went to get the cloths, which was a sort of shaggy dress, and she slipped of the large t-shirt and put on the dress.

   

They then went to have breakfast in a café. It was not till now that she had realised that she was on a boat. She had been on a boat before when she went to Scotland for her holiday with her family.

 

All day they searched. Until it was too dark to search any further. And that was it. They told the police that she had been found at her Granny are who ‘supposedly’ was taking her to live with then in Scotland. The police accepted this and dropped the search only to find out years later that she had never been found at all.

 

But as the week progressed Mr and Mrs Nelson told their other children that Shannon did not like living here so she has gone to live with Granny and Granada in Scotland. Although Hope thought it strange she accepted the face and Chelsea was too young to understand what was and had been happening. Mathew however was shocked at this bit of news. He knew Shannon had not been treated well, but he also knew that she loved it here. Were Mum and Dad then just telling them this because she had not been found yet, or was she been sent to Granny and Granada because Mum and Dad did not want her? This was all very strange indeed.

 

Rachel was also grieving for her, seemingly, forever-lost friend when she was told that she was in Scotland, she felt let down by Shannon. Did she not like her anymore? This was all so sad. Everyone who knew the Nelsons prayed for little Shannon, that is except for Mr and Mrs Nelson themselves, their children always prayed for her in their family prayer time but Mr and Mrs Nelson never even mentioned her. 

 

As the days past on the boat, Shannon liked this man and woman and their ugly son less and less. Even thought she was only five years old she was made to do a lot of the work that there was to do on the boat.

 

Her days where spent like clockwork. She would get up in the morning and dress herself in the ugly cloths, she then had to tidy and make the beds as best a five-year-old child could do. They all would go for breakfast, which consisted in a dry, cold slice of toast for Shannon while the others got fruit, cereal, hot toast and tea, coffee or orange juice. From breakfast till lunch Shannon had to sit very still while Peggy read aloud a book that Shannon could not understand at all. Then after lunch she would have to play with the boy, who would be what the boy chose, and Shannon had to do everything that he wanted. At half past eight she would be sent to bed without any supper while the others went down again to get theirs.

 

If at any time she was unfortunate enough to do something to displease then she would be beat good and hard! She even tried to run away once, which of course wouldn’t have helped because she was on a boat, but she was caught and beat double the amount as she usually would have!