Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Chapter #6 Escaping Under Moonlight

"I finished packing my bag", I told Precious when she was stuffing some clothes into her backpack. "Need any help?" I asked her when she was carefully putting in a necklace. "No thanks, I'm good. It looks like some others need help though," she responded looking at others who were sitting on their bags so they could close it. I walked over to Lucky, another girl who was the same age as Precious and I. I asked her if she needed any help. "That would be great!" she said with a smile. "You sit on he beg while I close the zipper, ok?" I told her. "Sure." she said climbing onto the bag so she could sit on it. I zipped up the bag and told her it was done. "Thanks so much! I'm gonna go help others too now!" Lucky told be very thankfully. When everyone was done we went outside the tent. "It took a pretty long time to clean up that oatmeal!" Nightshaodw growled looking at us all suspiciously. We all looked at each other wondering why he said "long time". "We were only gone for two minutes...." Lucky said thinking Nightshadow was going crazy. "Well it's long enough to be away from working!" he yelled. We all sighed and went back to work. We worked from the sunrise to the moon rise. Nightshadow made us go to bed four hours later then when we usually go to bed so we could finish another den. It was 11:36 when he told us the lights must be off. "I was 2% satisfied with the work you did today. Tomorrow, you must work 21 hours so you can the satisfaction from me up to 7%." Nightshadow ordered. "You wake up at 3:00 am and work until 11:00 pm. Is that clear?" he snapped at us. My jaw dropped open and my eyes popped wide when he said this. "At least we won't be here tomorrow......" I thought to myself. Everyone responded to Nightshadow, "Yes, sir." we groaned. He walked away and shut off our light. I stared at the ceiling dying to be home with Liza. My eyes filled up with tears just thinking about her. I tried to hold back them but they just kept pouring down my cheeks constantly. Precious's sleeping bag was right beside me so she saw my tears. "It's gonna be ok." she told me knowing that I missed home. I looked at her and realized that she was really a true friend. I noticed something else. Before I got here, Liza was the only friend I ever had. I smiled at Precious, "Thanks for not letting my faith drift away." "You're welcome," she responded. 30 minutes later we tiptoed out of our tent. I pulled out the map one of Nightshadow's guards dropped down on the floor and looked at it. "It says that only four guards will be guarding tonight." I told everyone "Where?" Lucky asked curiously. "Right over there," I pointed north and looked back at the map, "there, there and there." I said while pointing in different directions. "Ok," said Precious, "let's go this way." We walked for 4 hours straight to be sure that the guards wouldn't come after us. We decided to take a break and camp for a little while in a cleared area. Precious gathered wood and stones to make a fire, Lucky and I carried logs and rocks for chairs and tables, then Mythical and Empress, two other bunnies, collected some berries and pulled out some food frm their back packs. I saw Precious sitting on a rock that Lucky and I carried. I noticed a tear rolled down from her eye and splashed onto the ground. "Are you ok?" I asked curiously. "No..." Precious admitted. "What happened?" I asked sitting next to her on another rock. "It's just....." she tried to talk. "It's just what?" I asked more curious than ever. "Well..," she cried," I am escaping for nothing... I don't have anywhere to go when everyone will go home," she told me with a sigh. "What do you mean? Won't you live with your parents?" my eyes were focused on her. "My parents died. It all started one morning when my father, mother, and I went out for a picnic. I spotted a very rare orange bird sitting in a tree. I showed my dad and mom and they saw it too. We walked closer to the tree to see the bird. But the bird was just a stuffed animal. My dad picked it up and said, " It's just a plush. Probably a kid left it there by accident," he told us. But we didn't know that it was planned to be there to kidnap me. Nightshadow's guards jumped out of some bushes and held me back while they killed my parents... I was only five when it happened.. I screamed and cried.. They gave my parents some potion and dragged them to another secret hideout. I'm pretty sure the potion was poison..... Then Nightshadow's best guard, Thunderrock, came and took me here.. I never heard from my parents since..." she explained me while tears dripped down. I looked at her.. her life must have been so hard... mine was hard too but I never knew my parents so it was easier for me..."Listen Precious, I feel super bad for what happened... the truth is.. well.... my parents couldn't afford to take care of another person when I was born... So they left me with Liza, the shaman.. Since the first day I was born, I lived with her. I'm 10 now and it's still hard to say goodbye to parents.. It's never easy to say goodbye. But I promise. I'll ask Liza if you can live with us." I told her. "Thanks," Precious said and gave me a hug. I looked at my watch. It was 3:49 am. "I guess Nightshadow wanted us up and working by now." Precious said wiping away her tears with her sleeves. "Ya.. At least we don't need to be bossed around by him anymore." I responded. "Hey guys," Lucky came up to us. "You talking about Nightshadow?" she asked. "Ya," we told  her. "I left a little surprise for him before we left," Lucky added. "What surprise?" Precious asked. "Oh let's just say.. I destroyed the crops and new dens with a club I found.. and I also dumped all of our dinner.. on the grounds and at top of his tent.." Lucky said hiding her smile. "No way! You didn't! Man that would be so funny to watch when he woke up!" I laughed. "I know right?" Lucky said. Precious, Lucky, and I all laughed together. "We should probably get to bed," said Precious. "Good idea," Lucky told us. We told everyone it was bedtime and we slept in our tents relaxed and happy knowing we didn't have to wake up early and do backbreaking work.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Chapter #5 The Map

The sun beamed down on my tent, looking as if it was the sunniest day of the year. I found everyone still sleeping. Then I saw Precious open her eyes. She said good morning to me and she changed into her work clothes. "Luckily we woke up before Nightshadow and the guards did, they would make us work before everyone else." she whispered to me. We heard someone yawn and zip open their tent. It was Nightshadow. He told the guards to blow the horn for the beginning of the day. Seeing everybody waking up with having dark circles under their eyes I saw something that suddenly fell out of one of the guard's pockets onto the dusty ground. I crawled out to see what it said. It was a map of the new settlement and where the guards are on duty! "I have to show this to the other guys..." I said to myself. Seven hours past of the work with having no break. But finally we got one. I showed it to the animals and Precious said," We could use this when we're escaping tonight! We can escape through the areas where the guards are not there!" she whispered. "Ya! We would sneak past them without them even knowing we left!" an animal whispered. "And we could make dummies of us so they won't think we would be gone! If they check on us during the night, they'll find our dummies sleeping!" another animal added. "Okay, we will escape 30 minutes after the lights go out!" I quickly said not letting any of the guards or Nightshadow hear. "We pack in our next break, we can say we're cleaning up out tent because someone spilled some oatmeal on the mattresses." Precious whispered again. "What are one of the rules on my list? NO TALKING! Is that clear?" Nightshadow yelled at us. "We were just talking on how to make the dens more... um... beautiful your majesty" I lied. "Well get back to work!" he roared.