On the Run by Tristan Bancks

Author:Tristan Bancks
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374301545
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

THE PLAN

The car screamed down the final steep section of dirt road, not stopping in front of the cabin but continuing out across the clearing. Why would they park away from the cabin? Maybe it wasn’t his parents’ car. But if it wasn’t, who could it be? Low rumble. Brakes. Engine cut.

“Hurry!” Olive pushed Ben up through the hole, scratching his sides and hands. Fresh air and river and freedom disappeared.

Car doors opened.

He took Olive’s hands, pulling her up into the cabin in a single movement.

“Ow!” she said.

“Shhh!” Ben hissed, switching off the flashlight.

“That hurt,” Olive said, sitting on the rim of the hole in the floor.

The sound of low voices moved quickly across the clearing toward the cabin.

“C’mon!” Ben whispered.

She stood up. “I hate them! I wish they’d never come back.”

“What if it’s not them?” Ben snuck across to the cupboard at the back and looked for the gun, but all he could make out was the shovel. He grabbed the splintery timber handle with two hands. He stood there in the darkness, trembling, Olive clinging to his arm.

“Should we say something?” she whispered.

The chain jangled at the door.

Ben raised the shovel and tiptoed ever so slowly toward the door.

“Should we say something?” Olive asked again.

Ben said nothing.

“Mum?” Olive called.

More jangling.

“Yes,” Mum said quietly.

Ben’s shoulders dropped. He released a staggered breath. Then he snapped the flashlight back on, lowered the shovel, and moved quickly to the hole, brushing sawdust down into the night. He jammed the three floorboards into place as best he could with the nails getting in the way, then he grabbed the metal handle of the trunk and shoved it back into position.

Someone fiddled with the padlock.

Ben looked to the floor to see if everything was clear. The knife lay there, covered in sawdust. He grabbed it, snapped it shut, and pocketed it just as the door opened.

“Pack the car,” Dad said, charging into the cabin. Ben trained the flashlight on him as he went to the table and began shoving things into a bag.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Don’t say ‘What.’ And get that flashlight off me. Anything you want, pack it in the car. Make it light. No heavy stuff. It’s got to go in your backpack. We leave in a few hours.”

Ben stabbed the flashlight beam at Mum. She stood in the doorway, handbag hanging limply from her shoulder, exhausted, haggard, her cheeks smudged with eye makeup. Ordinarily Ben would have hugged her, seen if she was okay. But not now. Olive stood, arms crossed, back turned in protest.

Dad headed out the door with a bag and a cardboard box.

“Where were you?” Ben asked.

“We’ve got to go,” Mum said.

That was all.

Ben wanted to shout at her but was too shell-shocked to speak. He wished that he and Olive had not turned back. He wished he was still tramping through the darkness to the river, surrounded by shhhhh and other night sounds. Forests are supposed to be dark and unknown. Parents are not. He wondered if he would ever again find his mother’s shhhhh as comforting as he found the sound of that river.

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