Us Street Folk

"Give it back," I growled for the second time.

"Why should we?" The boy smirked, "is your father going to come tell us off, or what about that sweet little brother of yours?"

I fought back tears and raised my fists, "give it moron, oops, I mean Maroen."

"Resorted to laughing at my last name have we Dirtface, oh no I hope the dirtface isn't going to cry." I shot a kick stright at his knee. As soon as he flinched, I grabbed the box and ran, well, ran as well as you can while carrying a large, heavy cardboard box. I lost the thuggish boys in no time, living on the streets and having a thin, wiry figure instead of an (obviously wellfed) larger, taller figure makes it noticably easier.

Back at 'home' (the corner of the park), I unloaded the extra blankets and tucked Zach in with even more thick woolen blankets. Muttering a few words to him about how he'll be all better soon and how Mum'll find a new job and then we'll own a massive house with even more blankets. Then I carefully hid the box with the rest of it's contents in a new spot (making a mental note to tell Mum where I'd hid it). Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the sun edging it's way slowly down to the bottom of the sky, I turned, and when I saw the brilliant pinks and purples of the sunset, I smiled. For me that image holds hope, it tells me all that happened today is at an end and tommorow is a new day.

A few hours or however long it was later, Mum came home, even with just the dim street lamps light, I could tell she wasn't happy. A wave of disappointment, anger and sadness came over me all at once, she wasn't carrying anything. We had nothing for dinner, not even something small for Zach, he's sick and needs something to eat, but she had nothing. It wasn't her fault though, I knew it wasn't, she'd had a hard day, she probably hadn't eaten anything the entire day, she hadn't found a job, but she will soon. When she does we can take Zach to doctor and make him better again. I was about to tell her where I'd hid the box, but she slumped down onto her torn picnic blanket of a bed and I knew it wasn't a good time. So I murmed "night Mum," and lay down on my bed of salvaged newspaper.

I was running, sprinting, but I didn't know why, suddenly I was surrounded by darkness, it was closing in, drowning me. I kept running. Out of the darkness screams rang out, I heard Zach's voice, he was calling me. Then the voice disapeared, "Zach! Zach, where I you?" I screamed, but there was no response, the screams continued and I recognised one as my mum's. "Mum! Mum! Help! ... Please." I cried, but in vain there was no answer. I stopped, but only for a second, there was something chasing me, gaining on me, but I couldn't see it, I heard it's foot falls getting closer, and closer... and closer.

I awoke suddenly to Mum shaking me, and asking something, demanding it, but I didn't know what. I glanced around and realised it had just been a dream, I was home and Zach was safe. "Layla." Mum demanded again, "where's the box?" Oh the box, right, I hadn't told Mum where it was.

"Relax, I just hid it somewhere else," I exlplained, leading her over to the new spot in the bushes. "Some stupid private schoolers found it, so I had to change hiding places."

Mum's face was pale with worry, she asked "is everything in there?" But she didn't wait for a response, digging through the container anxiously. I watched her over her shoulder as she busily sorted through the old photos of Mum and Dad. The photos had been taken when Mum was pregnant with Zach, I had been around 3 at the time. It was just before Dad died, Zach never got to meet him. I remember Dad though, I remember living in a house, having money and food. I remember all of it being taken away just after Zach was born, uncle Ubel (coincidence, the name means evil) took all the money (he was Dad's brother), he took the house too. He wouldn't share, he's the reason we don't have a house or enough food to eat.