Point in time: Lee and Robyn go to check out Lee's place and restaurant.

When Robyn and I left to go to my parent's house, we ran into trouble straight away. Man, I hate those foreign soldiers. They wear dark clothes and they are quieter than the dead leaves on the pavements. Robyn and I only had a few seconds to get to cover as they walked passed. After that we were more alert to our surroundings as we started to walk to my parent's restaurant.

'Lee!' Robyn whispered, all of a sudden.

I looked quickly at her and saw her pointing towards headlights coming towards us. We quickly looked around for cover but there was none.

'We'll have to run to the next street!' I said to Robyn. My heart was thumping so fast it felt like it was going to jump out.

'Once we make it there, we'll need to take a left. That way we can hide in between two houses,' Robyn said quickly, before she ran off. Her netball skills are coming into effect.

We ran to the street opposite us, and then I followed her to the hiding place she was talking about. It was a good hiding place too. It had big boxes and different types of junk there. It also had a lot of bugs. Kevin definitely wouldn't think it is a good hiding place; he'd probably take his chances with the truck. I almost laughed out loud at the thought. We waited there for at least two minutes, before we came out, but then we jumped right back behind the boxes as the truck came roaring past.

As we got out again, we stayed close to the houses, praying that we didn't run into any more soldiers or trucks. Unfortunately, we ran into trouble at every street corner. When we were close to Baker Street, we heard footsteps coming behind us, so we hid in the staircase of City and Country Insurance, waiting as we saw two groups of soldiers looting the chemists and Ernie's Milk Bar. As we were waiting, we heard a noise at the top of the stairs, so we turned around and looked. We saw Mr Clement, the dentist, looking down at us. I glanced at Robyn and she looked like she had just seen a ghost. Man, we were happy to see him, after we got over our little shock, but he wasn't happy to see us.

'Mr Clement!' said Robyn. 'We are so happy to see you! How long have you been here?'

'I've been here watching you the whole time, and the only reason you heard me was because I got a really bad cramp!'

His tone told us that he didn't want to talk to us, but we were so happy to see an adult, that isn't in the showground, that we barely noticed. As we were about to ask him a question, he cut across us saying something about 'least said, soonest minded'. However, he did give us some valuable information, even though he was grudging and impatient. We learnt that everyone who was caught was held at the showground's and that there was two types of soldiers: professionals and others to make up the numbers.

As a patrol of soldiers went passed the building, Mr Clement told us to go. So we left and started to creep along the street, seeing as there wasn't much cover and not much darkness either. Then we heard shooting and we knew that we were the targets. We ran for it. We ran along Glover Street to get to the newsagents. As I was running I felt something hit my leg. Robyn was ahead of me running to the back door of the newsagents and I was a long way behind her. Trying to run on my leg with a bullet through it was like hundreds of blunt knives stabbing me. When Robyn got to the back door she turned around and looked at me.

'Have you been shot?' exclaimed Robyn.

All I did was nod and bite my lip, determined not to cry.

Robyn took me on her shoulders and half-carried and half-dragged me five buildings to the restaurant. When we got inside the restaurant, I got Robyn to run up to the house and tell me what it was like. It was terrible. After I told her what to do, what to look for and after she finished telling me, she went off to get Mr Clement. When she was gone, nothing happened. I just sat there twiddling my thumbs, thinking about my parents and siblings.

A/N: I wrote this back in 2008 as a Tomorrow, When the War Began, gaps and silences assignment. During this time it was the beginning of Year Ten. I have only made a few small changes to it from the original piece and that was fixing up a bit of grammar and I'm sure I still missed a lot. Apologies for that.

Azaelia Silmarwen facebook page: link on profile
Written: 2008
Updated: 21 July 2012
Beta: N/A

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