Chapter 2: The Escape
"Hey, Tim!" Turtle asked when they were standing in the dinner line later that day. "Are you feeling okay? You haven't been paying much attention to me today."
"Huh? What?" asked Tim.
Turtle sighed. "I said, 'You haven't been paying much attention to me today.'"
"What makes you say so, besides just now?"
"Well, this afternoon, I asked you what your cousin's name was, and you said 'uh, huh.'"
"Oh, yeah. Well, I've been thinking…"
"About…?"
"I can't tell you right now. Later."
"Okay…."
Later, Cathy, Turtle, Tim, Sarah, Ryan, and Mike met at the corner of the stall they all shared.
"The reason I called you here was to share my escape plan." Tim looked around to make sure no one else was listening. "You know that guard who always falls asleep?" Everyone nodded. "Next time he's on duty, we'll escape. We can crawl through the rat holes under the floorboards. When we get outside, we'll jump into Mr. Whip's car and drive to those vacant cabins by the woods. Got it?"
"Yeah, but, Tim, uh, you can't drive!" said Sarah, who looked out for her brother, even though he was older.
"We'll never know if you're right until I try," said Tim. "Anyway, try to save every drop of food you can spare. I have an old pot we can put fish in."
"Who's gonna tell your sisters?" asked Mike.
"Cathy, you can tell Sonya and I'll tell Alice," instructed Tim.
The next three days, they got ready to leave. They saved every scrap of food they could spare. At night, they practiced packing their things into spaces small enough to get through the rat holes. They even practiced scrunching themselves to fit through the holes.
On the night they decided to escape, the guard fell asleep as usual. They sneaked out of their stalls and quietly got their baskets to the floor (all except Alice and Sonya, who did it loudly). They crawled through the rat holes, pushing their belongings in front of them.
At the edge on the tunnels, Sonya refused to get out. "My hair is so messy! I can't show myself looking like this!" Tim, Cathy, and Turtle ended up yanking her out of the hole by her tangled mess of hair. She screamed, attracting the attention of the guards at the door. They saw eight kids scurrying out of the rat hole.
"Run!" Tim shouted. They made a mad dash for Mr. Whip's car. Tim ran over to it and tried all the doors. "Oh great! It never occurred to me that the car might be locked!" he said. Suddenly, he noticed the trunk was slightly ajar. He ran to the back of the car and pried open the trunk. He climbed in and pushed on the wall of the trunk until it opened into the back seats of the car. "Come on!" he shouted at the others. Everyone came running over and jumped into the trunk. They climbed into seats.
"Where are Sonya and Alice?" Mike asked looking around. The girls, who refused to run, were walking slowly towards them.
"Buckle up! We'll pick 'em up on the way out!" Tim pushed the gas pedal. The tires squealed as the car swung around, but it was too late. The girls were caught. Luckily, the guards were too preoccupied hushing the screaming teens to notice the other six getting away. They really couldn't care less if the kids escaped anyway.
Tim pulled down the driveway and up the road a while to the edge of the thick, uncharted, forest, that took up most of the planet. Here, two small cabins stood. Tim pulled the car up between the cabins, into the shadows.
"We're home at last!" said Sarah. Little did they know this was just a temporary home.