The next morning at breakfast, everyone was sitting silently. Alicia was in a state of shock. She'd screamed, smacked her mom with her handbag, faked being sick, and kicked her father, but she still didn't have her second bedroom back. Nathan was thinking of the same time the day before and how he desperately wished he could have waited to open the letter until he got to his cupboard.

When the mailman knocked on the door, Uncle Robert, who seemed to be attempting to be friendly to Nathan, forced Alicia to go get the mail. They heard her banging against the coat rack with her handbag. Then she yelled "There's another letter!" "Mr. N. Torrance, The Smallest Bedroom, 2110 Lincoln Street…"

With an expression of shock and anger, Uncle Robert leapt out of the chair and ran to the hallway. Nathan followed right after him. Uncle Robert had to wrestle with Alicia to get the letter out of her hand, while Nathan was grabbing onto his back from behind. After a minute or two, Uncle Robert walked away with the letter in his hand, gasping for breath.

"Go to your bedrooms Nathan and Alicia" he said.

Nathan paced around his room and thought about how someone knew that he was no longer living in the cupboard anymore. And they seemed to know that he had not gotten his first letter. Hopefully they would try again? And this time he would make sure to get it. He had a plan.

The alarm clock went off at 6 AM the next morning. Nathan turned it off instantly, and got dressed as quietly as he could. He sneaked downstairs without turning on any lights. He was planning on waiting for the postman to arrive and get the letters before the DeLaces got up. His heart hammered as he walked toward the front door…

"AAAARGGGHHHH!"

Nathan leapt into the air in shock. He had stepped on something big and squishy, something alive.

The lights upstairs turned on, and Nathan realized he had stepped on Uncle Robert. He had been sleeping by the front door in a sleeping bag, making sure that Nathan didn't do what he was just trying to do. He shouted at Harry for fifteen minutes, then told him to go make a cup of coffee. Nathan left to do so, and when he returned he saw his uncle holding three letters addressed in green ink.

"I want…" but before he could finish, Uncle Robert started tearing them before his eyes.

Uncle Robert stayed home that day to board up the mailbox.

"Poppy darling, you see, if they can't deliver the letters, they will give up" he explained to his wife.

"I'm not sure that will work" she said.

""Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Poppy, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Robert, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of sandwich Aunt Poppy had just brought him.

On Friday, twelve letters arrived for Nathan, flying in through the window. Uncle Robert stayed at home again and continued burning them. Then he went to the windows and boarded them up, as well as the cracks in the doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Bohemian Rhapsody" as he worked.

On Saturday, things really began to get out of hand. Twenty four letters to Nathan made their way into the house, inside of the two dozen eggs the milkman delivered. While Uncle Robert called the farm where the milkman worked trying to find someone to blame, Aunt Poppy burned them all.

"Who wants to talk to you so badly?" Alicia asked Nathan in bewilderment.

That Sunday morning, Uncle Robert was looking exhausted and possibly even sick, but he was smiling.

"No mail on Sundays" he reminded everyone in joy as he spread jam over his toast. "No goddamn letters today"

Something flew through the chimney and hit Uncle Robert on the back of his head. A few moments later, forty or fifty letters flew through like they had been blown by a leafblower. Nathan tried to grab one as the DeLaces ducked.

"GET OUT! GET OUT!"

Uncle Robert seized Nathan around his waist and threw him out into the hallway. Aunt Poppy and Alicia ran to the hallway, and Uncle Robert slammed the door shut. They could still hear letters blown around in the living room.

"I want all of you out the door in five minutes ready to drive away. Just pack some clothes. I will not hear any arguments!"

He looked incredibly threatening with his mustache in half so no one dared to argue. Ten minutes later they had made it out the front door and into the car speeding to the highway. Alicia was crying in the backseat next to Nathan, her dad had punched her in the face for trying to grab her TV and dollhouse and holding them up.

They drove and drove and drove. They eventually entered the state of Iowa. Nobody dared to ask Uncle Robert where they were going.

"Shake them off" he muttered every few minutes.

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Alicia was moaning. She was hungry, she'd missed multiple romance shows she wanted to watch, and she'd never gone so long without playing with her dollhouse.

Uncle Robert finally stopped outside a motel on the outskirts of Des Moines. Alicia and Nathan shared a room with beds that had incredibly cold sheets. Alicia fell asleep and snored loudly, but Nathan couldn't sleep. So he sat by the windowsill looking down at cars driving by.

The next morning they ate the provided breakfast, Cheerios and barely cooked eggs. When they were done eating, they saw the hotel manager walk up to them.

"Excuse me, is one of you Mr. N Torrance? I've got about a hundred of these over at the front desk."

He held up one of the letters so they could read the address.

Mr. N. Torrance

Room 24

Farmside Hotel

Des Moines

Iowa

Nathan attempted to grab the letter, but his hand was knocked away by Uncle Robert. The manager stared at him.

"I'll take them" he said, and he proceeded to throw them in the garbage. He gestured to them to follow him to the car.

"Wouldn't it be better to just go home Robert dear?" Aunt Poppy asked as they were nearing the state of Wisconsin. Uncle Robert didn't seem to hear his wife. Nobody knew what he was looking for exactly. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, shook his head, got back in the car, and they continued driving. The same thing happened multiple more times as they continued through Wisconsin.

"Daddy's gone mad hasn't he mom." Alicia whined to Aunt Poppy that afternoon. Uncle Robert had parked at the coast of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, locked the car, and left.

It started to rain, causing pattering sounds on the roof of the car. Alicia cried.

"It's Thursday. My favorite romance show is on today. I want to stay somewhere with a TV."

Thursday. That reminded Nathan that if it was Thursday, then tomorrow was his eleventh birthday. His birthdays were never that fun because of the DeLaces all but ignored them. But, still, it was something to look forward to.

Uncle Robert came back smiling. He was carrying a long thin package and when Aunt Poppy asked what he had bought, he didn't answer.

'I found the perfect place. Everyone out!"

Uncle Robert pointed out at the lake. There was a very small island several miles out there. On it was a very miserable looking shack. There definitely would not be a TV inside of it.

"Storm forecast for tonight!" he said happily. "And this gentleman agreed to lend us his boat."

A very old man with no teeth pointed at a very old looking rowboat docked nearby.

"I bought us some rations, so let's go!" said Uncle Robert.

The boat trip was miserable. It was incredibly cold in the boat, lake water and rain crept down their necks. After what felt like hours they finally reached the island and entered the shack.

It was horrible inside, smelling like fish. Wind crept through cracks in the walls, and the fireplace was cold and empty. There were only two rooms in the shack.

The rations were four bags of potato chips and four apples. Uncle Robert tried to start a fire with the chip bags, but they just smoked and shriveled up.

"Could use some of those letters now" he sighed.

He was in a good mood. Obviously he believed nobody stood a chance of reaching the island in the storm to deliver the letters. Nathan unfortunately agreed, though that didn't make him happy.

Night fell and the storm blew up around them. Rain pattered on the walls, along with a fierce wind. Aunt Poppy found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made a bed for Alicia on the rotten sofa. Her and her husband went into the second room, leaving Nathan to find a place to sleep on the floor in the main room.

As the night went on, the storm raged fiercer and fiercer. Nathan couldn't sleep. He turned over and over, shivering, trying to get comfortable. His stomach was growling in hunger. Alicia's snores were drowned out by thunder near midnight. Nathan looked at Alicia's watch. It said that it was eighteen minutes before midnight, when he would turn eleven. He layed down and waited as his birthday drew closer.

Five minutes away Nathan heard a creaking sound outside. He hoped the roof wasn't about to fall down. Four minutes away he wondered if maybe the house in Illinois would be so full of letters when they got home that he could steal one. Three minutes away he heard a slapping noise outside and wondered if it was the waves. Two minutes away he heard a crunching noise. One minute left before he turned eleven.

Suddenly he heard a knock on the front door. Someone was outside wanting to get in…