Chapter Five

I gave my sister, Juliet, a weeks' notice to when we would be leaving; that's when things started to change. Juliet began to act strange.

She distanced herself from me. She wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't go near me and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why. Had I done something wrong? I wanted to figure it out but I had other, more important, things to figure out, like getting her out of the house safely. I couldn't let my baby sister get unwound. I couldn't lose her. If it wasn't for her I would have left long ago. I just couldn't leave her and she always begged to stay just one more day, just one more she would say, to try and change our parents' minds. She didn't see that it was futile. She couldn't give up hope. I almost felt sorry for her. Even by her age, I had given up on getting our parents' affection, but for some peculiar reason she just couldn't. It made me worry. I pushed all of that out of my mind, though, and focused on the task at hand.

As the day grew closer, I put the final pieces into place. Everything was ready to go. Everything seemed to be going right, except one thing. Actually, one person. Juliet. She was off and I still hadn't figured out why. She wasn't as happy as she usually was, she wouldn't smile as much, wouldn't talk to me much. She distanced herself from me. I couldn't imagine the bombshell she would drop on me the day of.

It was midnight, my parents were sound asleep. My dad sounded like an angry bear with his snoring, which means mom's ear plugs were in. Perfect. I sneaked to Juliet's room and gently shake her.

"Juliet, wake up. It's time to go," I whispered.

"Huh? Go where?" she yawned.

"We're leaving, come on get up."

"But I'm tired, I want to sleep," she protested.

"I'll carry you just get your stuff come on," I said as I got her up and moving. She was so tired she didn't really know what's going on, so I had to help her get ready and picked up her tiny, four foot six frame and carried her out. She slept most of the way to the place where we meet up with Prima. It was a small clearing in the woods just past a trail. Daisies were everywhere, closed up for the night. The fireflies twinkled in the air. I waited for her and smiled when I saw her run up.

"Hey Prima," I glanced around to see if anyone else was around.

"Hey," she caught her breath, "Ready to go?"

"Yeah, let's move out," we began our trek to Hawaii. Everything was going smoothly, until morning hit.