Though I hadn’t actually heard what was being said I could guess that Grandmother must have chewed Mom out for taking time off from work.
Now I was mad. Since we moved here I hadn’t seen much of my Mom or John except at meal times or when they would come to my room late to help me get ready for bed. The opportunity to spend some time with Mom sounded so good, but now that it had been snatched away from us both, I was really ticked.
Since I already had my jacket on, I decided, that I didn’t care if my homework was done or not. In a huff, I stormed out the front door, purposefully leaving it standing wide open.
I had walked with no real direction. So I was a bit surprised when I found myself at the entrance to that same community park I’d been in a few days ago. If I haven’t told you already, it is called Memorial Gardens Park and though I hadn’t been in it yet save for the jogging track, I had looked from the entrance gate and knew, that it had a nice cobblestone walkway that leads to a wishing fountain. There are also some swings and a lame metal slide. It even has a nice wooded area, which I’d been itching to explore.
As I was entering the park, I met up with Chris, who was coming out carrying his hockey stick again. Only this time, he looked like he’d just been swimming. He was soaked from head to toe and boy he looked mad.
I greeted him with a dull, “Hey Chris. Everything alright?”
He jumped sideways in surprise and dropped his hockey stick. The look he gave me was as if I had just sprouted fangs and bat wings from my ears.
“Whoa dude! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” I said, reaching out for him, but he shied away from me as if I were some stranger.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked and then I saw recognition in his eyes.
“What? Didn’t you know it was me?” I asked with a jovial chuckle.
He shook his head hard and bent over to get his hockey stick. When he straightened back up, he looked really scared again.
“Yo Chris, it’s just me, Alvin.” I said, motioning toward myself with both hands.
With no warning at all, Chris took off running as fast as he could, back into the park. I had the horrible feeling, that something was really wrong with Chris so I ran after him. But boy, he is fast! Faster than I am and I lost him as he entered the wooded area.
“Chris!” I shouted and then listened for him, but there wasn’t a single sound. Not even the sound of crunching dead leaves and then I realized that there wasn’t even any sound from the trees overhead, or the wind that I could see was obviously blowing through the golden brown leaves.
An icy chill crept up my spine and goose bumps sprouted all over my arms.
“Listen, I’m sorry I startled you!” I shouted again into the gathering of trees, “I really didn’t mean too!”
But, there was no reply, no sound at all and I was getting seriously creeped out.