Down the Alley - Ray Bear (books for students to read txt) 📗

Chapter 4 The Decision

 How could I join, if  I joined, I would be doing my worst nightmare! Torturing. How could I do that? I can't. But if I don't, I will die. Thats when I heared the knock on my cell. Then someone unlocked the door, and came in. It was the tall guy. "Why are you here?" I asked rudley. "I went through what you are going through. I know it is hard. I didn't want to join either." I stayed quiet waiting for him to finish.

"So, I am going to help you." I started to get frustrated. He just asked me to join, and now he is telling me not to. Can I even trust him? He doesn't even know me. I can't trust him! I'll get killed.

"I will help you escape. Lucky for you, I am nice." Oh yes, he is nice, he is perfect, so very perfect.

"I am not like them. So you will be saved." There you go again, with your perfectness. With all your, "I am so perfect that I will help you. No one else will. Only me."

"There are vents above you..." That part caught my attention, and I stopped thinking that he was bad. He is actually is going to help me.

"I will open one and help you get into it. I drew a map of the way you have to go."

"Wow... You are actually going to help me."

"Yes, of course. I never wanted to do anything that the Red Claw does. I could tell you didn't want to either the moment you ran from me."

"Your the man who hit me with the baseball bat?!?"

"Oh ya... sorry about that. I had to. You were pretty smart running to the sewer hole to get away. I just don't think you should of stopped because of a dog."

"I know, I wasn't thinking."

"Yes, well let me help you up to the vent, I have to go." So he handed me the map, took off the lid to the vent, and lifted me up.

Chapter 5 The Escape

The vent goes about 5 feet straight up, but I had experience with climbing these kind of things. "Yell when you get up!" So I put my back to one side, and put my feet on the oppisite side. My hands on the side with my back, and started to climb up like that. One foot up, set it down above me, other foot up, set it above me, one hand up, set it above me, other hand up, set it above me, scoot my back up, and start all over. I did that for a while until I got all the way to the top. Then I yelled down to the tall man, "I got up!" He yelled back,"Okay, do you have the map?" I said, "Yes, I got it." Then he yelled back, "Okay good. I will leave then. And don't worry about what I will tell them about how you got away! I have it covered!" I smiled and then turned over onto my stomach, and started army crawling.

 

After a while of twists and turns, I saw a light! Sure enough, at the end of the tunnel, was the outside. I checked the map to see if this was the right way, and it was. I pushed off the lid, and looked out. Now was the tricky part, there were people everywhere. I had to sneek past them, go back through the town, back to the alley, and down the sewer, and I can't be seen through out the whole time. How could I do all of that? With out anyone seeing me? How could I possibly do all that? Well I guess a starter would be to get down from here... I was head first to the ground. How am I going to get down? Then I got it. The sewer hole from the time I got caught. That is how I would do it with out being seen! Now how to get down... I wasn't that good, but I had experience with gymnastics. And karote, that would come in handy if I had to get out of a fight.

 

What I did to get down was really risky. I was really high up, in other words, I was close to the roof. I rolled onto my back, stuck my hands out, and searched for something to grab hold of. I finnally grasped the roof's edge, and pulled my self up. Then I set my feet down onto the inside of the vent. This way, I was standing up. Now what?  The roof was flat. So with my hands holding on tight to the roof, I climbed up with my feet, and then I put my knees over the top of the roof, and hung upside down like I used to on the monkey bars as a kid. What I meant to do was grab the roof with my hands, and pull myself up. That way I didn't have to use my arm muscles as much as I would have the other way. But what happened, was my legs started to slip. I fell, but being good at gymnastics, and having good strength, I landed on my hands, tipped side ways, and kartweeled off onto the ground, landing onto my feet. Then I ran toward the sewer lid. Once I got down, I saw Rascal! 

 

"Rascal! What are you doing here? Can you lead me to Tom?" That is when I realized that he was laying down on his side. I went up to him. He was breathing hard, and I could tell he was in a lot of pain. So I started to carry him. I wasn't sure what way was home, but I started walking.

Chapter 6 The Ghost Town

I had been through a lot that day, and wasn't sure how much I could handle. So when I set Rascal down, and went through an unfamiliar sewer hole to see where I was... Well, I started bawling. I was out in a different town, with my home town nowhere to be seen. I realized I hadn't eaten in two days. I was hungry! Then a horrible thought came to my mind. The dog. The dog won't do me any good anymore... maybe I could- I pushed the thought out of my mind. Rascal was family. No. I would not eat Rascal! I needed to eat though. I would go into the town, and find food. But what about Rascal? I would have to leave him. I decided. I hated the decision, but he was to heavy for me to carry him around. I would find something for us to eat, and then come back.

 

The town was a ghost town. No people anywhere to be found. There was nothing, and no one. I went into an old, old, resurant, and headed for the kitchen area. It was spooky here, but I kept going. I found a light switch, and switched it on. The light blinked on, then off, then on, and stayed on for a second, then turned off again. No light. I kept going, when I reached the cooking area, I looked for something, anything, to eat. Maybe some old fish, or a half eaten orange, or stale bread, something like that. I did find some stale bread, it was a little moldy to, but mostly just stale. They were rolls, there were probably about ten. I also found some nuts. I wasn't really sure what kind they were, but I took them anyway. I looked around for something to carry it in. Nothing here though. So I went to a different place. A house.

 

I could tell it was a house because of the beds inside of it. I took off the top quilt on the bed, and folded it up. Then I took one of the sheets from the bed, put the food inside, then the blanket too, and tied it together like a bag. I got the "bag", put it over my shoulder, and then my head. After I had everything I needed, I went back to the sewer. I was crawling back inside, but then heard, "There she is! She is the one who escaped The Red Claw!" I crawled faster. Climbed down the ladder, and grabbed the dog, and ran. Or, I tryed to run. Rascal made it very hard to run. You try holding a dog up and running at the same time. It is really hard! I heard people climbing down, and running to get me. It was at least five people. I would for sure get caught. And I did.

Chapter 7 Finding Tom

 I never knew Tom's last name. Even though he had lived with me since I was two. I never wondered until today. When I didn't know what would happen, and I had been caught with Rascal, and I didn't even know who I was running from, I thought about Tom's last name. Weird huh? But once I realized I had been caught, my mind came back to the present.

"Hey! Hello? I think you blacked out for a minute. How do you feel?" Then I realized that the person that was talking to me... was Tom. I was confused.

"Tom?" I said in a wondering way. "Is that you?"

"Ya! It's me sis!"

"What are you doing here?"

"That doesn't matter. I'll explain later. My question is what happened to you? And Racal?" I