Based on a True Story

Based on a True Story - Ch. 1

Karen heard her sister’s alarm clock going off. She went over to Tara’s bed and tried to get her sister up. 

“Come on Tara, get up! Remember you wanted to run away.” Karen whispered loudly to her sister. Karen was excited. Her older sister’s latest scheme was to run away to the mall and steal tips off the waitresses’ tables in order to have money to survive. Their mother had taken them to a boarding school where they were given a tour. Karen didn’t want to go and her older sister Tara wanted to go even less. Karen was content to just let the inevitable happen, but not Tara. Tara had a plan; no one was going to force her to do anything that she didn’t want to do. She would not be returning to any boarding school.

 Tara and Karen were both thin and only a year apart in age. Their hair color was often referred to as dirty blonde and much to Karen’s chagrin, no matter how much she washed her hair, it was still called dirty blonde. These two had been inseparable when they were younger and would still be if Karen had her way. But alas, Karen was the happy-go-lucky younger sibling and a born follower. Tara, on the other hand, was strong-willed and used to getting her own way. Others did what she wanted whether they wanted to or not. Tara was most comfortable calling the shots with Karen blindly following her, often to Karen’s harm. Tara spent time with Karen when it suited her and when it didn’t suit her, Tara rudely let her sister know.

Tara finally arose, wiping the sleep from her eyes. 3:30 in the morning was much earlier than it sounded. She grabbed her backpack as Karen grabbed hers, and the girls reviewed what they had packed. They had a change of clothes and books to read in case they became bored. They quietly crept downstairs and rummaged through the cupboards to find food to take. All they could find to eat was saltine crackers and they packed a thermos of water each. The last thing that they each grabbed was their warm winter coats.

Finally they were able to step out into the fresh early morning air. They were so excited. Karen couldn’t believe that they were actually doing it. They started out at a leisurely pace and before they knew it, they had crossed the long bridge into the next town.

They stopped behind a convenience store where a bright light shown from above. Sitting down, they leaned against the building for a rest. They pulled out their books and began reading. They had a fun little thing they liked to do when they read separate books while sitting near each other. They would call out the chapter number when they started a new chapter.

After reading for a short while, they realized that they were cold, very cold. They had no idea that the wee hours of the morning would get so brutal. They opened their backpacks and pulled out their spare outfits. They took off their coats, becoming momentarily colder. Then they put on the extra clothes right over what they were already wearing, hoping the layers would keep they warm. Grabbing their coats, they bundled back into them and continued their walk to the mall. The drive usually took about 30 minutes in the car. How long would it take on foot?

The mall was named for the county where it was located, but Karen liked to call it by the name of the town it was near. She felt that Muncy Mall sounded so much better than Lycoming Mall. It was a place that her family went to a couple times a year and it was the farthest place she felt that she knew the directions to. She would just follow the very busy road that was called the Golden Strip (at its most popular section.) At some point she would need to get off this main road and take a side road to the mall. She wasn’t sure what that road was called, but she was sure things would look familiar as she got closer or she would see a sign for the grand mall.

Tara was confident that she knew the way and this comforted Karen. Plus Karen wondered how a person could miss it. It had a huge horseshoe shaped piece of slightly twisted metal that her family always drove under to approach the mall. Her mother had explained that the extremely large oddity with the blinking red light was art. Karen thought that it looked like it was made out of burner barrel material and felt that she could have made it much straighter. Plus it didn’t need to be quite so huge. Something ten times smaller would have been the perfect arch for their car to go underneath. The coolest part was the blinking light sticking up from the peculiarity and it wasn’t even part of the art. Her father had explained that it was there so that airplanes didn’t hit it. Some adults were so clueless. “All they needed to do was ask us kids once in a while and we could give them some great ideas,” Karen thought.

Karen thought about her father. He no longer lived with them. Her parents had divorced a few years before. Her mother often referred to the terrible things he had done and what a terrible person he was. Apart from that one horrible instance when Karen had to call the police and her mother had been rushed to the hospital bleeding profusely, Karen couldn’t remember anything else bad. But if he was capable of that horrendous act, then he probably did the other things her mother had mentioned. Mothers didn’t lie to their children, Karen was sure of this.

Anyway, her mother had explained to Tara and Karen that he wasn’t really their father but had adopted them, so therefore they should be relieved that this evil man wasn’t a relative. All this discussion did was confuse Karen at an already vunerable time. First she learns that her loving father, the rock of the family, was capable of great abuse. Then she learns that she doesn’t even have a father. She loved this man, remembering all the patience he had, answering all of her questions about everything. Should she love the man who hurt her mother? Would he hurt her?

The girls kept trudging onward toward the mall watching as the sky got brighter and brighter warming them with its morning sunshine. The sisters pulled off their coats and stuffed them into their backpacks.

The drive was long but this walk was incredibly longer. Karen was determined to show her sister that she was tough enough, mature enough to deserve her friendship. Then maybe Tara would forget about that horrible girl Barb. Ever since Karen’s sister Tara had met Barb in the second grade, Karen’s friendship had no longer been important to Tara. Tara became more and more like Barb rejecting Karen more often. With Tara in seventh grade and Karen in fifth, more than ages and grade levels separated them now. When the sisters did spend time together, Karen noticed that Tara was developing a cruel side to her personality. This left Karen wondering what she had done wrong to lose her best friend and constantly striving to regain that friendship.  

As they approached the Muncy exit, Karen was sure this was the exit they needed to take to arrive at the mall. Tara thought that there was another exit further down the road that would take them to the mall. So Karen followed Tara as she had always done, but she kept scanning the horizon, studying the area to their right and keeping a close eye on the small town below them as they trudged across the overpass. They had walked so long that Karen wanted to be at the mall already. She was not about to risk walking right by it.

Karen was becoming tired and thirsty, so the next time Tara asked if they should take a break, Karen gladly agreed. They climbed down into a little ditch next to the busy highway and pulled out their crackers and water to have a snack. When they crawled back up to the road, the sun was much higher in the sky and they were excited to see the artsy arch in the distance announcing the entrance to their destination: the mall!

An ugly brown car flew up beside them and stopped right in front of them. They watched as a stranger stepped out and walked pointedly toward them. They had no idea who he was or what he wanted. As he made them climb into his car, they soon realized that they weren’t going to make it to the mall…