Evie

Chapter 1 - Hungry

EVIE

Tomorrow, I would find out my life was all a big lie but today I didn't know that yet.

Hidden behind the bushes, I lay sprayed out on my front body on the yellow, hard grass that Mommy never took care of, not like the other kids' Mommies who kept their front yard neat. But I didn't care. I especially liked the bushes. It made me invisible. I made myself still as a statue. Quiet as a mouse. In my head, I had counted to more than two hundred sheep but I lost count.

I was getting bored out of my mind cause it was really hard to not move at all and I was thinking of giving up when it finally came.

A red car came down the street and stopped near the house next door. The pizza man in a red uniform came out. And I smelled it. Greasy, soft and warm. I felt the hunger scream in my tummy, eating me alive.

Mr. Powers, my third-grade teacher, told the class that when we're really hungry our bodies eat our own fat. I didn't know my own body could eat me alive but it must be true cause grownups know everything, especially the teachers who are smarter than most grownups. After that, I wondered if my hunger would soon grow hands of its own, rip out limb after limb away from me, and eat me alive real slow. Probably my legs would be first cause the legs always taste better. At least, on chickens' cause, I didn't know what humans taste like.

But I wouldn't let my own self eat me. Never.

I never was this hungry on weekdays. Because on weekdays, that's when I had school lunches but now it is summer. So there was no school for everybody. No food for me. I had to figure it out myself.

The man put down the white box, knocked two times, and turned his back. I knew I only had a little time. Maybe twenty seconds or ten. Or less.

I sprang up and ran as fast as I could. I was the fast runner in the town. I had to because people loved to chase me. But they never caught me before. They were too fat and slow. And I was too skinny and fast.

I opened the pizza tray and grabbed two slices. It was pepperoni, my favorite. It was hot and my stomach growled again. Louder than before.

The front door swung open and Mrs. Nelson's wrinkled face appeared. I heard a boy crying inside the house. "Blast! It's the little brat again" She yelled as her face flustered in anger. "Stealing my food again, aren't you?"

She reached for me. I jumped back before she could grab me. I folded up the pizzas in half and held them tight in my fists so no one could take them away from me. I ran.

"Wrecked girl, come back!" She raged at my back. I didn't need to look back to know she wasn't chasing me. She was too old and weak. "I'll get you one day! Mark my word, you little thief!"

She'll never catch me, I thought.

Mrs. Nelson was a mean old lady who lived with her son his wife and their little boy. She didn't always live here. I heard she lived near the sea where it was always peaceful with no girl stealing her stuff until she fell down the stairs and was stuck for a long time. After that, Thomas, her nice son, decided to let her live with his family and take care of his mother.

Thomas was a very nice man. His wife was nice too. They gave me some food each summer when they had leftovers. But Thomas wasn't nice after all cause he left forever for a more pretty girl. Her wife cries all of the time and forgot all about me. Mrs. Nelson hated me.

Now there was nobody to give me food in the summers when there were no school lunches. There was the trash place where people threw away all kinds of food but the truck took it all away on Saturdays. And today was a Sunday.