Saucer in the Dunes

47 Empty

The words on the yellow pad my mom kept in the kitchen came easily. I sat at Mom's place at the kitchen table and wrote. I was tired, but the house was empty, and, well, things seemed off. Writing my thoughts helped. I honestly didn't know where they were coming from, only that putting them down on that yellow pad made me feel better, so I did.

'My name is Kurtis James Powell. When my mom calls me that, I am usually in trouble. James is my uncle's name. He is older than my dad. He lives in Mexico now. He is an artist and travels a lot. Anyway, if I am named after someone, that's who I am named after. Kurtis was from nothing. Dad said he insisted my first name be my own. Mom never said one way or the other, only that she wanted a healthy, happy baby and that I fit the bill. So, Kurtis James Powell, it is.

I am not from Kingston. I was born and lived in Atlanta until earlier this year. I like Kingston, though, maybe more than Atlanta. I have made friends too. My friends are Ronnie Bass and Jimmy Hunter. I know a couple of other boys I call friends, too, David Steel and Mike Thornberry, but my best friends are Ronnie and Jimmy, and I don't know their middle names. I also have Indian friends. I should say Creek friends. Dad says they don't call themselves Indians, and I should try to remember that. One of my Creek friends, Tik, said that even they call themselves Indians sometimes. He said it was no big deal as long as it wasn't insulting. I try not to insult anyone.

My Creek friends are Chief Frank Narjoe, his great nephew, Okemah Derisaw (Kema), his sister Rain Derisaw, Tikka Neal (Tik), and Choska Ard (Cho). There are many more Creek kids here in Kingston, too, but outside of the fight we had with them, I haven't seen them again. Kema, Tik, and Cho are all teenagers but are pretty nice to us now, even though we are younger than they are. Rain is so pretty, and I like her eyes and hair. I don't even really like girls all that much, but there is something different about her.'

I detailed as much as I could as neatly as I could about all the events that had happened since moving to Kingston. I had several pages written before I started getting really tired and losing my place. I put the pen down and looked around the kitchen. It was light outside and getting hot, nearly one o'clock in the afternoon, no wonder. Mom should have been home, Dad would have been at work, but Mom should have been home, and she wasn't. I was starving so I went to the fridge to get things to make a sandwich but instead just opened the pack of lunch meat and took a few pieces and at it just like that. I walked through the whole house again, looking in every room to make sure I didn't miss anything. I hadn't. I decided to lie down on the couch. Usually, laying on the couch was frowned upon. Mom let me get away with it if I was sick, but that was about the only time. I didn't care that afternoon; I wanted to see her the second she got through the door.

I was tired, exhausted. My legs were sore, and my feet hurt. It seemed like we had been walking for weeks. I guess we had been lucky to find the fire tower. It kept us safe from the fog or whatever it was. That had been a day ago. We all woke up later that day in the tower, and the fog was gone. It was early afternoon. We gathered all the food we had, everything edible, even candy, and divided it between us. Afterward, the teenagers flipped a coin to decide who got to go out on a scout. We all wanted to go, but Kema said it was better to send one and figure out where we were and how long it would take to get somewhere safe in case the fog returned. We knew we had until nightfall but were unsure where we would be by then.

Kema won the toss, and he got to go out. We all watched him walk the narrow staircase down, all the way to the bottom before we closed the door and waited for his return. The cabin on top was hot, but there were vents in the roof that Tik figured out how to open, and several windows slid open. That helped, but what helped was when Jimmy figured out that propping the door open drew in air from below. We sat around, talked, and took turns using Jimmy's dad's binoculars to scan the horizon, looking for any signs of life or civilization.