March 7, 2001:

I have been planning and stashing, stashing and planning. How do I run away from home? So far I have $236.25 stashed for the trip and I have been packing an old school bag of mine with supplies I will need to keep me safe and, even better, alive. The things I’m bringing are….
$236.25
My guitar
Energy bars
Survival blanket
A change of clothes
My phone
Water
Non-perishable food items

Saturday will be that day I run away. Today is Wednesday, of course only a few more days until I run… I’m nervous, make that really nervous! I don’t even know if the dream was real or not! This is killing me on the inside. Maybe I should wait and see if I have one more dream. Then, I’ll know for sure that this is not some random thing…

I go to sleep that night and have the same exact dream, except that this time I woke up in the bathroom, sitting in an empty bathtub. “Okay, this is really weird…” I think to myself. “How is this happening?” I get out of the bathtub and walk to my room. I get dressed for another day of school, which of course takes me 20 minutes. Then, I go to eat breakfast which has no blueberry pancakes left. So, I decide to go to my room and feed Jimmy.
March 10, 2001

The days go by as I prepare to leave home and I am done packing. I am taking a cab today at 10:00 am while my mom is at work. I am running away. ( That sounds weird when you say it.) But, I have to do it; It’s my “destiny” (SPARKLE SPARKLE!!!). It sounds ridiculous but, I seriously believe in this. So I have to go… I have to go…
“Holy crap! It’s 9:55! I really do have to go!” I say to myself. I’m going to miss my cab. I run down the stairs with all my belongings and walk out the door to see a cab waiting for me. I run into the cab and realize I forgot something… JIMMY!!!! “Wait one second please I forgot something in the house!”
“Okay, take your time. I’m charging by the hour.” The cab driver said.
“But, I thought cab drivers charge by how far they drive you-”
“Times a wasting!”
I run back into the house and grab my bird, his food, and his travel carrier. “Okay, I think I’m ready now…” I run back outside and hop in the cab. “Okay how much would it cost for you to drive me to Maine?”

“Maine? You want me to bring you to Maine?? That means I have to cross state borders and pay fees and do all this unnecessary sh** I don’t feel like doing. I’ll bring you to the border and that’s it. Got it?”

“Okay, I ‘got it’”, I say. He drives. And he drives… and drives… drives… drives… It has been three hours…

We finally get to our destination, Berlin, Vermont, and he says to me, “Okay that will be $332.20”, he holds out his hand.
“Ummm…” I throw $10 at him and run off,” Bye!”

“Hey! Get back here you little brat!!” he starts to drive like he wants to run me over.

“Just keep running he can’t get you now…” I look around me, “Where can I go???” I am finally able to think again and an idea comes to me, “The Restaurant!”

I dash to the restaurant across the street in hopes that the cab driver doesn’t catch up. A thought occurs to me… “What if he calls the cops!?!?!” Great I’m in deep “doo-doo” now. Not only will my mother want my head but, this crazy cab driver’s gonna kill me too! “ Is this trip even worth it?” I walk into the restaurant trying to look casual, “Oooo! This restaurant serves lobster!”, and as I soon found out, all of the restaurants around the border of Maine served lobster.

“Uhhh… Who are you?” some random girl came up to me and said.

“I’m Jenna, who are you?” I say.

“I’m Kailee and I've never seen you around here before. Where are you from?” She asked me suspiciously. But surprisingly, after that moment, we were inseparable. We were the perfect friends, two peas in a pod. (It was weird actually, like there was someone who sent her to be friends with me and sabotage me or even worse kill me… But, that’s ridiculous, who would ever do that? The Joker?) With all suspicions behind me, I spent the rest of the day with Kailee. She showed me around town, showed me the best restaurants, all of the best roads to travel on. She is like a walking Siri!!! And at the end of the day when i said,”Well, I have to go home now.”

“Why go home? You can stay the night at my house!!!” she says to me with an excited tone.

“I don’t think I can tonight, you know, because it’s my first night here. But, maybe tomorrow I will.” I say to her feeling kind of guilty.

“Okay…” she says walking away sadly.

“Wait!” I yell, “I guess I can stay… but, just for tonight.”

“Yay!!” she hugs me. I can tell she doesn't have too many friends.
I go over to her house with my bag in hand and start to wonder if I’ll ever make it to Maine. Kailee is nice, and fun to hang out with but, I can’t let her keep sidetracking me like this. One more day and I will be out of Vermont and hello Maine!
When we get to her house I see that it is a lot nicer than I expected. There were fancy pillars, windows, and even the door was a work of art. She unlocks the door with, of course, a fancy key and she walks in.
"Aren't you coming in?" She says to me.
"Yeah. I just need a second to let this float my mind."
"What?"
"Never mind." I walk in cautiously. The house is white everywhere. It's almost blinding! We first go through the kitchen where she offers me a snack.
"Would you like something to eat?" She asks me politely. Her mood hasn't changed in a while. She seems too "peppy" for me to spend a whole lot of time with.
"I just have to spend the day with her", I think to myself before I actually say what I would like for a snack. "I'll have water please." I say in hopes of not sounding greedy,
"What kind would you like?" She asks.
"Wait, there are different types of water?" I ask in confusion. In my case there is only bottled water for drinking and nothing more than that as far I knew.
She opens her fridge and says,"Go ahead, pick one."

So I look and she has so many different types of bottle water. It looks like her house is a grocery store. I'm looking through all of the bottles in hopes of finding a brand I know and I finally find, way in the back, a bottle of dollar store water. I grab it and she looks at me with a strange gaze and says, "Are you sure you would like that?"
"Yeah, it's the only water I'm used to drinking. I drink it at home all the time."

"You've never tried Fiji or Poland Springs?" Now she is looking at me like I'm an alien... "We'll no, I haven't" (Apparently it's a crime if you have never drank those brands of water.)
"I know what we can do!" She says to me almost like she is about to bounce through the ceiling. "We can have you do a "wine testing"-"
I cut her off," I'm not allowed to drink wine".
"I know neither am I. You didn't let me finish. I was going to say a "wine testing" with water instead of wine"
"Wouldn't that just be water testing though?"
"No water testing is for ph and such."
"Okay..." So, she makes me test every single type of water she has in her fridge and she makes me choose my favorite out of all of them. I ended up saying the dollar store one. She was puzzled, very puzzled.
The night goes on with almost no sleep at all and when I wake up in the morning she is passed out. "I wonder when she will wake up? Would it be best for me to leave right now? No I'll come up with something that will get her to let me go. A funeral or something. That's it!" I pondered about a few more things before Kailee actually wakes up.
"What should we do now?" She asks me.v
"We'll actually, I have to get going."
"Whyyyyy!!!!!!!" She yells
"I have to go home and help my dad unpack," it's the best I could come up with.
"I'll go help you then!"

“But, you can’t!” I say just a little too loudly.

“Oh okay…” Her face starts to droop and she starts to slump away.

“I’m sorry” I say in what I thought was a whisper but, apparently she heard me.

“Wait! So can I come?” She asks sniffling.

“No, but I promise I will hang out with you again some time it’s just that I have to get some important business done.” And I walk away.

Now I finally cross the border. I am in Maine and it turns out that every single restaurant is required by law to serve lobster. I start to put my guitar to use and start playing on the street to make some money. I’m already down to $186.02 and I need to make some more money unless I want to be chased down by another cab driver. At first business is slow, very slow, okay it was so slow that I only got a quarter… Embarrassing I know. But, I found out what the problem was; I was too quiet. So, I turned up the volume in my singing and my guitar and I started getting dollar bills everywhere. One guy even gave me a $50 bill! I ended up with $200 more dollars than I started with and went for a bus instead of a taxi this time. A bus is a lot cheaper! I payed my tolls for the buses and ended up taking 10 just to get to the coast. When I arrive to the beach all I see is a ton of trash and a boy, around my age, picking it up with a pointy metal rod and a bag. I walk over to him and say, “Wow, it must be a lot of work to pick up all that trash!”

“What’s it to you.” He says with an attitude.

“Well, I was just wondering; do you want some help?”

“No, now leave before you make this worse than it has to be.”

Now I’m thinking to myself,”Woah! You did not just talk to me like that!” but, I have to stay calm and collected so what I really say is,” Okay but, will you at least tell me your name?”

“Michael. Bye.”

I walk over to the street and see that there are a few more bags and pointy things. I grab one and start to clean the opposite side of the beach that he is.

“What are you doing here? I told you to leave!” He yells at me.

“Listen, Mike, I have traveled all the way from Vermont by cab and by bus just to get to the Atlantic Ocean. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get there. Even if it means that I have to deal with your attitude!” I yell across the beach to him.

“Wait, why are you here anyways?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“Yep”

“And you won’t think I’m crazy?”

“Sure”

“Fine I’ll tell you then. It all started one ordinary day. It was a Monday and I fell out of bed and slumped towards the kitchen…” We kept cleaning and talking and talking and cleaning. I ended my story with a,”Well, now I’m here. The end.”

He stops me right there and says, “Wait, your story isn’t over we still have to get out to the ocean. Well, I mean, only if you want it to be we.” He blushes.

“Yes, it can be we” I say. Oh and trust me the conversation doesn’t end there! We kept talking till the sun went down and we had finally cleaned the whole beach. After the sun went down I asked him, “Well, what should we do now?”

“You, could come to my place, you know, cause yours is all the way in Vermont.”
"I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't.”
“What’s the harm?”
“Oh trust me. There are a lot that can come to my mind.” I say rolling my eyes. “Do you have a guest bedroom?”
“Of course I do!” He looks at me like I just called him stupid.
“Okay I guess I can stay over but, first thing tomorrow we are coming right to this spot.”
“Okay.”
I can’t believe how sidetracked I’m getting!!! It’s horrible!!! First this girl Kailee makes me stay the night at her house because she wants to be best friends and now Mike wants me to stay at his house… great… So, we start to walk to his house, which isn’t too far away, and suddenly my phones starts ringing. “Bring” “Bring” Bring”, “Sorry. I have to see who this is. One second.” I look and it’s my mom calling, “Jeez, what took you so long to call? It’s been 3 days!!” I decline the call,”Nobody important.” I say while shoving my phone back into my pocket.
“Can I see your phone for a minute?” Mike asks me with his baby blue eyes staring me down. I want to say no because I really don’t need a relationship but, I cave and say, “Sure, you can see it.”
He takes the phone and puts his number in. “Thanks.” he says as he hands it back to me. I smile at him and he smiles back. We chat a little on the way to his house but, not very long because it only took about 5 minutes to get there. We arrive to his house and he opens the door for me.
“Thank you.” I say as I look around his house; it’s just a little bit bigger than mine, “Is your mom okay with this?”
“I hope so I’m gonna go ask right now.” He says as he runs to the kitchen. I slap my forehead, “Hey Mom?”
“Yes sweety?” She asks him in a very sweet, high pitched tone.
“Can I have a friend sleep over tonight?”
“Sure, who is it? Bobby? Denny?”
“No. It’s my friend Jenna…” He definitely said Jenna quiet enough.
“What did I tell you about girls, Michael?”
“Mom! Come on! She can hear you! She’s in the living room!!”
“Sorry honey. You know she is sleeping in the guest room, correct?”
“Yes Mom!”
“Okay, have fun.”
“Gee thanks…”
The rest of the night wasn’t so awkward because the two of us played war, go fish, and traded some of the sea shells we found early today. When it was time to go to bed the futon was all set up for me in the guest room so, I just threw my stuff on the floor near the futon and fell asleep.
In the morning I was awakened by Mike nudging on my shoulder, “Hey, come on! We gotta go to the ocean today. Like, right now!” he says to me.
I slump out of bed, as usual, and we go to the kitchen. “Oh no. This is bad. This can’t be happening to me! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!” My mom is sitting at the kitchen table. “Oh god…” I say under my breath.
“I had to do it…” Mike says. He looks like he is going to cry.
“But, but how?” I ask in confusion.
“When I put my number in your phone, I got your mom’s number.” He says with guilt.
“I guess I’ll go get my things and we will leave.” I walk into the guest room grab my backpack, I open the window and jump out. “I hope they didn’t hear that!” I start to run and hope they don’t find me. If it’s only 5 minutes to the beach by walking, I should be able to get there in 2 ½ minutes by running. I finally get to the beach. The running felt like the longest 2 ½ minutes of my life! I see a couple who are jet skiing. “Hi! Can I borrow the skis for a moment?”
“I guess so, hop on! Where do you need to go?”
“The middle of the ocean.”
“Okay then, anything for someone who cleaned the beach!”
“Wait, how do you know that?”
“You made it in the paper!”
“Oh my gosh! We need to hurry up. I have some business to take care of after this.”
“Okay, let’s go!” We drive to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and we all saw a huge whirlpool that I saw in one of my dreams.
“That’s where I need to go.” I jump into the whirlpool. I see Poseidon and he motions me towards him.
“You shall now receive your powers.” He took a wave of water and washed it over me. It was really salty.
The next thing I know I am being given CPR by the woman who drove the jet ski for me. I cough,”What’s going on?”
“You just drowned! Why did you jump?” She asks me.
“Because it gave me special powers.”
“We need to get you to a hospital. Come on!”
“No!" I yell and I suddenly start flying in the air. “Thanks!” I yell as I fly away to Mike’s house. I see him sitting in the driveway.
“Why did you lie to me?” I ask him.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t call my mom. She read it in the newspaper!”
“Oh, that well I didn’t want you getting even more mad at your mother than you already are-” I kiss him.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.” I grab his hand and we run back to the beach. We sat and counted the seashells on the shore.

Mike and I are now married and have one amazing son, Jacob. We built a house on the coast of Maine and we go out to the ocean every morning and every evening. It is beautiful out here and it is close enough to Mike’s mom’s house, so that we can still visit every week. And for my mother, she still hasn’t talked to me and I feel really guilty. But, it was what I had to do; It was my destiny ( SPARKLE SPARKLE!!!) THE END!!