Kindergarten(on hold)

Chapter 1

For five years, the parents of Piper feared the night. They tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. Their New Year’s, Fourth of July, Halloween, and Christmas celebrations were put on as loud, warm and colorful as they ever were, but their attendance was dropping every year as more and more people moved away from the cursed town.

In the beginning, it was the subject of whispered sympathetic small talk and meant spending a few seconds extra checking to see if the back door was locked. But only four kids were missing at that time. Then it became ten, then twenty, and then forty. And they all occurred at night. When it hit sixty, fear made herself at home. Piper occupied all the new stations, the newspapers, and conspiracy tabloids as theories like a child slavery ring, hired kidnappers, cults, the beginning of the apocalypse and alien abductions were all given to try to explain how so many children could be disappearing at night, and no one seen anything take them.

They had to pretend they had some kind of control. An eight o’ clock curfew was put in place for anyone under the age of 16 if they didn't have parental supervision. It slowed down the kidnappings for a while, but they still happened. Today was no exception.

 7:30 am

 “Wake up, Charlie!” Alicia yelled in the ear of her younger brother.

“Waaah!” The noise startled Charlie enough to cause him to roll off the other side of the bed.

“Wow. I thought you’re supposed to be the smart one,” she giggled.  When he lifted himself up, he growled at her then went back to bed. “No don’t go back to sleep! Mom told me to wake you up. So get up or you’re gonna make us both late for school!”

She rocked him back and forth, pulled at his dark brown hair, and tried to shove him off the bed again, but he clung to bed like it was a life raft in a rocky sea. “Fine. Then explain to mom that you… What’s this?” She saw the corner of paper sticking out from his pillow. When she pulled it out, he turned around quickly and jumped at her to try to take the paper.

“Give it back, Alicia! It’s none of your business,” he angrily demanded of her. She ignored him and looked at it anyway. It was a detailed colored pencil drawing of a little girl’s face.  She had short red hair, green eyes and freckles, but she had a small sad smile that made her a little uneasy.

“Who’s this, Charlie? Do you have a girlfriend?” She was so distracted by the drawing that she hadn’t noticed that Charlie was standing behind her and holding her blond pigtail.

“Ow wow wow! Let go of my hair, Charlie,” she screamed trying to pull her hair out of his small but unusually strong fists.

“Give it back now!” he was holding on so tight it seemed like he was trying to rip it off her head.

“Fine! Take it,” She threw it at him and he caught it, frantically trying to straighten by running it over the edge of his desk.

“Get out my room. Out out out!” He shoved her out the room and slammed the door behind him.

“Sheesh not even a teenager and already angsty. How he could be so cranky if he sleeps all the time?” she thought. 

9:26 am

  Tai paced nervously in front of his rusting green locker with a manila envelope being crushed in his tight grip. “C’mon, C’mon. Hurry up Danny. Class is going to start any minute. I can’t be late,” he thought running his hand through his red hair. When he saw his friends approaching him he felt a little bit better but he remembered why he was standing there and tried to get them to pass him by pretending to open his locker. They didn’t take the hint.