Tina Chan - imperfect

“Linda, let’s go,” a senior officer yelled. “There’s nobody there.”

“One minute, sir,” replied Linda. She strode towards Kristi. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute, sir!”

Kristi crouched lower to the ground and pressed herself against the wall. Linda kicked over the stack of crates concealing Kristi and shone her flashlight a bit too far to the right. Kristi stopped breathing and began praying Linda would leave, like all her comrades did.

Linda didn’t; she swung her flashlight straight onto Kristi and yelled, “I found someone!”

Kristi made a run for it. She ducked underneath Linda’s arm while Linda fumbled for her handgun. The woods, Kristi thought frantically. The trees should provide some protection from the bullets.

There was just one problem with her plan. In order to reach the woods, she needed to cross fifty yards of open space.

She pounded down the pavement, sneakers slapping loudly. A solar-car crossed by; Kristi seized this opportunity to surge across the road, causing the driver to honk irritably when he slammed on the breaks. The car squealed to a stop less than a foot away from her.

There was a brief moment of silence while Kristi momentarily lost the officers on her trail. Rising walls on either side of her provided plenty of shadows for her to blend into. A door ahead opened and an arm snagged Kristi around her waist, pulling her inside of the stone building. The door slammed shut and someone locked it.

“Seemed like you needed some place to hide,” a voice grunted in the darkness. “Don’t worry, you’re safe here. There’s a hiding place in the fireplace for you if the officers decide to search the store.”

A solar lamp flickered on, allowing Kristi to discern that she was in a bookstore. All the shades were drawn over the windows and the person who pulled her inside was a woman who looked to be in her fifties. The woman thrust Kristi into the fireplace before she had a chance to protest.

“You comfortable in there?” the woman asked.

“Yeah,” she lied, feeling cramped. She was in a hidden compartment within the fireplace; the compartment was just barely big enough to fit a person.

“Alright. I’m going to close the lid over you now.” The woman dimmed the solar lamp and slid the lid above Kristi shut with a click.

It felt like several hours had passed by the time the woman let Kristi out from the fireplace. In reality, only forty-five minutes had elapsed.

“Thanks for hiding me.” Kristi scraped some ash and soot off her skin.

“No problem,” the bookstore keeper said. “I’m so tired of the government sticking their noses in other people’s business. I don’t understand why they can’t just leave people alone. Been here for thirty-six years and every time I see someone running down the street, I let them hide here. Government has stuck their noses in my own business too. God knows that fireplace has seen more thieves, beggars and lawbreakers than any other.”

Kristi wasn’t sure how she felt to be lumped together with criminals. But then again, she reasoned, officially, she was a wanted fugitive. “I really appreciate your help, but I should get going.”

The woman opened the door and let her back out into the streets. “Remember Beth the Bookkeeper if you ever need a safe place to stay,” she said before closing the door.

Kristi took a huge gulp of the crisp, night air. Breathing in fresh air felt heavenly after living off stuffy air for forty-five minutes.

Jaiden was already at the intersection between Rhine Lane and Route 56.

“Thank God, you’re alive,” he said as soon as he saw her approach. He looked rumpled and sweaty, but was otherwise unharmed.

“Never felt so good be alive.”

Less than five minutes passed and Chelsa came jogging over to them with Ghost by her heels. She had scratches on her face and hands; her hair was littered with leaves and twigs.

“I don’t think we should stay in Alma for the night,” Chelsa said. She shook out her hair, displacing some of the sprigs. “It’ll be safer if we camped outside.” Chelsa purposely spoke only to Kristi and ignored Jaiden, still angry with him about his electro-slate.

“I’m sorry,” Jaiden said, catching the drift. “I honestly didn’t know there was a tracker in the slate. I acted inappropriately when you smashed my electro-slate; I understand you were concerned about our safety.”

Chelsa’s expression softened a bit. “Apology accepted.” Then, after an awkward moment of silence, she added, “I apologize too. I shouldn’t have been so rude to you. You didn’t know any better about the tracker in you electro-slate.”

“Apology accepted. So we’re cool, right? No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.”

“Can we move on?” Kristi said. “Save the touchy, feely stuff for later, when I’m not about to fall asleep on my feet.”

“Sure. I found a nice clearing in the woods.”

“Get up! No time for extra snoozing!” Chelsa’s voice brought Kristi out of her slumber.

Kristi grabbed the pillow from beneath her head and smacked Chelsa. Then she settled back down for more sleep. She considered her sleep to be very important.

“I said get up,” Chelsa said.

“Well, then I say shut up,” said Kristi. She wondered when had she and Chelsa started harassing each other in a friendly way. Probably the past couple of days. Surviving so many near-death experiences has an uncanny way of bringing people closer together. The learning centers ought to consider putting students through near-death-scenarios for their teambuilding exercises.

“I might as well get up seeing as I won’t get any more sleep,” Kristi grumbled good-naturedly, wiggling out from her sleeping bag.

“That’s the spirit,” said Chelsa. “There’s no time to waste when we have a long trip ahead of us.”

Kristi noted that Chelsa was already dressed and had her sleeping bag rolled. Jaiden came back into the tent to roll up his own sleeping bag. Seeing no other options, Kristi reproachfully trundled up her own, warm, comfy sleeping bag.

“Here’s breakfast.” Chelsa handed her a protein bar. “I’ll go take down the tent in the meantime.”

Kristi took a huge bite out of the bar. It had a chocolate-peanut butter flavor, which tasted pretty good considering it had expired a week ago.

“Let’s hit the road,” Chelsa said. “We should reach the town of Oxfield by nightfall. Hopefully we’ll be able to refuel without running into any problems. However, we should be even more on our guard after our narrow escape last night.”

“Perhaps we should change our appearances?” Kristi suggested.

“Can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

Chelsa dug out a knife from her boots and motioned for Kristi to come over. “How much of your hair do you want me to cut?” She fingered Kristi’s hair, which almost hung to her waist.

“A bit past my shoulders sounds good.”

Chelsa started hacking away. She worked quickly and efficiently, cutting off hunks of hair. Within minutes, the ground around them was littered with clumps of hair. Jaiden watched with a certain amount of interest, chomping on his breakfast.

“All done.” Chelsa rinsed off her knife with water from her water bottle.

Kristi shook her head back and forth, trying to get used to the lightness of it now that two thirds of her hair had been cut off. I never knew hair could be so heavy.

Kristi looked at Jaiden. “Your turn.”

He stood there, combing through his hair with his fingers. A small songbird fluttered to the ground near his feet, tilting its head. Then the bird picked up a cluster of Kristi’s fallen hair with its tiny beak and flapped away.