Page 7 of Finding Noah

Bag. Daddy needs a bag.

I gagged, then swallowed down the pukey feeling in my belly again as I looked around the disgusting kitchen. The floor was gross, peeling in spots and thick with dirt and who knew what else, but it was empty of things. Not like the floor in the living room at all. The little round table in the corner of the room and the two chairs beside it were all cluttered with stuff. Stacks and stacks of papers and magazines and envelopes, coats, garbage, more dishes and pots …

A backpack caught my eye.

Quietly, I tiptoed over the tiled floor to check it out when a noise behind me made me gasp loudly and drop to the floor beside the table, hoping I was hidden from view. I peeked at the top of a pile of envelopes and quickly noticed the name as I reached for the backpack.

Tomas.

They forgot the H, I thought, thinking about a boy in my first-grade class whose name was also Thomas but spelled the right way.

“What are you doing?”

I peered over a pile of laundry on one of the chairs to see a bigger kid than me. A boy. He sounded like one of the fifth graders at my school, but he looked meaner.

Like Daddy, I thought. He's mean like Daddy … but he's just a kid.

“I see you, stupid,” he said, taking a step into the kitchen.

His eyes were aimed directly at mine. I knew he saw me. I knew it. But fear kept me on the floor, like my knees were glued to the grime-crusted tiles.

“Get up.”

Slowly, I did exactly as he’d demanded, and once I was standing, I felt even smaller. He was a big kid. Maybe even bigger than a fifth grader.

Maybe he’s a sixth grader.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, his upper lip curling into a sneer.

Mommy and Grandma would put soap in my mouth for saying a word like hell, and I wondered if his mom and grandma never did.

I remembered Daddy wouldn't let me tell Tommy my name. I thought he probably wouldn't want me to tell this kid either.

“I-I-I'm not allowed t-to tell you,” I answered.

The big kid laughed. “Says who?”

Just then, Daddy yelled from the living room, “I'm done playing games, Tommy! You give me my fucking money, or I’ll put a hole through your fuckin' foot!”

The big kid turned to look through the doorway, like he only just realized there was someone else in the house besides me. The moment he wasn't looking at me, something in my head told me to run, run, run, and I did. I ran right past him and down a dark, narrow hallway.

All I could think about was the bag Daddy wanted me to get. The bag that would make him happy. I wasn’t sure Daddy was a good person, but these people—Tommy and the big kid—I thought maybe they were worse. Because Daddy still wanted to get me McDonald's. Daddy didn't like when I said bad words, even if he said them, and the big kid was allowed to say hell. And I thought Daddy needed my help more than Tommy did, even though Tommy sounded really, really scared.

“Hey!” the big kid yelled, running after me. His voice squeaked a little bit. “Get over here!”

I ran straight into an open doorway and looked around for a bag, any bag. But the room was so dark, and it smelled like the time Mommy and I had gone camping with Grandpa and Grandma.

“Skunk spray,” Grandpa had told me.

Did a skunk live here too?

I pinched my nose and started to look when the big kid tackled me to the floor. I fell with an oof. He was heavy, and I cried out, unable to pull in a deep breath.

“Daddy!” I screamed as loud as I could. “Daddy! Help!”

I heard Daddy say something through the whooshing sound in my ears as I tried to scramble out from beneath the kid's bigger body. But he punched me right in the face and wrapped his hands around my neck. I tried to cry out in pain as tears began to stream down my face, but I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do anything but claw at the boy’s arms. I pinched my eyes shut, knowing I needed to breathe if I wanted to live, and I couldn’t breathe, so did that mean I was going to die? I didn’t want to die—I didn’t know what that even meant—and I wanted my mommy.

Then, suddenly, I was free to take a deep breath as he was lifted off of me.