Page 118 of Lucky 14

How did he find me? I’ve been so careful.

Weston pulls the door open, and I fight. I run at him to try to back him out of the coop so he doesn’t step on the chickens. But it doesn’t work. He pushes me inside, followed by Waylon, and punches me in the face. I drop, clucking birds and feathers going everywhere.

“You’ve been a little shit, you know that?”

I cover my face with my arms. Dad punishes me for being a little shit, and it always makes me feel dirty. Why is Weston saying that to me?

I fight, but Waylon holds me down by my shoulders, and I see Weston pull his pants down, kicking a chicken.

“Don’t kick them!” I scream, but they don’t listen. Of course they don’t listen.

“Why don’t you come back home? Dad says he has something for you.” But the way Weston says it makes me think it’s not a good thing.

When he starts punishing me, I disappear. I float away into the universe I’ve created, where there’s a big wall to keep the monsters out. And I have to check the wall to make sure no one can come in.

When they’re done, Weston stands. I barely hear him leave, but when he does, he says, “Good game, little brother.”

I go back to checking the walls of my world. I check and check and check until something tells me I need to wake up. I need to go.

So I do, running out of the coop to the creek, building up fake walls around me as I run. I’m not afraid. The walls will keep everything out.

I make it to my shelter and build the walls there, three walls deep. Then I build weapons. Big catapults with fiery projectiles. Like knights used.

But what if I get cool things like superheroes used?

Blankly, I look down at the watch that Weston gave me. The special watch. In spy movies, some of the watches are super cool and have all kinds of powers.

Weston did say this was special. Wait. What if it has superpowers? What if he can track me with it?

I decide in my universe, there will be watches that can track bad guys. So I always know where they are all the time.

After that fifth night, I’m too scared to see what happened to the chickens, so I hike to a farm I’ve always seen on the way to the grocery store. There’s a shed in the backyard that looks like a good place to hide. It has a real roof and doors and looks much better than the chicken coop.

I walk up when it’s dark, the best time to stay away. Suddenly, there’s a loud bark, and I jump. A big white dog appears around the corner, barking at me.

I jump back.

The dog barks with its tail down, and takes a step back, looking around like it’s scared. Immediately, I know this is a good dog. He’s just scared.

So I raise my hands. “It’s okay. I’m a good guy.”

The dog keeps barking, so I back away a little, checking the house to make sure no one is watching. The porch light is on, but there’s no movement. Plus, the house isn’t very close to the shed. It’s why I picked it in the first place.

The dog still barks, so I sit in a patch of grass. I wonder if the dog is a boy or a girl? I know they’ll like me when they stop being scared.

Sometimes it takes a while to stop being scared. So I just sit, watching the dirt road in the moonlight. I start telling the dog about my universe. About all the things we do to bad guys. About the walls and the weapons and the cool stuff.

The dog stops barking, but I keep talking. Soon, he sits down and just looks at the road with me.

It’s nice to have someone here. The chickens are good, but they don’t know. I know this dog is smart, just by the way he listens.

Slowly, I inch closer to the dog. If he gets scared and moves, I’ll wait and keep talking. Soon, the dog lets me get close enough to sniff me, and I get a tail wag. I smile and pet the dog’s fur.

“You look like Krypto,” I say into the wind. The dog just looks out with me.

“Do you like that name? Should I call you Krypto?” I look at the dog, seeing that he has a collar with a tag on. Slowly, so I don’t scare him, I check the tag. As soon as I see the name there, my chest feels like it has butterflies in it.

“Huxley!”