Chapter 1: The Girl on the Run
Alice sat alone on her dormitory bed, chewing gum as she tried to finish her art before lights out. As a loner, it was the only time she had to be herself as she always pretended to be cool to everyone.
Her stomach grumbled and she rubbed it in partial pain and disgust. Every night, she gobbled up her meal as fast as possible, snuck out of the dining room to her room before the others got in.
“Can’t believe she would fall for that.” Maya laughed with two other girls with her as they were going into the room.
Alice quickly packed her stuffs and pretended to be idle as they came in. She had never been able to tolerate the girls. She considered them to be weak and chatty.
“Alice, hope you are good?” Veronica asked.
Alice grumbled a reply and wondered why the girl was hellbent on being friends with her.
“Try being less rude, Alice. It is almost a month that we all got to this school and yet you still can’t afford to be polite to us.” Caroline hissed.
Alice only stared at them. She also wanted a normal life but she was a girl with a mission. If only they knew.
She waited for them all to fall asleep before she climbed out of bed, dressed in her favourite black hoodie, leather pants and sneakers. Sneaking out and lightly closing the door behind her, she walked briskly to the back of the school where there was a wall she had spent the previous weeks drilling a hole into. Removing the stack of grass she had used to cover her acts, she crawled out of the school and ran as fast as she could until she was out of sight.
The house was built at the end of the street which made it easy for her to spy without being noticed by another neighbor. From her position where she was perched on the nearest tree, she observed the flurry of activities in the house, noted the time and compared it with what she had observed the previous days. The man arrived home every night by eleven, spent at least twenty minutes in his son’s room and stayed in his study for an hour to do whatever heaven knows. The main thing Alice was concerned about was that all lights went off by one in the morning.
Not later and no sooner than that. Well, she could work with that. Now, all she had to do was to start planning. She hoped she could be free after completing this mission. She didn’t want to think it was a mirage this time.
She had to be free.
She was tired of always being on the run.
