On the Run by Tristan Bancks

Mountain in two sittings, one before lunch and one after. They had taken turns to read aloud and had finished the book by flashlight as the sun abandoned them for the day. Ben had never loved reading. He liked movies or a teacher reading them a book, but he did not like wading through millions of words alone. But this book played on the movie screen in his mind, like when he imagined his films. No one was showing him pictures but he could still see them.
    Olive had peed in the cup. She had made Ben turn his back and reminded him of the time that he made her drink apple juice. Well, he had told her it was apple juice but it was not. It was something else. Something that looked like apple juice, but he had made it himself. Ben laughed but he still felt bad. Why did he do those things to her? It was as though there was a bad-Ben inside him, forcing his hand.
    My Side of the Mountain had given them comfort and light and warmth, but when it was done all they had was heavy rain, leaks spattering the floor around them, and small, unseen animals making nests in the darkest corners.
    After dinner Ben had said, “Let’s get some sleep. Tomorrow, this day will feel like a dream. They’ll be here when we wake up, you wait.”
    â€œLiar,” she had said, darting across the cabin to grab her saucepan and heading for the window.
    â€œStop. We don’t want to be out there at night. And we don’t want to smash anything. Think what Dad will do.” Ben had already been thinking about a way out of the cabin that would not get them into too much trouble if Dad came back. And if they really had been abandoned, they needed to be able to come and go without smashing a window. “Why don’t we cut a hole in the floor, something we can cover up. A trapdoor.”
    â€œI love trapdoors,” Olive had said.
    â€œI know that.”
    She lowered the saucepan. “What do we cut it with?”
    Ben had pulled his knife out of his pocket, shoved the small, rusty green metal trunk across the floor. He had run his fingers over the pine floor, found a small knothole about a foot away from the wall, and started to cut away at the board.
    â€œThat’ll take ten years!” Olive had said. “Lemme smash the window.”
    It did take a long time to get going, and the blade stuck regularly in the wood, but Ben was determined. Olive held the flashlight, but her mind wandered and so did the flashlight beam.
    â€œThis is payback for those dirty dogs leaving us,” she said.
    Ben moved the blade back and forth, back and forth. Dirty dogs. Dirty dogs. Those words sawed through him. Dirty on the forward motion of his saw. Dogs on the backward. The more he thought, the more he sawed, the more he became certain that he and Olive needed a way out, that maybe Mum and Dad were gone for good. But why would they do that? Why would they lock Ben and Olive in?
    â€œDo you think he’s real?” Olive asked, sitting above Ben on a camp chair.
    â€œWho?” Ben asked. Dirty dogs. Dirty dogs.
    â€œSanta.”
    Ben stopped sawing. He looked around the dark room. “Who said anything about Santa?”
    â€œJust me.”
    Ben started sawing again. “Yes. He’s real.”
    Olive was quiet.
    â€œDo you think kids in Africa are dying right now?”
    â€œMaybe,” Ben said. “I guess so.”
    â€œAre other kids in Africa getting born?”
    â€œYeah. Of course.”
    â€œWhy don’t kids in Africa get Christmas presents?”
    â€œThey do,” Ben said, wiping sweat off his face with his shoulder.
    â€œNo, they don’t.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Ben wanted to work in silence, but at least the chatter stopped him from thinking about Mum and Dad and what they had done.
    â€œMovies,” Olive said. “In Christmas movies Santa never goes to Africa.”
    â€œReally?” he asked, surprised. He tried to think of one where they