On the Run by Tristan Bancks Page B

through.”
    â€œI’m going first,” she mumbled, taking her thumb out, sitting up.
    Ben was relieved. But he knew he could not let his seven-year-old sister go down through a trapdoor in the night before him. Even a little sister who acted, and maybe was, slightly braver than him.
    â€œI have to,” he said.
    â€œWhy? Because you’re a boy?” she asked, disgusted, shining the flashlight into his eyes.
    â€œNo, because I’m five years older than you.” Ben was trying to sound convincing, as if he really wanted to go first.
    Olive didn’t say anything more. Nuts, he thought. She could have at least put up a fight.
    He sat and let his legs dangle into the outside world.
    â€œMaybe we should wait till morning,” he said. “There’s no point going out now. What are we going to do?”
    â€œWe’re going out,” she croaked. “We’ve been locked in here forever.”
    He listened for rain. It had stopped. Just the rushing sound of the river.
    â€œGo on,” she said.
    The promise of seeing the river by night was enough to move him. He rested his palms on the floor either side of the hole and lowered his legs through the rough-sawn, splintery square. He scratched his hips and bottom through his shorts as he shoved himself downward. Ben wished that he had made the hole slightly wider. Or that he had kept up his exercises at home or not eaten that entire block of chocolate. The soles of his shoes touched corrugated iron and then earth. He smiled.
    Ben grabbed the flashlight from Olive and forced the rest of his body down through the hole. He knelt and shuffled the corrugated iron and some bottles aside. He looked out into the forest of pines as Olive’s legs appeared through the hole. He heard the gentle rush of the river, the calls of dozens of birds, insects, and frogs. Olive landed heavily and scrambled out from under the cabin.
    â€œWhat are you waiting for, Fatso?” she said.
    â€œCan you not call me names?” he said. “If I hadn’t sawed the hole—”
    â€œCan’t you take it?” she said.
    Ben wondered where Olive had learned to be such a punk. It wasn’t at school. She had always been like this, even before she could speak. Ben trained his flashlight on her. “What if they come back?”
    â€œDon’t care. I’m going. Why else did we make the hole?”
    Ben crawled out from under the cabin. They would go down to the river. He could think more clearly down there. He would make a decision: stay here and wait for his parents for who knows how long, or, in the morning, take off with Olive up to the main road.
    By the time he stood, Olive was already heading downhill.
    â€œWait!” he whispered.
    â€œWhy are you whispering?”
    Ben wasn’t sure. He just felt that he should whisper in a forest late at night. Olive walked boldly into the dark while Ben scanned the ground with the flashlight, thinking every stick was a snake, every shadow a werewolf or zombie.
    He ran to catch up with Olive and grabbed her hand, partly for her sake, partly for his. They were halfway down the hill, almost to the fallen tree that he and Dad had hidden behind, when he heard it. At first it didn’t sound like a car. But Ben stopped, and Olive stopped, and they listened.
    Run, said a voice somewhere deep within him.

 
    THE PLAN
    The car screamed down the final steep section of dirt road, not stopping in front of the cabin but continuing out across the clearing. Why would they park away from the cabin? Maybe it wasn’t his parents’ car. But if it wasn’t, who could it be? Low rumble. Brakes. Engine cut.
    â€œHurry!” Olive pushed Ben up through the hole, scratching his sides and hands. Fresh air and river and freedom disappeared.
    Car doors opened.
    He took Olive’s hands, pulling her up into the cabin in a single movement.
    â€œOw!” she said.
    â€œShhh!” Ben