Sunday, August 5, 2012

There were murmurs behind me, the guard and the janitor having a brief word about something, or someone, passing through. 
The sound of pounding feet reached my ears, and then I was running, flat out - blurring as I moved - running. 
This was breaking and entering - well not the breaking part. But still. If Mom found out, there would be hell to pay.
That was a whole new motivation for evasion, and escape. 
~Raffin

Monday, June 11, 2012

I saw the guard and slid into my natural speed as a tiny pang of panic gripped me.


Then, I did the worst thing I could have done. I waited for the flickering overhead light to go dark in the the open doorway, and slipped past the janitor into the school.


I knew he felt the fabric of the cloak as I went, and then I was around the corner and into the hallway, classroom doors on either side. 


The place looked like any other school, white tiles and walls, handmade banners and announcements taped up to them, or locker doors.


It was pandemonium in my brain for a fraction of a second, because the halls were lit. I could read the announcements on the bulletin board loud and clear.


And that meant one thing - they would see me.


~Raffin

Friday, June 8, 2012

Lurking in the shadows of a building only works well when no one has a flashlight. When they do, all bets are off.


Mr. 'Happy Security Guard' had two flashlights, one larger, one smaller, and a can of pepper spray. Not to mention a radio.


This was going to make my night interesting. 


~Raffin

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

It was early evening, after dinner, when I decided to sneak down to the high school.


I thought dusk would allow me to blend in better. That all the students and teachers, and everyone else would be gone for the day.


Wrong.


I reached the school just fine, and there were no peers or faculty to hinder my exploration. There was, however, a janitor, and one very nosey security guard.


~Raffin

Friday, June 1, 2012

My venture out and about into the neighborhood had gone unnoticed by Mom, so I decided to go check out the high school.


Might as well see when I would be getting my 'education'.


~Raffin

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Another day, and a visit to the store, got me my stars - and a new bedspread.


The spread didn't come cheap though. There was a sharp look from Mom, and the threat of this being the last one for a year. 


Not this year, a year.


~Raffin

Monday, May 28, 2012

Back in the shadowed safety of my room for the evening. Laying on my shredded bedspread, staring up, the ceiling seems kind of bare.


It's stark and white. I want to see some stars, but that is kind of hard with a roof overhead.


I think about it for a moment, and then make a mental note to get some 'stars' for my new night sky, up there on my ceiling.


~Raffin

Saturday, May 26, 2012

The day's adventure out in my new neighborhood quickly revealed a chilling reality. My family and I are not alone in Rock Creek.


I mean, we are not the only 'immigrants' around here. The whole area shows signs of others. Dangerous others.


~Raffin

Thursday, May 24, 2012

I mostly stayed close to the edge of the woods on my 'nature walk', skirting the manicured lawns.


Twice I might have been seen by people in their yards, but moving at my natural speed I was nothing more than a black blur. Some tall unsavory shadow by a tree, there one second, and gone the next. 


And then, I got braver and decided to go a little deeper into the woods. See what was hanging around, lurking in the area. And by what - I mean who.


~Raffin

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

I decided to get away from the house for a while. Check out the neighborhood, and my new surroundings. 


Mom wouldn't be pleased, and she'd say 'no' to the idea, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. So, I donned my cloak and slipped out and down the stairs.


A few steps to the woods and I was free amongst the leafy shadows. 


Well, almost free. It's no secret that there are some fairly dangerous things in the woods, and I'm not talking about things like coyotes or bears.


~Raffin

Monday, May 21, 2012

I finally got up the nerve to show Mom what remains of my new bedspread. She was not happy.


~ Raffin

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Blog post number six? Yeah, this is six. 


So, Mom tried to wrangle me into going door to door with her. I said no. What can I say, I'm not a people person.


But I decided to stand out on the lawn and watch her walk from house to house anyway. 


Standing there, getting bored and hot in the sun, I watched her walk up to house number three. The one kitty-corner down the road from us.


A girl my age opened the door. Her long reddish-blonde hair fell around her face as she smiled at Mom. 


She was tall for a girl. Just a couple of inches shorter than me, with nice legs.


Hmm. Maybe living here and trying to make friends wouldn't be so bad...


~Raffin

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Mom is being overly neighborly today.


She got the idea to go visit everyone on the block to introduce herself, even though I told her that in such a small town they'd come to us.


I know exactly what she's up to. She's going around house to house to see how many kids there are my age on our street.


It's sweet. It really is, her wanting me to make friends and all, but I am perfectly fine in the shadows.


~Raffin

Friday, May 18, 2012

Today is fantastic.


Mom has decided that since I've been so weak the past couple of days, it's not a good idea to start school just yet.


I get another week before I have to be 'Mr. Social'.


And in the meantime I can work on that backlog of class work we got from the school, that I've been putting off.


Not that I don't know all of it already.


~Raffin

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Moving both dressers upstairs was a real pain, even with the three of us carrying them.


For a fraction of a second, just a fraction, I missed my old room on the ground floor.


With my furniture finally in place, the new one looked really - big - and empty. Oh well, plenty of time to fill it up with stuff in two years, right?


The only problem was, with all of my packing boxes in the room, and the dressers in, I had to unpack everything.


So yeah, guess what I've been doing for the last couple of hours.


For a minute I thought I'd lost something important. I couldn't remember packing my cloak. The sleek black fabric is perfect for moving through the shadows.


It wasn't in my bag, but I finally found it in the bottom of packing box number three. 


Later
~Raffin

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

BOOK TEASER:
Moving Day...

It was moving day, again. Just like clockwork, every couple of years we moved from one city to the next. I hated going from something settled and semi-content, to chaos and slight friction again. This time though, it might not be as bad. At least now I’d get a huge room. My own space, not even connected to the house. 


What had once been an office above the two car garage – at the new place – was now my room. Six hundred square feet all to myself. It was almost worth picking up and moving three weeks into my senior year. Almost


The move was so routine, I didn’t even glance out the car window as we pulled into the drive. I just got out, grabbed my pack, and headed back to the moving truck parked at the curb. I gave a slight nod to the driver as he opened the back, climbed up, and started looking for boxes with my name on them. 


“Raffin, be careful up there. Don’t overexert yourself,” Mom called from the car.

I rolled my eyes like always. 

“Never going to have any kind of life the way I am.” I muttered to myself, finding one box with my handwriting, and then two. 

“Look on the bright side! I’m sure there are lots of nice kids in this neighborhood. Maybe you’ll make some friends,” she added encouragingly. 


I gritted my teeth. Moving to a new town wasn’t going to change the fact that I’d never been much of a people person, but with each new place, she was always hopeful that I’d find someone outside of home to confide in. The fact was, I would have been happier if I could have just stayed in the darkened safety of the back of the moving truck, and never had to set foot on any school grounds again. 


“Need some help?” Dad was suddenly standing right beside me. 
I tensed, took a breath, and shook my head.


“Nope. Just trying to read Mom’s writing on this other box.” I squinted.


He grinned. “It says, ‘Raffin’s clothes’.” That grin turning to a smile as he placed a soft hand on my shoulder.

Actually focusing on it now, I could see the plain script. I grabbed the box and stacked it on top of the other two, my eyes already searching for another. 


“She means well Rafe. She’s just concerned. You’ve been a little weaker than usual today. All the stress. And maybe, some other things?” He murmured, a leading question.


I forced a smile. “Relax Dad. I’m just tired. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Then I crouched to pick up the boxes. I wanted to get out of there, fast. I was already down off the back of the truck, and half way up the lawn, when he called, “But listen to your mother,” with a grin. 

I rolled my eyes, as I reached the stairs to the space above the garage. A heart beat later, I opened the door to my new space. The air was musty and I sighed as I walked through the little foyer into my room, a box spring and mattress the only furniture there. 


I dropped the boxes beside the end of the bed and frowned. No use opening the one labeled ‘clothes’ until my dressers were up here. I set that box aside and opened another. 

As I pulled out my brand-new bedspread, tags still on it, I remembered why I had packed it myself. I held it up and frowned. Not even a week and the thing was in tatters, shredded seams and rips everywhere. This was the third bedspread this year. Mom wasn’t going to be happy about that. 

I dropped the thing back in the box, flopped down on the bare bed, and stared up at the ceiling. I lay there, enjoying the quiet darkness, and thought about tomorrow, my first day at yet another new school.


I glanced at the shredded bedspread again and sighed. If all went well, I would blend in with my peers, be just another face in the crowd. No one would ever know my secret.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Gaw. I can't believe I'm doing this, but here it goes, blog post 'numero uno'. Haha. Yeah, this is going to be interesting.


Um, let me start by saying I have never been to a blog-thing before, or made one. I don't expect anyone to really read this. It's more of a journal type thing.


Are you supposed to sign these things? Oh well, I'll sign it anyway.


~Raffin