The Adventurers, Ch. 4

November 1st, 2005

If you're new, you should probably read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3 first. And the Saga continues...

THE ADVENTURERS - Chapter 4

Beau, Curtis, and Jerry were led down the street to a room adjacent to the town jail. They went inside and were thrown into different rooms. Jerry was flung into the opposite wall from the entrance door. He slammed his face on it, hard. The guard closed the heavy door with a muffled thud and locked it. Jerry looked around the room and found a built, blonde boy looking at him from the shadows.

"Hello." called out Jerry.

The boy came out of the shadows and stood leaning on the wall. He was dirty and looked like the kids on the orphanage Jerry had come from: overworked and underfed.

Then the boy spoke, "You must'a done something pretty bad to get into this place. Did you kill someone?"

"Are you crazy? I'd never do something like that." Jerry was mad that someone could think that of him. But then Jerry did look like the kind who killed. He was rough looking and dirty all over. He had some bruises from the fight with Gus, Mark, and Curtis. "I just got caught stealing." The boy seemed relieved by the answer and asked Jerry his name.

"Jerry. What's yours?"

"Mine's Jason. I've already been here four months. I'm one of the newest prisoners. I've almost been here five months."

"You mean this is like a real jail?" asked Jerry with a touch of fear in his voice.

"A little, but not as bad as people tell me of the real jail. I think this is just kids. Then they let us go when we're too old and hope that we've learned our lesson. They tell me that the jail is packed and there's no space for another single person."

"So what did you do to make them take you in here?"

"Well, my folks were poor so they told me they couldn't support me anymore. So they kicked me out. I had no work. No one hires eleven year olds to do their work. So I started stealing."

"Food?"

"No, man. Money. I taught myself how to purse snatch in a week. I stole for about two years, then they caught me trying to grab a guy's wallet. Hey, but those people I stole from deserved it. They were rich, cocky, and didn't even glance at the poor and homeless. I never steal from the poor."

Jerry then told Jason how he ended up here. Jason was impressed by his story. Then three guards came and took Jerry and Jason out. They led them through a huge door where a fat, blubbery man was passing out trays. He was eating a twinky. Jerry took a tray and entered a large mess hall. There were already a couple of kids in there. The room smelled of rotten eggs, with a faint smell of ketchup. The guard put them in a line and told Jerry and Jason a number. Jason said that was the number for your assigned place on the table. Jason's number was fifty. Jerry's was sixty-five.

After getting a lump of unidentifiable food, Jerry went to sit in his assigned place. His was at the last occupied chair. Curtis sat on his left and Beau sat at Curtis' left.

"This is the worst place I've ever been in." said Curtis as Jerry was sitting down. Curtis pointed to his food. "I mean, look at this, what in the world is it?"

"Looks like Jerry's head." said Beau smiling. Jerry's hair was a tangle of dried dirt.

Jerry replied, "Food is food. And this is all they're gonna feed us in the whole day."

"Reminds me of old tires." Curtis said.

"We have to escape!" Beau sounded determined. "I've got it all figured out. Next time they take us out of those prisons, I'll knock one guard down while my roommate gets the other. The other guard will only be able to grab one of us. That will be my roommate. Then I run and escape."

Jerry and Curtis looked at him as if he was from another world.

"Okay, okay. So it's a stupid plan. What else can we do? Nothing. We're stuck here until we're eighteen. Stuck to eating I don't even want to know what and working 'til our eyeballs pop out from the exhaustion. Then we go to sleep on damp beds filled with lice and end up being whipped the next day because we were scratching instead of working." Beau was panicking.

Then Jerry had an idea. "Wait. That's it."

"What's it?" asked Curtis.

"We'll work hard."

"Huh?" said Beau.

"What?" said Curtis.

"They'll never expect us to try to escape if we're working hard."

"And how are we supposed to escape?" asked Beau.

"You're forgetting Mark and Gus didn't get caught. You don't really think they'd just leave us here and forget about us, do you?"

"Of course not." they said together.

"So they'll probably contact us before time, and that's when I'll tell them my plan."

"Which is...?" said Beau.

While they ate, Jerry told them his plan. At first they seemed skeptical but after five minutes they were sure it was going to work. Then the guards came and told everyone to get out and work. So everyone did.

Jerry and a skinny blonde boy were assigned to carry heavy sacks containing unknown substances. Jerry carried them on his right shoulder and after a while, he switched them to his other shoulder. Then he tried switching them to other positions, but the only thing that improved was that he could no longer smell the rotting sack. The skinny boy was doing much worse than Jerry. Jerry had already carried twice more than him. The boy's routine was drop the sack, get whipped, pick up the sack, walk a few yards, drop the sack, get whipped, and so on.

After what seemed like a week but was only a few hours, they were permitted a short rest. Jerry approached the boy.

"Hey, you." Jerry called out. "What's your name?"

The boy looked as if Jerry meant to hit him, but he asnwered in a faltering voice, "Alex."

He spoke so softly that Jerry had trouble hearing. He's probably one of those guys who can't talk to people he doesn't know, Jerry thought.

"Listen," Jerry said, "you're gonna die if you don't get yourself out of this place. Ever thought of escaping?"

Alex now got his confidence back at the thought that Jerry didn't want to hurt him. He shook his head no.

"Well, now's the time to think about it. Me and some others are planning to escape soon. Just let me know if you want to come with us." Jerry started to walk away.

"Wait!" called out Alex. "Okay, I'll do it."

"Good. I'll let you know what to do soon."

Jerry now counted the boys trying to escape. Let's see, he thought, there were Curtis, Beau, himself, Jason, Alex, Justin who was Beau's roommate, and John who was Curtis' roommate. That made seven. Add to that Gus and Mark. With nine people the plan would probably work out.

The guards made them all go back to work. Jerry's shoulders hurt and he was relieved to be assigned the job of pushing crates. At least his legs were in good shape. But soon his legs were also sore. By the time he and Jason went to sleep, Jerry's muscles were cramping up by the minute.

Jerry had a restless sleep that night. He woke up every hour and had nightmares. He could only remember that they had something to do with the orphanage.

[end of Chapter 4]