The Journey Back Read Online Free Page A

in the front yard—old tires and parts of the trucks that my father drove. I was thirteen—no, fourteen—years old and I was in prison because I played a practical joke on the rich neighbor who bought my grampa’s farm. My grampa is in a nursing home now, but it used to be, when things were bad at home, I could escape to Grampa’s. That’s why I hated Mr. DiAngelo so much. He was the snooty guy who bought Grampa’s farm, tore the house down, then built a mansion there so he could show off how much money he had. One day, he even kicked me and my friends off his property. So I played a joke on the a-hole, only the joke went sour and his little boy died. . . .
    For a minute there, the memories stopped. It was like hitting a wall. Everything stopped for me when I thought back on what I done. Which is why I tried not to think back on it. What good did it do? I couldn’t undo the past.
    I went to prison for my crime, but now I needed to get home, so I escaped in a garbage truck, which is how I came to be squashed beneath a ton of garbage.
    The sound of a distant siren pierced the air. I knew if I didn’t crawl out of that garbage and disappear, I’d be right back where I came from with even more time ahead of me. I made a huge push with everything I had and created a tiny space with enough room to wiggle my toes—that was good. Next, I moved my feet up and down, then I started clawing at those slimy bags with my bare hands and slowly inched my way upward. I was like a lowlife worm crawling out of that garbage.
    Pushing, wriggling, clawing, and kicking, I kept at it until my head popped through into the air and sunlight hit my face. I groaned from the force of one more all-out effort and, breathless, tumbled out and down a huge slide chute of slick garbage bags. When I landed at the bottom of that trash mountain, I took a minute to suck in big gulps of air, so much that I thought I’d crack my ribs. It wasn’t exactly fresh air, but let me tell you, it was better than anything at the bottom of that pile.
    The siren sound grew louder. Definitely time to get going. The sun was bright and directly overhead, so I figured it must’ve been around noon. Surely they were on to me now ’cause I had split just after breakfast.
    Looking around, I didn’t see anyone else at the landfill. Dense woods surrounded the place, but I spotted a gravel road that led in and out. The best thing, I decided, was stick to the woods, but parallel the road so I didn’t get totally lost. My legs were cramped up from being crushed by all that garbage, but I hobbled away and as soon as I got the kinks worked out of my muscles, I started running. My boots weren’t exactly great for cross-country, but I ignored the heaviness and ran like a jackrabbit until I was deep in the forest.
    I stopped once to take off my sweatshirt ’cause I was sweating buckets. Tied the sweatshirt around my waist and kept going. I jumped over logs, plunged full force through briars, sprinted uphill, and sidestepped quickly down a rocky hillside like a mountain goat. I could feel a stone in my left boot, but I didn’t stop to get it out. I trotted on through a patch of pine trees where the needles made a soft carpet, slogged through a muddy swamp that tried to suck my boots right off, then jogged through a high-grass meadow until I came upon a shallow stream.
    The water looked clean, so I lay down on the ground and took a long cold drink. While I had my face in the water it dawned on me that the police might try to track me on land and that I might do better by walking up the stream. It was right then—before I plunged my foot in the stream—that I heard the helicopter overhead.
    Thumpathumpathumpathumpathump.
    That would be the state police looking for me!
    Glancing around, I spotted a bunch of juniper bushes nearby, then dashed up the hillside and threw myself beneath the prickly branches.
    I