One of these days me and Sammy are going to run away. I’m going to get up super early and tell Mom and Steve that I have to go and set up my volcano. Sammy will tell his parents that he has to practice for soccer before it gets too hot. We’ll meet each other on the road going up to school, but instead of turning left by the stop sign, we’ll just keep walking. We’ll go past the big yellow house and then sneak by the bushes to get around it and out into the woods. We have our food buried in lunchboxes under one of the Christmas trees. Sammy made a treasure map so we’d know where to find it. Inside we have chips and jelly beans and a knife Sammy got from his kitchen so we can hunt birds and stuff. And we’ve got wood out there so we can make a boat. We’ll carry it in the wagon until we get to the ocean and then we’ll sail away to Australia. That’s where Sammy’s uncle lives. He has a big house and Sammy has pictures so we’ll know which one it is when we get there. I wanted to bring a drum but there’s only enough room for Sammy’s harmonica he says. Otherwise we might sink and have to swim all the way and Steve is still teaching me how because I only dogpaddle. We were going to go last week but it was Martin Doctor Luther King’s birthday and I was Dad for the week. We played mousetrap. I wanted to bring that too but Sammy says his uncle will buy one for us when we get to Australia.

     We were leaving the day before yesterday I think, but Robbie saw us after we walked past school. He said that we had to go to school or he’d tell Mrs. Garrety on us. I said it was ok because we would be halfway to Australia even before he could tattle. Robbie said that he wanted to go to Australia and that he wouldn’t tell if we took him with us. I said there wasn’t enough room and Sammy called him a turd-butler. We couldn’t go that day because Sammy had to stay after school for what he called Robbie.

     Another day I woke up super early and I got all the way up to the Christmas tree part of the woods but Sammy didn’t show up. At school he said that he had been late because he didn’t wake up on time. One time I was reading a book about spiders for reading hour and Sammy kept trying to take it because he said it was his turn. I wanted to read it, so I didn’t let him have it. Sammy got mad and said that if I didn’t give it to him he would wake up super-super early and go to Australia without me. I told him that I was going to sneak out at recess and break all the wood. Sammy pushed me and I hit him with the book. Sammy knocked me out of my chair and I started crying. Then Sammy got scared and he started crying too. Then we went to play hide and seek.

     One day, the principal came into Mrs. Garrety’s class and asked her to come out in the hall. They were out there for a long time and when they came back in Mrs. Garrety was crying. The principal told us that we could go home early. I looked at Sammy and Sammy looked at me. We went up to the Christmas trees and dug up our lunchboxes. We were so excited we almost peed our pants. We got the wood and tied pieces together with string and stuff. We were going to put it in the wagon but Sammy started crying but he wouldn’t say why. Sammy did that sometimes.

     I opened up my lunchbox and I took out the jellybeans and put them back in my pocket. I said to Sammy that there must have been pirates who came and took them and that we couldn’t leave yet because we didn’t have enough food. Sammy stopped crying. He said that if we didn’t have enough food we would have to wait to get more. I said we would also have to bury the lunchboxes in a different place so the pirates wouldn’t get them. Plus, one of my teeth was loose and my grandma would give me a silver dollar for it when it fell out. I showed Sammy how I could wiggle it with my tongue and even twist it all the way sideways. But it wasn’t ready to come out yet because I had let Steve try with a piece of Kleenex and he couldn’t pull it. Sammy said yeah, even though it would take a while. Plus, his was starting to get loose too and we could use the money to buy swords and stuff in case the pirates came back.

    I said it was OK.

     We’ll get to Australia one of these days.

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