Revenge

Growing up we had a camper trailer parked in our yard. We’d slept in this camper every summer since my parents purchased it. My family only took in on one camping trip – we were just not the camping type.. even in this luxury roll out beauty. Even though it only made it into the actual mountains one time I think my mom found it as the best investment she’d ever made. After all it kept all five of us kids out of the house and entertained all summer long. We spent many long hours in our very own heaven on wheels.

One particular summer night in July my best friend Brittany and I claimed the camper for the night. My mom agreed that it was our turn and we had approximately ten hours of pillow talk until my brother and cousin would be pounding down the door to take over.

We packed the trailer with enough food to feed an army. Graham crackers, frosting, licorice, popcorn, cookies, twinkees, Kool-Aid… more sweets than should be consumed by a dozen teens in the late of the night let alone just two. We laughed and snacked and snacked and snacked for hours nearly putting ourselves into a sugar coma. During that time we’d devised a plan to sneak out of the camper and roam the neighborhood – it was the one cardinal sin of the camper privilege. DON’T EVER LEAVE THE PROPERTY. If we were to get caught we’d be banned from the camper for the rest of the summer. This was a giant risk – but one worth taking as we knew what was going on just a few short blocks away.

Once we were certain that my parents were asleep and would not be checking on us again we decided it was time to make our break. Just three acres of grass, a small creek with a little bridge and a quiet street separated us from an ALL BOY SLEEPOVER at my neighbor’s house. Brittany had a major crush on one of the boys at that party. I had a crush on one too, but I was way to shy to admit it.

We had done our prep work when we were loading the camper with snacks and were fully loaded with all the gear necessary to go spying at the neighbors. Dark clothes, Band-Aids, dental floss and a handful of change. All the necessary components for Penny Tapping. It’s a pretty simple process but we were certain it would get the boys of the house so we could catch a glimpse of our crushes.

We took a Band-Aid and attached the top sticky section to the window; on the bottom sticky section we attached a penny and a long piece of dental floss. We stretched out around the back of the house and began pulling the floss so that it would give a “tap, tap, tap” on the window.

After ten minutes with no success we were scheming up new plans on how to get the guys out of the house. We were getting much braver too. We were right up to the windows doing single knocks. Ten minutes more and still no luck. We start up again with the penny tapping; giggling and laughing as we pulled the sting in rhythm to songs we started singing in the moon light.

We’re very relaxed at this point, maybe a little to relaxed, and nearing giving up when all of the sudden the door opens and slams shut. It’s not the friendly welcoming of teen boys we had been trying to lure out of the house. It was the exact opposite. It was a grown man, a very very angry grown man named Mark who just happened to be on a local college baseball team. This angry man was much more athletic and had much longer legs than we did. And boy was he ever angry. He ran out the door screaming explicit words at whom he believed were criminals trying to BREAK INTO HIS HOUSE!!

Within a split second of the door slamming we caught on that this was not going to be a friendly greeting and we started running, running faster than the Tasmanian Devil. My heart was racing and my stomach was in my throat, my adrenalin was at an all time high and it was a good thing because I was going to have to run faster than I’d ever ran in my entire fourteen years. We had to get out of there or we were going to die, literally, he was going to kill us you could hear it in his voice.

Brittany and I split up each going a different direction. We’d both grown up in that neighborhood and spent countless hours exploring every inch of the ground and we both had our ideas as to where to go to get away from Mark who scared me more than anything at that moment in my life.. he was like an angry beast. For some reason – the beast decided to follow me. I ran across the street, over the bridge covered creek and I was in a very open grassy common area. I was weaving in and out and he was on my heels yelling at me. He said I didn’t want to know what he was going to do to me when he caught me and HE. WAS. RIGHT.

Those words gave me the extra energy I needed to run even faster. And I did, I ran as fast as lightning in and out of neighborhood yards until I lost him. It was like Christmas in July – and my gift that night was my life!

I made it back to the camper, I felt like I'd just ran a marathon, I found my friend quivered up under a blanket awaiting my arrival. She'd been praying for my return as she knew if I were caught - ultimately she'd be caught too. We laid in silence for over an hour making sure that the beast was not lurking our territory, making sure he wouldn’t find us and turn us in. Finally we broke the silence in whisper and talked about how our excellent plan nearly turned out deadly. We didn’t sleep that night. We were terrified.

The next morning Brittany left early. I go into my house and my mom says “I was just about to come out and check on you”, she said. “Two men in their forties, one with a pony tail, tried to break into the neighbor’s house last night”. “One of the older sons chased after the men but wasn’t able to catch them. They filed a police report and the police have been roaming the neighborhood for hours”.

My heart sunk. If anyone found out I was certainly going to jail, or even worse - I'd be grounded for the rest of my life. Brittany and I promised we’d never tell a soul about what had happened…. And I kept my promise until now.

I still don’t know how I out ran the beast, but that was the last night I ever snuck out again.