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Teenage Ghost
Josh woke at two in the morning and walked out into the hallway. He snuck quietly to his parents door and listened to his father’s snoring. Satisfied both his parents were sound asleep, he snuck out the kitchen door and headed for Studemont High.
Once he got to the school he stood in shock at the charred rubble. He ran across the street towards the school, then spotted the police officers on the property. He walked quickly to the sidewalk and walked along the street.
The entire wing was collapsed. The window he had snuck into, to get into the school, even the wall that had been holding it were just a mound of broken bricks and cement.
He wondered where Vi was, had the police found her? If they had they might have taken her to Child Protective Services or some Teenage Halfway House where they stick kids that parents don’t want anymore. He picked up his pace and walked to the far end of the school.
The part of the building where Vi had been hiding out was untouched by the chaos. Josh felt a rush of relief, Vi was probably safe after all.
He walked to the side entrance of the school and looked inside the glass window for any sight of her. He rattled the doors and watched and waited. For a half hour he would jiggle the doors and look. Then he saw her come out from the bathroom, and look in his direction.
Josh waved frantically at her.
Vi’s face lit up. She rushed to the door and pushed it open for Josh to come inside. She held her finger up to her lips as she let him in, then the two went into the girls restroom.
Once in the secluded quiet safety of Vi’s hideaway, she grabbed Josh tightly and hugged him. “I thought I would never see you again!” she didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.
“What happened here?” Josh held Vi in his arms, he couldn’t believe how close he came to losing her.
“I don’t know.” Vi buried her face in his shoulder and breathed the smell of his hoodie in. “The maintenance crew were cleaning up the school in the day time.” She pulled away and motioned to the empty restroom, “See, they took all my stuff.” She hugged back against Josh, “I hid in the back of the school til they were finished. Then all of the sudden, in the middle of the night. BOOM! There was a huge explosion, the fire trucks were here all night. There were reporters and police. How could you miss all that? Didn’t you see the news?”
“I’m grounded.” Josh hugged Vi as tight as he could, and kissed her ebony hair. “I would have run here that night had I known.” Fear and guilt gripped Josh, he hated his parents right now for this. Vi could have died, and he never would have known.