100TWC - Day 13: Running Away

Moonlight poked a sharp silver lance between Doug's curtains as he lay, fully clothed, beneath his duvet. He checked the clock for the fourth time in the last five minutes. 1:23am. One of those special times that he often saw. Often wondered whether they had any hidden meaning. 1-2-3 was definitely the start of something. It was a sign.

Yet still he hesitated. The house wasn't entirely silent. The central heating, which had gone off more than an hour earlier, was still cooling down. Pipes clicking and clanking as they shrank back infinitesimally to their cold size, rubbing against flooring joists and skirting boards. Through his open door he could hear his father snoring from his parents' bedroom across the landing. Definitely asleep - but what about his mother? No light shone in, so she wasn't reading in bed, but was she asleep too? Or was his Dad's snoring keeping her awake like it often did?

He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bed, cringing at the old bedsprings as they complained at the movement. He reached under his bed to retrieve the backpack he'd been filling over the past few months. Socks added one by one so it looked as though the washing machine had eaten them. An old pair of jeans that his Mum had told him to throw out. T-shirts from the bottom of his drawer that he hadn't worn for ages and which wouldn't be missed. At least, not quickly enough for his plan to be discovered.

An owl hooted from the copse. Doug jumped at the sound, his bedsprings moaning again, loud in the quiet of the sleeping house. "Come on!" he told himself. "DO it!" He stood up slowly and crept to his door. With one last backward glance around the darkened room to check he hadn't forgotten anything important, he stepped onto the landing, remembering to avoid the loose floorboard right outside his bedroom door.

Hardly daring to breathe, Doug inched his way to the stairs. From the other room his father gave a loud snort, coughed, and turned over. Doug froze. Waited. In a few moments the snoring resumed, gentler this time. Doug started down into the hallway, the bright cold light of the full moon flooded through the staircase window, lighting his path. He shivered nervously. Despite months of planning and longing for the moment he could get away, now the time was really here he felt unexpectedly uncertain. Was he doing the right thing? What if he'd forgotten something really obvious? Could he have persuaded his parents if he'd tried harder? Argued more coherently?

No. He gripped the backpack harder, tightening his mental grip on his resolve at the same time. There was no other way. He'd debated it endlessly with himself and this was his only option. They would never really understand him. They never supported any of his choices - friends; hobbies; books. Especially books.

His mother:
"Got your head in a book again? You should be out in the sunshine."

His father:
"What are you reading NOW? You only just finished one yesterday. Why don't you go and kick a ball about with Jeff and Iswar like a normal kid?"

It was hopeless. Doug reached into his pocket, pulled out his keys. They jangled loudly. Why was everything so damn noisy? He turned the mortice lock slowly, letting the tumblers fall one at a time. He smiled at the memory of oiling the lock last weekend. His Dad, for once, had offered a word of praise.

"Oh, thanks for that Doug. I've been meaning to oil that lock for ages."

He slid the bunch of keys back into his jeans' pocket and slowly released the catch. A sudden gust of wind blew up a flurry of autumn leaves from the front garden, causing Doug to squint against the dust. A leaf fluttered unnoticed through the door and landed on the hall carpet. Doug stepped out into the chill night.