loading dock.
At first she thought he was having a pee until she reminded herself boys do not squat to pee, and she giggled at her mistake. Maybe he was doing number two, she thought. Yuck. She waited a long time but when he did not stand up again she went to investigate. When she arrived at the place where she saw him crouch down he was gone. She looked around mystified.
The area around the factory was huge and mostly covered with tall weeds and Scots broom bushes but she could see no obvious place he might have gone. She checked but his bike was where he left it. She squatted down like he did and she noticed an area in deep shadow under the loading dock between the building and the train tracks.
From her vantage point she could see the bottom edge of some kind of opening in the wall, and she walked over to the loading dock and ducked down to look. There was something under there. She crab walked under the dock to where she found an air vent in the wall of the building covered with a metal screen. The screen was attached to a galvanized metal ventilation shaft which presumably led into the building. Her legs began to cramp from crouching and she got on her knees to examine the screen.
It looked secure enough until she put her fingers through the holes and gave it a little tug and it came off in her hands. Her eyes had adjusted to the shadows under the loading dock and she could see faint scuff marks in the dirt and some of the dirt was on the bottom of the vent. A trail of loose dirt inside the vent led away into darkness and she figured he must have scrambled in through the open vent. “What the heck is he doing in there?” she said.
She was not sure what to do. She listened but did not hear any sounds coming from inside the building. She wondered if she should crawl in a little way to see if she could see what he was up to. She would do it because she was older than him and, now that she knew he was inside, felt responsible for him. She figured it was also because he was a pathetic nerve junky and she did not want him to be hurt or get in trouble.
As a thirteen year-old she had felt responsible for him and the reason was his mother Andi. It used to drive her crazy the way Andi would talk to her mom about Tyler. She talked as though there was something wrong with him and to her thirteen year-old mind that meant she did not love her own kid because he was a little bit different.
Simply thinking about it now made her angry even though she realizes now that she was wrong about Andi, she does love him. She knew that what she was feeling was responsibility, once you feel responsible for someone the feeling doesn’t go away just because they get older. She leaned the screen up against the side of the building and stuck her head in and looked down the vent. She listened hard but did not hear him or anything inside the building.
It took a few minutes to screw up her courage and decide to crawl further into the open vent. It was large enough for her not to feel claustrophobic but it took a few tries to figure out how to get her body into the right position to do it. She did not see how he did it and naturally crawled in head first.
It felt like it was getting tighter as she crawled forwards on her forearms and knees the farther in she went the darker it got. She was in about ten feet but had not noticed the vent slowly beginning to angle downwards. She went slowly and just before she reached the drop off she noticed her weight was now mostly on her forearms. When her arms hit empty space the acute angle of the vent combined with her momentum continued to move her forwards and she slid then fell into terrifying blackness. She barely had time to scream before it was cut off in a spasm of pain as she slammed into the bottom.
She was stunned. When she hit the bottom it knocked the wind out of her and panicked desperately trying to draw air into her lungs. She was not badly injured in the fall; Tyler had stuffed the bottom of
At first she thought he was having a pee until she reminded herself boys do not squat to pee, and she giggled at her mistake. Maybe he was doing number two, she thought. Yuck. She waited a long time but when he did not stand up again she went to investigate. When she arrived at the place where she saw him crouch down he was gone. She looked around mystified.
The area around the factory was huge and mostly covered with tall weeds and Scots broom bushes but she could see no obvious place he might have gone. She checked but his bike was where he left it. She squatted down like he did and she noticed an area in deep shadow under the loading dock between the building and the train tracks.
From her vantage point she could see the bottom edge of some kind of opening in the wall, and she walked over to the loading dock and ducked down to look. There was something under there. She crab walked under the dock to where she found an air vent in the wall of the building covered with a metal screen. The screen was attached to a galvanized metal ventilation shaft which presumably led into the building. Her legs began to cramp from crouching and she got on her knees to examine the screen.
It looked secure enough until she put her fingers through the holes and gave it a little tug and it came off in her hands. Her eyes had adjusted to the shadows under the loading dock and she could see faint scuff marks in the dirt and some of the dirt was on the bottom of the vent. A trail of loose dirt inside the vent led away into darkness and she figured he must have scrambled in through the open vent. “What the heck is he doing in there?” she said.
She was not sure what to do. She listened but did not hear any sounds coming from inside the building. She wondered if she should crawl in a little way to see if she could see what he was up to. She would do it because she was older than him and, now that she knew he was inside, felt responsible for him. She figured it was also because he was a pathetic nerve junky and she did not want him to be hurt or get in trouble.
As a thirteen year-old she had felt responsible for him and the reason was his mother Andi. It used to drive her crazy the way Andi would talk to her mom about Tyler. She talked as though there was something wrong with him and to her thirteen year-old mind that meant she did not love her own kid because he was a little bit different.
Simply thinking about it now made her angry even though she realizes now that she was wrong about Andi, she does love him. She knew that what she was feeling was responsibility, once you feel responsible for someone the feeling doesn’t go away just because they get older. She leaned the screen up against the side of the building and stuck her head in and looked down the vent. She listened hard but did not hear him or anything inside the building.
It took a few minutes to screw up her courage and decide to crawl further into the open vent. It was large enough for her not to feel claustrophobic but it took a few tries to figure out how to get her body into the right position to do it. She did not see how he did it and naturally crawled in head first.
It felt like it was getting tighter as she crawled forwards on her forearms and knees the farther in she went the darker it got. She was in about ten feet but had not noticed the vent slowly beginning to angle downwards. She went slowly and just before she reached the drop off she noticed her weight was now mostly on her forearms. When her arms hit empty space the acute angle of the vent combined with her momentum continued to move her forwards and she slid then fell into terrifying blackness. She barely had time to scream before it was cut off in a spasm of pain as she slammed into the bottom.
She was stunned. When she hit the bottom it knocked the wind out of her and panicked desperately trying to draw air into her lungs. She was not badly injured in the fall; Tyler had stuffed the bottom of
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