Tim shook his head, trying to force the memory of that night away. It didn’t help. He had been so excited when they got home with his new bike. He begged to be able to ride it down their long driveway and back, even though it was already dark. His parents could see he was excited and agreed, but just once, they had said. The time it took for that quick ride, was all it took. As he parked his bike next to the garage door, he’d heard sirens in the distance, but thought nothing about it. Then he’d seen the front door still standing wide open. As he walked over, he saw his mom lying on the ground, then as he got closer, he saw his dad. He had been confused. Then, before he could even enter the house, he was knocked over as two people he didn’t know rushed out the door and out of sight. As he looked as his parents on the floor, and realized they were dead, things started to fade. He didn’t remember screaming, or the police arriving in response to the house’s alarm going off. He didn’t remember the chaos of the next couple of days as Social Services tried to find a relative to take him in. If they had bothered to ask him, he could have told them not to bother, but they hadn’t asked. His parents had always told him they had no family. They were both only children and their parents had died, and they had no aunts or uncles or cousins. The haziness started clearing around the funeral. He remembered countless faces all telling him they were sorry for his loss. He remembered thinking it was like he had misplaced his parents and could go look for them later. Then he clearly remembered being told he would be placed in a home for boys. That was when he had run away.
Coming back to the present, Tim opened the drawer in his dad’s desk. Lying right on top was an oversized blue envelope. His name was written on the front of it, in his mom’s pretty handwriting. He slowly picked it up. It was a birthday card. He knew it as soon as he touched it. The first day his life had been turned upside down had been his thirteenth birthday. He didn’t even remember it. It didn’t matter. There was no point to birthdays if you didn’t have anyone to celebrate with. He put the card aside, unopened, and continued looking through the drawer. Nothing. He pulled open another drawer. Nothing. Drawer after drawer, cabinet after cabinet. He found nothing that seemed to explain anything to him. No secret papers. Nothing that stood out as a possible clue. Tim sighed again. He got up and started to walk to the door, then stopped and decided to take the birthday card with him. It was the last thing his parents would ever give him and for that reason alone, it was special.
After he had taken care of a few things, like getting clean clothes from his bedroom, and gathering the last of the edible food his best friend, Oliver Nichols, had brought for him from the kitchen, he went back to the room behind the secret door. He thought about contacting Ollie as he walked, but was afraid someone would follow him to the house. Ollie was the only person who had known he was hiding in the secret room. Tim briefly thought that Ollie had finally given in and told Social Services where he was. He knew they had questioned him before. After reaching the room, he sat on the air mattress and pulled the card out of his pocket. Thoughts of Ollie fled as he looked at the blue envelope. He stared at his name, but didn’t open it. He wasn’t ready. He knew his mom always wrote little notes inside cards. He didn’t think he could handle it right now. He put the card on the floor next to the air mattress and yawned. It had been a long night and although his stomach was rumbling, he lay down and fell asleep.
Hours later he sat up in the darkness. Something had woken him up. He heard the click of the secret door. They had come back a second time in one night! Knowing they wouldn’t find him, he flew to the corner of room and pressed himself into the wall. Almost immediately, he knew he had passed through. As he stood up, he remembered the birthday card. He knew there was no time to go back and get it, but then he had an idea. Slowly he started walking around the walls of the room until he was right behind where the card lay on the floor. As he’d learned earlier, it seemed like you could come out from behind the wall anywhere, even though you could only enter from the corner. The men were in the room now. While their lights were focused on the other side of the room, he reached his arm through the wall and grabbed the card. As he tried
