Ally and Shawn

By A M Boling

Ally, a 16-year-old girl falls into a situation by taking a swim across the river where she and her family are camping for the night. She witnesses a young boy chased, shot at and possibly drowning. She finds him bruised and beaten in the water; a bullet had hit him in the arm. They gave each other their name while hanging onto a root up under the bank where Shawn had gone into the river. Ally asks Shawn if he is okay and he nods that he is.

Shawn, like Ally is 16. He has gone through a lot of hardship in his young life. When the abuse Shawn has had to endure becomes too much he runs away to save his life.

Ally and Shawn swim across the river together to the biggest adventure they would ever know. Allys family Molly and Dave are in for a big surprise as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462881666

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Copyright © 2011 by A M Boling.

ISBN:                  Softcover                           978-1-4628-8165-9

                            Ebook                               978-1-4628-8166-6

All right reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales are purely coincidental.

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Dedication

To my sons Michael and Chris

Thanks for wonderful memories.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

We had been traveling for four days in the van pulling a large trailer with everything we owned inside. It was hot and sticky even with the air on… We were moving from Sacramento, California to Des Moines, Iowa. It is mid June. I am traveling with my foster parents Molly and Dave Flowers. My name is Ally. I am not one of those foster kids who hate their foster parents. I had been in the system since I was five with some not so happy memories following experiences with other foster homes; then I was placed with Molly and Dave. Since I had turned 12 no one wanted a preteen and I just figured I would be in the system until I turned 18. I am just 16. I was determined that I would survive; I studied hard and just put my head down and prayed. I am one of the lucky ones, Molly and Dave treat me as their own and I love them both. They have even started adoption papers for me. Sounds like I am a puppy. At the beginning they were so good to me that I was afraid I would mess it us, but as time went by and we actually became a family I began to let things be, just plain good. My natural parents had taken me and my brother to Children’s Services and told them that they could no longer deal with us and just left us there. They never came back. We had never had a real family. Our parents just wanted their own lives and not have to be bothered with kids. My brother Joey was adopted separate from me and died in a car crash with his new family. He was only with them a short time when that happened. Children’s Services came to the house and told Molly and Dave what had happened. They were just sick because they had seriously been thinking about asking how he was doing with his new family and if it was not working out well, they would offer to take him too. When they told me what had happened I just shut down for weeks. Molly and Dave finally pulled me though the sadness and I began to heal, but of course would always remember him as my sweet little brother.

Dave’s brother Jack had called and asked Dave if he could come and help him on his farm in Iowa. He had fallen from the loft in the barn and injured his shoulder and broken some ribs and couldn’t do much in the way of heavy work for awhile. Molly had never met any of Dave’s family, but Dave discussed this with Molly and they decided to make the move. They told me it would be a great adventure. Dave had just been laid off and had considered signing up for unemployment, so this was going to work out well and here we are on our way.

We are in Missouri now, it is hot and humid. The air feels like it presses you down and your skin feels hot and sticky. We had stopped in a state park next to a beautiful wide river with dense trees everywhere. There are other trees inside that forest with pretty dainty flowers, pink, white and rose colors. They look like they are hiding under the bigger trees almost like those Twinkie lights at Christmas. I have never seen this kind of tree before. I looked it up later and it is a Dogwood. The riverbank itself has a lot of overhanging limbs and brush and on the other side there is a huge tree with long strings of leaves almost touching the water, a weeping willow I think. Molly spread out food on the table and we enjoyed the quiet cool air coming off the water. It was late in the day and there were no other people by the river, I just assumed they were having dinner and then getting ready for the evening. So far the trip had gone pretty well. We always stopped at night, Molly and Dave slept in the back of the van and I slept on the front seat that folded pretty flat. We planned to stay in the park for the night and I told Dave it was a good choice. He knew how much I loved to swim. They had showers, a nice little snack bar and clubhouse with activities. Not many people were in the park, not many people on vacation yet. I was finished with school on the fourth and was still wondering what I was going to do with the summer. Dave and Molly took a walk up to the showers and I decided I was going to swim for awhile and venture over to the other side of the river. It was a pretty strong current, but I did okay and am a strong swimmer. Once I reached the other side I pulled myself up to the bank and was sitting there catching my breath when I heard a car behind the trees. A man started yelling, "get back here and then I heard 2 shots, not loud, but muffled sounding. I was hiding in the brush about 25 feet further down the bank from where they were. A young boy ran to the edge of the river bank and slipped in, not diving, just barely making a ripple. I could not see where he went and I stayed hidden. A large man came to the edge of the bank and fired 2 more shots that made the water spray, then turned and left. I heard the car door slam, the car started and the sound faded. I was shaking pretty bad, but once I was sure whoever it was with the gun was gone, I looked across the river and Molly and Dave were walking up towards the showers with their bags and towels. They had not heard anything. They did not even turn around, just kept walking. I slipped into the water and let myself go down the bank with the current. About 20 feet down, the boy was holding onto a large branch up under the bank. I asked him if he was okay and he just shook his head that he was. I asked if he needed help and he nodded his head yes. I asked his name and he answered Shawn. As I got closer to him I could see that he had a terrible black eye and split lip that was bleeding. His shoulder was part way out of the water and it was black and blue with some yellow marks. His arm was bleeding and it looked like he had cut it on something. I asked if he could swim and he said yes, but that he was afraid to move for fear the men would come back. He had pulled his shirt off and his shoes and let them go so that he could swim when the time came. It was getting close to dusk and I told him we had better get moving before we could not see to get across the river to where we were camped. His shoulder was hurting and he had a hard time with the current. It took some time, but we finally made it. He was exhausted and cold. I ran for my big towel and wrapped him up so that anyone looking would not know who was in the towel. He was shivering so hard his teeth were rattling. I ran and got another towel and covered him with that too. He started to be more still and his teeth began to behave better. I had no idea what to do next so I just took Shawn to the car and had him lie down between the front and back seats, covered him with blankets and then went to find Dave and Molly. What was I going to tell them? What if they did not want to help Shawn? I turned around and went back to the car. I grabbed two pieces of bread and some cheese from the table and a soda from the cooler to take to my stow-away in the car. He sat up and wolfed the food down while I watched for Molly and Dave. I asked as many questions as I could to try and help me decide what to do. I asked if Shawn had people or family close by. He said his mom and dad had been killed in a car accident and he was left alone until these two men came and said they were his relatives and the house and property was theirs now. He argued that he had never heard of them and that was when they beat him up so bad. They had locked him in a closet for days with no food or water. When he got away from them they had taken him to the river and he assumed it was to kill him. They had discussed that his body would float miles down the river before it was found and it probably would not be identified anyway. I asked him if he could stay quiet in the car so that Molly and Dave would not hear him and he said he could. I could not decide what to do and needed time to think.

I packed up the food from the table and put everything away like we always did. By now it was growing dark and I could barely see where the car was. I had my blankets and pillow in the front seat. I pulled a beg T-shirt over my head and undid my braid so my hair would dry… Maybe by morning I would know what to do and what to say to Dave and Molly. I was so tired; I just could not deal with anything more right now. I checked on Shawn and he was sound asleep. I climbed in the front, laid the seat back and within minutes I was asleep. I did not even hear Molly and Dave come back. Early in the morning before light I woke up with someone tugging on my hair, of course it was Shawn. He needed to use the bathroom. I did too, so I opened the door quietly and we both snuck up to the bathrooms. I asked Shawn how old he was and he said 16. He was pretty close to the same size as me, a bit taller. No one was around. When Shawn came out he was all wrapped up in his towel. If someone looked