Megan Franchino knows her chance for escape is now or never. With school finally out for her son Antonio, and her abusive husband going out of town she just might get far enough away before he starts looking for them. If they fail to get away, Megan knows she will not live to regret trying. There is no choice though, their recent injuries prove that if they stay one or both of them will eventually die from the beatings.

There is only one place she might feel safe to go, but will she be welcome there? Can she even get there? How long can she stay? What then? And if her husband's family does catch up to them, is there any way to keep Tony safe?

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The Legal Stuff: Dollar Runaways  © 2014 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2014 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface

Like the first four books I posted here on BigCloset, I will be posting a full copy here on BigCloset. I am planning to post it in 26 installments, but that may change if I feel like a posting needs more. The book has a total of 26 chapters and a short epilogue. The full version should be completely posted by early March. For those that cannot wait however, I have an e-book version of the full book available from Lulu.com as of today. You may find it at My Store. My assumption is that the majority of my readers would be more interested in this edition of the book rather than a hardback or paperback. There are two types of eBooks available depending on how you wish to read it. One is the ePub format that you should be able to load on any e-reader (you may need an additional app, but I believe all will read it), and the other is a standard PDF formatted file. I believe the PDF is the best way to read it on a computer screen personally. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it ($5.95 for the eBook formatted files).

One caution before continuing through this book; it is darker than my past novels have been. If it were a movie it would probably be rated R for Language and Violence. Much of this novel is just as light as you are used to seeing from me though!

Thanks again for reading, and I hope you enjoy reading Dollar Runaways!!

Dedication

As a kid I was fortunate enough to grow up at the dawn of the Internet. I felt like I was different than other kids, but in time I stumbled onto some websites that featured stories and information that led me to understand I was not alone. I had always been a voracious reader, but I found myself devouring anything of merit on these websites when I had any modicum of privacy.

I’ve always enjoyed the works of science fiction and stories that were beyond the realm of possibility, but somehow still managed to keep the reader engaged in the story. Authors like Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler have often stolen large portions of time from me! The work you are about to read has equally been inspired by a number of authors that I would be remiss to not mention. About a decade ago I read an incomplete story idea by Wanda Cunningham entitled ‘Incognito Parallel’ that really struck a chord with me. This is an entirely new and separate work, but when I re-read her story this past summer it shifted my imagination into overdrive. Similarly I would be remiss to not mention Karin Bishop’s many works that readers may draw a parallel to as well!

Thank you to those authors and so many others that have often provided rays of hope in what can be a very lonely life for most of us!

Similarly thank you once again to my amazing editor Carla Ann! She reached out to me when I posted my first book and has been the best big sister any girl could ever wish for!

 
 

Prologue

 
“DAMNIT RAY!!!” I heard my mom scream in the living room as I lay in bed.
“Well what do you expect Megan?!? How else am I supposed to make a living?” my dad shouted back.

“You don’t have to keep doing this!” My mom.

“Yes I do, there’s no choice Megan. I’m good at it, and it pays for all of this!” I heard him say back.

“But...” I heard mom.

“Shhh, we don’t want to wake up Tony.” Dad said getting softer.

Things grew quieter and I looked at my glowing alarm clock. It showed it was 1:30am and I knew I should try and go back to sleep. This was not the way I thought the first day of summer vacation should feel though. School had let out for the summer at my elementary school at noon yesterday and I had been really excited to be done for the year. Things like this though made me wish I were still at school now — or anywhere else but here. My parents had been fighting more and more over the last few months, and tonight’s fight was nothing new. I had no idea what my mom was trying to keep my dad from doing... All he did was the bookkeeping for my grandfather’s chain of discount dollar stores. ‘What could he be doing that would upset mom like this?’ I wondered to myself.

I had just about fallen asleep when I heard a loud fleshy sound. “There’s no way I’m getting out of here, and you better start getting that through that stupid brain of yours bitch! No one walks away!!! Ever!”

I heard whimpering and wanted to go and see if Mom was okay, but I was way too scared. I had my own bruised butt from the last time I tried to help. I feigned sleeping when I heard my door suddenly open. “Glad to see you’re still sleeping Tony,” my dad said menacingly. “Next time you or your mom gets out of line you’re really going to know pain.”

I kept pretending to sleep and was grateful when I heard the door shut. I quietly sobbed and hoped that Mom was okay.

Chapter 1: Flight

THE NEXT MORNING Mom woke me, “Tony, honey, it’s time to wake up.”

I rolled over and looked at her. My eyes filled with tears as I saw her left eye was blackened. “Mom!” I said and jumped up to hug her.

“Shhh baby, it’s okay.”

“No it’s not!” I told her.

“Yes it is, but I need you to be brave right now. Your daddy wants to have breakfast with you before he leaves on his trip.”

I glared at her for multiple reasons, but knew I couldn’t do anything for the moment. I got up instead and followed her out of the room and downstairs to the dining room table. Mom had woken up early apparently and made pancakes, eggs, sausage, and the works. Of course I was pretty sure it wasn’t entirely her idea. Dad probably made her do it since in his mind that was her job. I watched her bring the coffee pot over to refill his coffee before she began putting food on my plate.

“Thank you Mom,” I told her when she put it in front of me.

“You’re welcome Tiger,” she said to me with a smile that looked a little off due to the swelling. “Would you like some orange juice?”

“Please,” I told her.

I could feel my dad glaring at the two of us and looked up at him. His entire side of the family was second generation Italian-American. Raimondo Giuseppe Franchino was his full name, though my mom had called him Ray for years. My dad looked like a skinny, young Danny DeVito, completely down to his short height of an inch above five feet. My dad’s dark hair was something he took pride in keeping neat, along with a thin mustache, that all led to him being fairly handsome. I supposed that was why mom married him straight out of college.

I think he liked Mom because she was shorter than he was by three inches. Her blonde hair was a striking contrast to his black hair and Mediterranean features. While he looked his age of nearly forty, my mom didn’t look a day over twenty-five, even in the slovenly clothes she wore these days. She could have been a typical California girl the way she looked, but she’d mostly grown up in a small mountain town in Colorado. With her puffy cheek, and the bruise over her eye, now I feared she looked more like the poster child for abused wives.

I had just finished eating as much as I felt like of the gigantic breakfast when Dad spoke up, “Tony, I’m going to be gone until next Thursday. I’m going to be cleaning up a mess at one of our stores in Vermont, so make sure you behave for your mother.” He told me.

I swallowed and wondered when I ever misbehaved for her before answering, “Yes Father.”

After a while I cleaned up my plate and took it to the sink as he was coming back with a suitcase, “Tony that’s your mother’s job to do the dishes, leave it there for her.” He practically growled as he said it. He looked at my mother who was following down the stairs behind him, “Megan don’t let him be some sissy here, my son is going to be a Franchino man, and we don’t do women’s work.”

“Of course I won’t Ray,” mom said with her eyes lowered.

“And make damn sure he gets that haircut this week. I’m tired of seeing him with all that damn hair!”

“Okay,” she said.

He gave me a hug that felt cold and then gave my mother the same. “See you next Thursday Tiger!” he said and then walked to the garage. I could hear the garage door open and my mother anxiously watch him drive down the street.

I came up behind her and hugged her. “Oh Tony...” Mom said as she cried and I knew I was doing the same. We both silently held each other for a while before she squeezed me a little harder and wiped her face. She wiped mine then too, and said, “Tony, go get two suitcases out of the closet. Take one and pack as many of your clothes as you can in it. Leave the other one at the foot of the stairs.”

“Why?”

She looked like she was steeling herself before she answered, “We can’t stay here anymore Tiger.”

I was scared, but nodded. I ran upstairs to the closet that kept our suitcases and grabbed the two that remained in there like Mom said. She was coming upstairs just as I reached the landing and handed her one, before I ran into my bedroom. “Take only what you can’t live without,” Mom told me as she walked by.

I began going through my dresser drawers first and grabbed socks, underwear, shorts, and t-shirts - slamming them into the suitcase as quickly as I could. I looked around and found my journal, my iPad, a charger, and a couple other keepsakes I couldn’t live without. I was just about to close it when Mom came by with hers. “Tony, I know you love your iPad but leave it...”

“But why?” I asked.

“It can be tracked,” was all she said.

I swallowed... Then took it out of my bag and placed it back on my desk. There were so many other things I would probably bring if we had more space and time, but Mom made it seem like we needed to be gone quickly. I grabbed my favorite Detroit Tigers baseball cap as one last thing to take with me and closed the suitcase.

“Come on Tiger,” Mom said as she stood at the doorway.

She led me downstairs to the garage door and lifted my suitcase into the trunk next to hers. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom really quick before we go,” she told me.

“Do we have time?” I asked.

“We should have until next Thursday,” was her reply.

I hurried to the downstairs bathroom and went as quickly as I could before joining her in the car. I sat in the backseat and could see the tears streaming down her eyes through the mirror as she pressed the garage door opener button and drove down the street. I turned around as much as I could in my seat and watched our house fade away.

MEGAN STARED DOWN the highway at the signs that passed her by. Ohio left much to be desired in the way of scenery compared to the town she thought of as home. Though most of her childhood had been spent hopping from one place to another, her parents had finally settled down for her last years of school in Colorado.

‘There’s no way I can go there though…’ she thought sadly. ‘I have to get us far enough away before Ray starts looking for us…’

The bruise on her face didn’t hurt her nearly as bad as thinking about the extra bruises on her son. The sweet little boy that sat in the back of the car was nothing like his monster of a father; and she intended to keep it that way!

Megan had had been mentally planning this escape for months and hoped that she had enough plans for misdirection in place to avoid her husband ever finding them.

I SAT IN silence as Mom drove for an hour straight into Dayton. I was just thinking about the fact my rear was hurting when Mom said, “Sweetie, we need to switch cars here… While we do this I need you to do your best not to speak, okay?”

I stiffly nodded as I watched her turn off the road and park in a free commuter parking lot. Mom reached down and grabbed the pedal extenders from the pedals on the floor and stashed them in her large purse. She called for a taxi and we left our car in the lot and went to a residential address. I could see a slightly beat up Ford Focus sitting in the driveway with a for sale sign in the window, and a price of $4,000 on a card in the windshield. Mom rang the doorbell, “Hi, I called about the car?”

I could see an older lady in her seventies look out the door. “Yes, that was my granddaughter’s car...” she looked sad, “she died unexpectedly last month and I need to... I need to sell it.”

Mom nodded sadly, “You’re asking for four-thousand?”

“Yes ma’am, that’s what my friend said it should sell for. Still runs well and everything, just serviced...”

“Will you take cash?”

The lady looked surprised with how aggressively mom wanted the car, but smiled. “Sure.”

Mom and I went inside and I watched her pull an envelope out with forty crisp hundred-dollar bills. “Here is the title and the keys,” she told my mom. “Why don’t you mail me the plates once you get it registered, it’ll make it easier for you.”

“Oh thank you ma’am.” Mom said.

She walked us out the door and said, “I don’t know who you’re running from, I’m guessing a husband, but good luck to you.”

The color faded from Mom’s face, but she only said, “I just need a new car, that’s all. Thank you again.”

I opened the back door and sat down in what was a surprisingly clean car. I watched Mom lean in and attach her pedal extenders to the cars pedals as I buckled my seatbelt. Mom was so short that she used them all the time when she drove. Without them it was just about impossible for her to reach the pedals. Once she had adjusted everything else she waved at the lady and we drove back to the lot where we had parked before. Mom quickly transferred the suitcases from our old car into the new one, checked to make sure she hadn’t left anything, and we were driving off within two hours of coming into Dayton. We headed south through Cincinnati and into Kentucky.

“Mom, where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” she answered with a shaky voice, “I’m hoping to get in touch with a friend of mine’s aunt. She has a ranch in New Mexico where I think we can lay low.”

“Do you think Dad will be looking for us?” I asked, trying to sound brave.

“I’m sure of it honey. We’re going to have several days of head start, but he’s going to be looking all over... And I’m pretty sure so is the family...”

“You mean Grandpa Jo?” I asked.

“Yes... And everyone he has working for him.”

I sat and stared for a moment and felt something go ‘click’ in my head for the first time. “Mom... Are they in the Mafia?”

She took a breath in and grimaced, “Your grandpa is the head of the family Tony, and I have no doubt they’re going to send everyone they can to find us.”

I suddenly understood what mom was concerned about now. “So Dad is doing illegal stuff?”

Mom just nodded and kept driving. I was shocked to realize that my Grandpa Jo, who’s real name was Giovanni, could possibly be a bad guy. I remembered watching a mob movie with Dad a few weeks back and at just how ruthless they could be. In that movie they had killed people for less than what we were doing! I remembered Dad laughing with glee through much of it, while I grimaced and wanted to do anything else but watch it!

I jumped slightly when the silence was broken, “Sweetie, I’m going to pull in here to get some gas,” Mom said at an exit that had a truck stop.

“Okay Mom,” I told her unenthusiastically. I did need to use the bathroom badly though!

I got out of the car after she came back from inside to pay the cash up front for the tank. I stood and watched her fill up the tank. Across from us in a parking space I noticed a girl about my age watching us. Her mother seemed to be just sitting in the driver’s seat staring off into space. “Probably just waiting for her husband…” I thought to myself.

“Come on Tiger, let’s go inside…” Mom said.

“Okay…”

MEGAN WAITED ANXIOUSLY for her son to come out of the restroom. She didn’t often beat him out and so she hoped all was okay. She couldn’t help but sigh with relief when he came out and whispered, “They were out of toilet paper in almost all of the stalls.”

She smiled at him and gave him a sideways hug. After getting her change from the gas she walked out and noticed that there was a lady sitting with her car door open and daughter in back. The lady seemed to be crying and, against her better judgment, she decided to see if she was okay.

“Hello?” She said politely and smiled. Part of that smile was due to the sudden shyness of her son trying unsuccessfully to hide behind her.

“Umm… Hi,” the lady said and looked up. It was then that Megan knew this lady and she probably had similar stories. A bruise was poorly hidden on her cheek, another was on her arm, and she was sure there were more hidden out of sight.

“I’m Megan…” she said and almost immediately smacked herself for telling the lady her real name.

“Becky,” she said nervously.

“Look… I couldn’t help but notice that you seem upset and wondered if you would like to join us for dinner?”

Megan breathed deeply and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake, but somehow she knew this woman had something in common with them. Having dinner with them at the diner that was attached to the truck stop might be good for all four of them. She couldn’t help but notice that they all looked like they were copies of each other in appearance. The little girl was shyly peering behind the seat and couldn’t have been much older than nine at most. She could almost appear to be Tony’s twin if they were stood side-by-side. The girl looked like she was quite the tomboy with her dingy clothes and hair pulled back into a low ponytail.

“Why?” Becky asked.

Megan shrugged, “I really don’t know, it just seems right.”

The lady stared at her for several moments before her daughter said, “Mommy, I’m hungry!”

She sighed and said, “Okay, sure.” Megan moved her car quickly to the parking space beside Becky’s. “This is my daughter Annie,” she introduced them as they began to walk in together.

“Hi, I’m Tony,” her son said politely.

The four of them walked up to a hostess stand and were soon seated. Megan smiled as the waitress deposited a kid’s menu in front of both Annie and Tony. She watched Tony make a face but he didn’t say anything. “How old are you?” Annie asked Tony.

He looked up at his mom and she nodded, “Ten.”

“Wow, I figured you were younger than me!”

“How old are you?”

“Eight-and-a-half!” She said proudly.

Megan watched her son with some trepidation and felt bad for him. “Small for her age?” Becky asked her.

“Umm…” she hesitated, “yeah, very much so.”

“I was that way as a kid too. Of course you must have been too, we’re about the same height.” She smiled at Megan.

“I still have people that think I’m in high school!” Megan laughed lightly, and Becky joined her.

A moment passed before Becky asked, “So what’s your story?”

Megan sighed and told her about Ray’s abuse and that leaving him was dangerous. She didn’t elaborate due to the kids being there. “It was time…”

Becky nodded, “I know that feeling… My husband Mark was getting the same way. Then…” Megan reached over and grabbed her hand to comfort her across the table. “Thanks…” she said and used a Kleenex on her face, unknowingly taking part of the makeup off that was hiding a bruise. “Last week Mark was busted for dealing cocaine and I decided we needed to get out of town. There were some people he was involved with that I feared would come after us. If we can make it to my parents house in Charleston I think they’ll be able to help us.”

Megan nodded, “So that’s where you’re heading?”

“Yeah… If we can get there.” She sniffled some more and said, “I’m almost out of gas now though, and I’m out of money, I can’t even pay for our half of this meal,” she said through tears.

“You don’t worry about that Becky,” Megan said with a smile, “I’ll take care of that… and I might have an idea on how to help you too.”

“I can’t accept…”

“You’re going to be helping us out too,” Megan reassured her.

Megan had been happy to see Tony and Annie mostly ignore the adult’s conversation… well, at least obviously. She knew Tony was smarter than anyone would possibly think looking at him. ‘Becky thinks Tony’s a girl too!’ she thought with a giggle. In this case she decided not to correct her like she had so many others.

They eventually finished the burgers and they all walked back out to the parking lot. “Tony, why don’t you say goodbye to Annie and then go wait in the car,” she told him and handed the keys to him.

“Okay Mom,” Tony said and she watched him hug Annie and then do as she asked, leaving her alone with Becky.

“Okay Becky, listen… My husband is seriously going to be looking for me... He’s not a good man, and he has a lot of people that will help him look for me. You look a lot like me… and I think you might be able to help throw him off of our trail.”

“How?”

“Well, I’ll give you my old drivers license that doesn’t expire until the end of this month and my debit card. You go ahead and fill up your car with it as you need to until you’re within two hundred miles of your parent’s house. Fill it up one more time and then throw the card and my license away somewhere no one will find it.”

She watched Becky look at her suspiciously, “Will he come after me?”

Megan shook her head, “At the final place you use it I want you to make sure you look every camera in the place head on. Try to avoid them before that.” She smiled, “Ray will know he’s been duped then, but we’ll all be long gone. He’ll be mad as hell at me, but he’ll know you were just part of the deception. Ray won’t worry about chasing after you.”

“Okay, I’ll do it!” She said.

“Thank you!” Megan said and reached into her purse and dug for a moment before carefully taking out an envelope and handing it to Becky. “Look, here is some money to help you out, hopefully it’ll help you get settled in down there a bit better until you can get a job.”

Becky started crying and hugged her, “You’re an Angel from God!”

Megan didn’t tell her that it was two thousand dollars in twenties, and she hoped she was gone before she realized that!

I WATCHED BECKY hug Mom through the window of my car door and noticed she was crying. I hoped that she and Annie would be okay as Mom came back to the car with some tears of her own in her eyes, but also a genuine smile — it wasn’t much of one, but it was more than I’d seen for a long time on her face.

It was close to ten in the evening before Mom stopped in the parking lot of an older looking Super 8 in a small town on the outskirts of Atlanta. I had slept a long time and was really tired of sitting. She pulled into the check-in lane and said, “Tony please stay in the car.”

I nodded and waited patiently while she went in and checked in. She came back out ten minutes later and drove around to a parking space in front of our room, 132. We grabbed our suitcases and went inside.

“Tiger I’m really tired, I’m going to go ahead and go to sleep,” she said. “Why don’t you do the same so we can get an early start tomorrow.”

“Okay Mom,” I said and gave her a big hug. I was so proud of her; she was an amazing mom to finally get us out of there! I walked into the bathroom and started brushing my teeth. She came in behind me and shared the sink as she began to take her earrings out. I was definitely her child, with my blonde hair that was down past my shoulders. She was short, and it was obvious that I was going to be as well. My eleventh birthday was next month and I had just barely passed four feet at my doctors’ visit last month. With my parents short statures though it was no surprise to me that I wasn’t going to be a tall basketball player. I took more of my bone structure from my mom, with very slender bones and a small nose. My hazel eyes being one of the few differences in our faces, hers were blue.

“Don’t forget to wash your face,” mom told me as she left the bathroom sink to go get something else. I did as she said and found myself in bed in my pajamas in no time.

“Mom do you think Annie and Becky will be okay?”

“I hope so sweetheart!” She said to me with a smile.

I began to worry about something else, “Mom you don’t have your cell phone, do you?”

She shook her head, “No, I left it at home.”

“And you didn’t pay for this hotel with a credit card?”

She smiled at me, “No, I used cash, that’s part of why we’re staying at a place like this.” Mom sighed and added, “I actually gave my debit card to Becky to use to fill up some gas.”

“Won’t that make her a target?!?” I asked, scared for Annie.

Mom shook her head, “No, I gave her instructions that should leave her safe. She’ll be rid of it by tomorrow, and by dropping it far enough away from where they’re going it’ll be fine.”

I gave her a nervous look but nodded.

“Okay...” I said. “How much cash do you have?”

“Enough,” she tried to answer simply.

“How much?”

Mom sighed and said, “Tony, I’ve known for a few months that we needed to get away... Your dad has been getting more and more abusive towards both of us. I started secretly putting away some cash over the last few months. It’s not been easy to keep it from your dad, he is after all an accountant, but he also didn’t know that I knew about some of his ‘other’ accounts.” Mom looked slightly ashamed, but breathed and said “I have about a hundred thousand after the car earlier to hopefully get us safely away.”

I gasped, “A hundred thousand?”

Mom nodded, “If this counts as a divorce though your dad is getting off cheap. Fifty percent of everything we had is a lot more than that!”

“Oh.” I said simply. She handed me the hairbrush she insisted I use with my longer hair and I began brushing it. I had been growing it longer the last couple years, even though my dad hated it with a passion. I told him it looked cool according to the kids at school and he mostly left it alone. Apparently this morning he had had enough with it though.

I found myself crying a few moments later while my mom went to the bathroom to change into her nightgown. I heard the door of the bathroom open and felt her arms go around me. “Shhh... It’s going to be okay,” she told me and I clung to her like I was much younger. I must have cried myself to sleep that night.

RAIMONDO LOOKED AT the TV angrily as he heard the phone ring for the seventh time before going to voicemail. This was the sixth time he had tried that night! Megan wasn’t answering either the home phone or her cell phone. “Where the fuck is that bitch?!?” He thought. “So help me God if she’s sleeping with another man right now...”

He threw his glass from beside his bed at the wall and watched the glass shatter.

THE NEXT MORNING the phone rang while it was still dark in the room. I heard Mom pick it up and place it back down before she got up. “Come on Tony, we need to keep moving today. I think today is the last day that no one will be looking for us...”

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.

“I was thinking after you went to sleep last night that your dad probably tried calling last night...”

“Oh,” I said simply. One time a few years ago Mom and I had gone to a movie and missed his call. He came back the next day and beat her for not answering. He was sure she must have been sleeping with some other guy. As if!

“Yeah,” she said. “Come on, let’s get dressed and checked out of here, and then we’ll go get breakfast at the Waffle House I saw a few blocks from here.”

She prodded me out of bed the rest of the way and I quickly put on a pair of shorts and a purple shirt we’d bought at the zoo last summer that had a picture of a tiger on the front. Dad’s nickname for me had been ‘Tiger’ forever as in Tony the Tiger. I actually debated on taking it off with that thought, but we had no time. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail like I normally kept it and we were out the door in thirty minutes. Most of the time had been spent with mom trying to do makeup to cover her black eye. It wasn’t as obvious that she had a gigantic shiner now.

The Waffle House was still pretty empty as we walked in to take our seats. The waitress came up and said, “Welcome to Waffle House ladies, what can I get for you today?”

I stared at her and shook my head, but didn’t correct her. Becky and Annie had made the same mistake yesterday. Mom looked suddenly intense as the waitress walked away after taking our order.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her in a low voice.

She leaned across the table, “She gave me an idea... But I don’t think you’re going to like it. Well, I don’t really like it either, but I figure after today people are going to be looking for us.”

I looked at her, “What idea?”

“Well, when your dad’s family starts looking for us... They’re going to be looking for ‘us’, right?”

I looked at her like she was crazy as the waitress left my juice and mom’s coffee.

“Umm... Huh?”

“A thirty-seven year old mother and her almost eleven year old son...” She prompted.

“Oh... Yeah, I guess that will be part of the description.” I told her and thought about the rest. Mother is 4’10” tall with long blonde hair, Caucasian, name is Megan Franchino. She was last seen with her son, Antonio, or Tony, who is eleven, blonde hair, and about four feet tall. “So what can we do about it though?”

“Well, maybe we should change, ‘us...’” Mom suggested softly.

“You mean like a disguise?” I looked at her, almost afraid of where she was going with this. “You said she gave you the idea...”

Mom nodded.

“So what are you saying I should pretend to be... your...”

“Daughter,” she nodded and blushed.

I squirmed in my seat and felt all of my masculine feelings erupt. I’m a boy!!!! I shook my head, “That would be too weird... And with my hair... Wouldn’t it be an obvious idea?”

“What do you mean, your dad would never expect you to be willing to be a girl. He’ll expect me to shave your head or something.”

I thought for a moment and knew that she was right. “What if someone else thinks of it?” I asked.

“I don’t think anyone in the family will...” she said softly, “they won’t want to insult him. Maybe the police would, but they’re going to have to give a description and use photos.”

I stared blankly at her, “You think he’ll involve the police?”

“I don’t know... It would get ugly for him if they caught up with us since I’ve taken pictures of the last three months...” she couldn’t finish the last and I reached across the table and grabbed her shaking hand and squeezed it.

I thought for a moment, ‘Dad wouldn’t think of this... I know I wouldn’t... If anyone ever finds out though I am sooo dead!!!Pretending to be a girl won’t be easy… will it?’ I sat there for a moment and could just see the outline of mom’s bruise, and a bit of pain on my rear still... Meanwhile Mom stared at me quietly watching my brain work. ‘If it’s the only way we can get away safely.’

I took a deep breath in, “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Her eyes lit up a bit and she gently said, “Thank you Tony, I’ll make it up to you somehow...”

I sat quietly and thought through what else could go wrong in my head and finally spoke again. “Maybe you should be an older sister instead?” I suggested, “Then you could pretend to be younger too and get rid of the idea that you’re even old enough to be the lady they’re looking for. I bet you could look barely twenty...”

Mom nodded and said, “Yes, I’m sure I probably could get away with that…” She stared at me and added, “You know, you probably should pretend to be younger too then...”

“Huh?”

“Well sweetie we both know you look younger than you are because of your height, you could pull it off really easily. I mean Annie thought you were younger than her yesterday… Also, if this goes on long enough we’ll have to find a way to enroll you into school. You’re getting ready to go to middle school next year… that would mean changing in the locker room if you go into sixth grade.” I blushed, as much as it might be a dream come true for most boys I knew I would be beyond embarrassed in there. I also knew that I would be dead in thirty seconds if my girl classmates saw me naked. “If we aren’t the thirty-seven year old mother and eleven year old son, but something as opposite and far away from that as we can get, maybe we’ll have a chance.” I watched her eyes light up with something that could only be described as hope.

We both stopped talking as the lady dropped off our meal and we began quickly eating the waffles. “How old should I be?” I asked hesitantly as I finished all that I could.

“I don’t know... You’re really the height of a nine-year old?”

“More like eight according to the doctor, remember?”

“Oh yeah... He did say that didn’t he.” It had been a really embarrassing moment at my last checkup when he had said I was in the bottom two percent for height. He had actually said seven, but I was trying not to remember that. “Wait, didn’t he say seven, not eight?” Mom asked remembering as well.

I tried to glare at her, but as my face reddened I just nodded. I was so skinny too, barely fifty-three pounds. If my parents weren’t so short and my mom so petite he said he would have been worried. As it was he took a ton of blood samples that day anyway to be sure there was nothing wrong with me!

The waitress came back by a moment later and Mom pulled a fast one on me, “Miss, I’m having an argument here with my niece, how old do you think she is?”

I felt red and wanted to die of embarrassment. The lady was probably in her late twenties and smiled at us. She stared at me for a second and guessed, “You’re eight, right?”

I decided to just nod, not able to speak.

“See I told you,” Mom said to me. “Thank you miss.”

I shot laser beams with my eyes into Mom, but they didn’t seem to have any effect. This was really embarrassing!

“Okay then... Do you think you could handle pretending to be my eight-year old baby sister?”

I continued to stare at her in disbelief for a long moment, wondering if this was all one big joke at my expense. However, when I heard a familiar Italian accent from another table I felt a chill go down my spine. I doubted they were related to my dad’s family, but the Franchino’s owned this chain of dollar stores that were spread throughout the country. If they used all of their locations to run whatever illegal business they ran...

“I guess sis!” I told her. “And you’re what, twenty-two?” I asked.

She nodded, “I guess that will work.” The waitress returned, dropped the ticket off and said, “Have a nice day ladies.”

The waitress never once decided I was a boy... It might be able to work. As soon as Mom paid the check she led me into the ladies room by the hand. I grimaced, but went in there with her without arguing. “Sit down to pee,” she whispered in my ear and pointed me towards one stall while she took the other. I finished quickly and began washing my hands. Mom came up behind me and pulled out the rubber band in my hair and let my hair loose.

When we got out to the car she said, “I think we need to do something about our hair color too tonight...”

“What color would we go to?” I asked as she drove away.

She thought for a moment, “With your eyes and complexion adding a bit of red wouldn’t be a bad choice. And, I guess I could do the same too.”

I grimaced, but said, “That would be a lot different than we normally look.”

She didn’t even drive a block before pulling off into the parking lot of a Wal-mart.

“Let’s stop here and get some things before we keep driving.”

Mom opened my door for me and grabbed onto my hand like I was a little kid. “Why are you grabbing onto my hand?” I asked, embarrassed.

“You’re my eight-year old baby sister, it’s normal,” she told me matter-of-factly, “Little girls hold someone’s hands a lot!” We grabbed a cart and she immediately went to the hair products. Mom stared at the boxes for a few moments before grabbing two boxes of a red hair color that she thought was good enough. As she walked down the aisle she paused and quickly grabbed four cards of barrettes, bows, and other hair accessories that were obviously for me. My face reddened, but I didn’t say anything.

“I don’t want to buy everything here,” she told me, “But I think we need to just get enough clothes for a few days here and the major things.” She looked thoughtful and muttered, “Yeah, that too...”

“What too?” I asked.

She didn’t answer but instead pulled me along in her tracks. She walked to the girls department and I felt like I was going into the forbidden wastelands. Pink, purple, glitter, and all things girl leapt out at me as we entered the area. I felt like at any moment someone I knew would jump out from behind a rack of clothes and start making fun of me. Mom paid no attention to my nerves though, and started looking through shirts - she was obviously on a mission. She held one up next to me that was pink and had ruffles all over it. It made me want to gag, but I bit my tongue. “The girlier you dress, the more likely we’ll pull this off,” she whispered to me. “You’re a size seven, what do you like?”

I groaned because I didn’t want to pick out girls clothes. I stared at the top in the cart in disbelief for several moments before she tickled my side briefly to get my attention. “What do you want to look at?” She asked me again, and I reluctantly began helping her pick out some tops. Somehow it became a game of who could pick out the girlier tops. The only problem was that even when I won, I lost because they went into the cart!

“Here, hold these around your neck,” Mom said as she held up a pink set of denim shorts. I knew what she meant, it was her trick for quickly finding out if jeans or shorts fit me if I didn’t want to go into the room to try them on. It went around my neck fine and she nodded. “We’ll try on clothes more tomorrow,” she said in a whisper, “I want to keep moving though.

We continued piling in a few more pairs of shorts, and, to my embarrassment she threw in two skirts as well. Mom moved through the girls’ section quickly this whole time, probably only having spent ten minutes doing the shopping we’d done so far. ‘This is so not normal for her!’ I thought to myself. ‘Oh no!’ Was my next thought though, when she had stopped in front of a rack of dresses.

She immediately found two dresses that she held up in front of me. “Which color do you like?”

I felt like I was going to start hyperventilating, but knew we needed to do this quickly. I pointed at the bright neon green one and she smiled. It had Hello Kitty on the bottom of the skirt and two thin straps on top. She had just finished putting it in the basket, when she grabbed another dress that she saw that oozed little girl cuteness. It had some sort of lacy overlay to the skirt and featured Minnie Mouse on the front of it. We left the section then and I thought maybe we were done for now with the embarrassment.

I was wrong of course though as she quickly pushed the cart to the shoe section and picked out a pair of white sandals for me to try on. Keeping to the theme that we’d been looking for they were incredibly girly. They even came complete with pink and blue fake jewels on the top with fake diamonds around. I knew no girl my age would let them within a hundred feet of her closet! But, if I was going to pretend to be eight it was probably about right. Just at the moment when I thought it couldn’t get much worse, I saw a pair of pink Barbie tennis shoes complete with Velcro straps. Mom spotted them too, and she didn’t even hesitate when she saw my shoe size; she simply pulled them out of the box and I groaned.

“Ooh, aren’t these pretty? They even light up!” She said excitedly like she would if I was five. “Let’s try them on real quick,” she told me.

“Please tell me I can be closer to my age when we get settled down...” I whined quietly.

“Sure thing Princess.” Mom said with a big smile.

I looked at her in disbelief and pulled the shoe onto my foot. I was really hoping they wouldn’t fit since they were definitely for really little girls, but my feet were so tiny they even had room to grow! I hurriedly took off the shoe and hoped that no one ever caught us, because I was certain to die of humiliation without a single shot ever being fired. ‘I certainly hope Dad doesn’t recognize me if he ever finds us...’

Once mom had put the shoes back into the box, she pushed the cart over a few aisles and I knew that she was now looking for herself. She looked for a few minutes and picked out a pair of flip-flops, a pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of ballet flats. “Normally I know neither of us would shop here for shoes and clothes,” Mom whispered to me, “but we need something. We’ll buy some more things in a few days.”

She stood at the end of the shoe aisle for a few seconds thinking intently and I watched her smack herself in the head. “I can’t believe I forgot that...” she seemed to yell at herself. She immediately pushed off and headed back to the girls department.

My face grew even redder than it had before as she led me down to the girls’ underwear section. Without hesitation she looked at a pack of panties that had Disney Princesses on them and grabbed a pack of the size she was looking for. I followed her and watched as she went to the socks next, where she quickly grabbed a package of plain white and a package with a variety of colors. Mom looked around and decided she’d gotten everything for me, and headed to women’s. She found the junior’s section and grabbed four tops and four pairs of shorts that would fit her without much of a pause. She seemed to think for a moment and decided she must have covered almost everything.

“Oh yeah...” she said and began walking back to another part of the store which I soon realized was the baby section.

I tugged at her and whispered, “I’m supposed to be eight!?!”

“You are,” she whispered, “which means we need a car seat. We’ve been risking getting pulled over for it already as is. At age eleven you were fine... But at your height and age...”

I grimaced at the memory two months ago.

Mom had been pulling away from the elementary school and a cop had pulled us over. “Ma’am, how old is your child?” He asked suspiciously.

I beat her to the punch though and said, “I’m ten sir.”

“Is that true ma’am?” he had asked.

“Yes sir, my son is in fifth grade.”

The officer looked for a moment at me and said, “Okay, I’m just checking because he looked young enough - and definitely small enough - to need a booster seat instead of just that seatbelt. It might still be a good idea even though he’s above the legal age of having to ride with one.

“How old is that again?” My mom asked him with concern.

“Ohio law says anyone eight and under unless they’re above 4’9” tall.”

I blushed and tried to melt into my seat, “We’ll think about going back to one officer. We’re free to go though now?” She had asked and driven away. I had been so embarrassed then, but refused adamantly that as a ten-year old I would sit in a baby seat. Thankfully Dad had backed me up for once, as he never had to use one when he was older...

I sighed as I looked around at all of the car seats. I thought maybe she would just grab the little ones that were just a little riser seat, but she looked at everything. Mom looked at all of the labels looking for height/weight and I swore looking only at the ones that were obviously for a girl. ‘Well duh!’ I yelled at myself, ‘That’s the whole point of this!’ She decided on one that was decidedly more babyish than I wanted to sit in. It was an actual car seat style one! I saw on the box that it called it a three-in-one seat that I could see I fit in the normal weight range like a toddler would without moving to the booster seat part. She placed it in the cart and I felt all remaining dignity, the tiny amount I still possessed, instantly leave.

‘I hate my dad...’ I thought. If he weren’t such a jerk I wouldn’t have to do this.

Mom made one last stop in the toy department, quickly grabbing me a few Barbie’s, a baby doll, and a stuffed teddy bear. “We’ll get you more toys another time, but it would look weird for you not to have something...” she quietly told me. We were just getting to the checkouts when I noticed the book section and some coloring books.

“May I have a coloring book?” I suggested. I had always liked coloring, and at least it would be something to do.

“Sure thing,” Mom said and without giving me any choices she added two Disney Princess coloring books to the cart, found some crayons, and continued moving to the checkout. I wondered if they would say something about having so much stuff, but no one gave us a second look. Mom pushed the cart out to the car and had me help her take the car seat out of the box. She installed it in the passenger side on the back seat with a lot of grunting and said, “You know I didn’t miss dealing with these...”

She quickly pulled my toys from the packaging and put all of the trash inside the car seat box, which a nice employee offered to take to the trash for us. I thought we would just leave, but she grabbed the bright neon dress from the bag, a pair of the panties, the sandals, then a pair of the shorts and a top for herself. She looked thoughtful. “Here, let’s go over to that McDonald’s and change,” she said. “It’s just across the parking lot, you can sit next to your new seat for now.”

I grimaced and knew this would be short lived. Once she parked we walked in quickly to the girls bathroom before I had a chance to whine about it. She led me into the larger handicap stall at the back and closed the door. “Okay, pull off everything,” she told me. I wanted to drag this out, but I knew that time was not something in our favor right now. I could just imagine Dad having decided to fly back immediately this morning and that meant he could be back at our house at any time. I quickly pulled everything including my underwear off and blushed as my mom saw me totally naked.

“Here are your panties,” Mom told me. They were the ultimate in little girly-ness to me in that they had crisscrossing diamonds of leaves and flowers printed on the front with Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I mentally hit myself for knowing which princess it was! I pulled them on quickly and noticed they felt much different than boy underwear. The lace round the openings was kind of odd and felt weird. I blushed as I realized no other eleven-year-old boy would ever be caught dead in these!

“Here, arms up,” Mom told me a second later and pulled the dress over my head not giving me any time to really consider what she was doing. She then spent a moment fussing with it before handing me the sandals and helping me to buckle them. She played with my hair for a moment and smiled, “You look really pretty.” The way she said it was like a knife in the gut, it was like she thought I should be proud of it.

I just blushed and didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t you go potty while we’re here — you can use the next stall over while I change?”

“Okay,” I said. I went straight to the stall and wondered how to do this. The dress was long and I knew I needed to sit from earlier... I eventually figured out I just needed to pull my panties down and the dress up while I went.

“Don’t forget to wipe!” Mom said from the stall next to me. I blushed and wanted to cry, but figured out she didn’t mean my rear. I did so, flushed, and walked to the mirror to wash my hands.

I gasped.

‘I look like a girl!’ I felt my mind grind to a complete halt. I touched my dress just to make sure the reflection was me. I blinked and it still didn’t change. ‘Not to mention I think I’ll have to fight to convince people I’m eight...’ I looked like the farthest thing from the middle school student I was supposed to be at the end of the summer. The disturbing thing was that I knew I looked cute too...

I turned around and was shocked to see Mom looking less ‘mom’-like already. She had changed into a short pair of denim shorts and a yellow racer back tank top. She washed her hands and then wasted no time in getting us back out to the car. She opened my door with the new seat and unexpectedly helped me up into the seat. I blushed as she buckled the harness up for me. The middle strap made my dress bunch up weird in between my legs and I felt myself turn red again. Mom fussed with it a moment, to leave some modesty for me, kissed me on the forehead, and then closed the door.

“Let’s go,” she said as she began driving.

I looked down at myself and felt really self-conscious. I stared at my feet for a long while as Mom found her way to I-20 and began driving west. I knew my life would be over if any of the people at school back home saw me! ‘The only good thing is that I don’t think they would ever recognize me without a hint...’ I squirmed a bit mentally at the clothes. Absolutely everything felt different, especially the bottom of the dress where it touched my bare legs. The bizarre thing to me was that it wasn’t uncomfortable, just different. In some weird way it felt more comfortable than the clothes I had just been in.

“We need a different name for you Princess,” Mom said to me, interrupting my thinking.

“Huh?”

“Well Anthony, or Tony is probably a bad idea now.” She suggested.

“Oh...” I said. “Well, do you have something in mind?” I had a feeling she’d been thinking about this longer than I had.

“How about Tina, it would be kind of close to your old name...”

I shook my head, “Every Tina I’ve known has been mean.”

She looked thoughtful and stayed quiet for a long time, “How about Ashley?”

I looked at her and thought for a moment, “I guess I could do Ashley.”

She smiled, “Okay Ashley it is!”

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Well if you’re my big sister I’m not going to be able to call you Mom.”

“Oh...” She thought for a moment. “How about Amber?”

I thought for a moment, “So our mom liked ‘A’ names?”

She nodded, “And we have a brother that’s in between us that’s Anthony, so if we slip on a name that’ll at least be explainable.”

I nodded, “Okay Amber.”

She smiled back at me and hoped I wouldn’t have to be Ashley for all that long. Surprisingly the pink car seat was not as uncomfortable as I would have expected it to be, and I soon found myself drifting off to sleep.

What did you think? Comments and/or Kudos are always appreciated! Thanks for reading!