When I was ten, I decided that I had endured enough parental tyranny and it was time for me to split. I always felt like I was preparing myself to leave, or move at any moment, since I didn’t feel like I belonged where I was. I had vivid fantasies of the Harry Potter variety: “It’s all been a mistake. You don’t belong here at all. You’re actually a genius/circus freak/part wolf eel.” Maybe some small part of me was holding on to the idea that my grandma was going to come back and get me, and I would be where I belonged

We lived in the woods, so I developed an interest in survivalism and living off the land. I read as many books as I could about edible plants and how to make fires. I practiced making little fires and putting them out. I even forced myself to read “Mark Trail” every Sunday morning (covertly, to avoid arousing suspicion), although I strongly suspected that was a waste of time. I was ready for my moment when I would wake up and my childhood as I knew it would be over.

When I was nine my sister was born, which was the absolute last thing my surly preteen self wanted. I think she probably wasn’t significantly screamier than most babies, but she made me nuts. All I had was my mother’s attention, which was spotty at the best of times, and then I lost it to a red-faced bundle of fury. The first summer she was born I focused my attention on actively trying to sell her off to the neighbors, who irritatingly thought this was adorable behavior. So by the time she was a year old, I was fed up.

A friend invited me to spend the night at her house one weekend at the beginning of our summer break. I had every reason to think it was going to be a normal girl sleepover–you stay up too late talking, eat some pancakes, have a fight brought on by lack of sleep, and then your mom comes and picks you up. I had known this friend for about three years at this point. She had a stepmother that she didn’t get along with, and like me, was tired of her situation.

We were out in her backyard, which bumped up against the slow-flowing Kishwaukee River. Her father had often taken us out in his motorboat so we could swim or get dragged behind the boat on an inner tube. We would stop on sandbars and feel around with our toes for clams, which were easy to pull out of the soft sand. For a while I made a habit of taking these large clams home with me in buckets, to keep as pets. Surprisingly, this incredibly lame and stupid idea never turned out very well.

My friend and I sat on the grass near the bank, looking out over the river.

“We should make some sandwiches and take that boat,” she pointed to her neighbor’s rowboat, which was tied up next door, “and go for a ride.”

“Okay,” I said. This was obviously the moment I had been preparing for.

After we got a few things together, we climbed into the neighbor’s boat and untied it. We were off in a stolen boat! Things were cooking now.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. I was surprised. Since this was her grand plan, I figured she’d have it worked out better than that.

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we do. We’ll travel by day today, until we get some distance. We’ll travel tonight. And then after that we’ll sleep in the woods by day, hiding the boat, and travel at night only.” I had recently read The Fellowship of the Ring and had some ideas about subterfuge and stealth travel. “We’ll follow the rivers, which will take us to the Mississippi eventually, and we won’t stop until we get to New Orleans.”

The first part of the trip was fun. We jumped in and out of the boat into the warm water, pushing it though narrow parts where the reeds got denser. We wound our way through familiar landmarks that I had only experienced from land before. The insects on the riverbank screamed and surrounded us so completely that they were all we could hear at points. I watched out for things we could eat, like wild carrots and berries.

As the afternoon dragged on, my friend got tired and grew whinier. I revised my plan in my head. We would travel together to New Orleans, and then we would have to part ways. “Sorry,” I would say. “This just isn’t working out. You can keep the boat, though.” I would apprentice myself to a card sharp in New Orleans. The card sharp would be a lonely old guy who ate beans out of a can in his room in a flop house, and he would have regretted not having children of his own. He would teach me his tricks, and I would pose as his grandchild, and with my help he would make enough money to afford a houseboat. When he died I would take over his business.

As it turned out, everyone and their uncle’s barber’s dog saw us throughout the day. Two little girls in a rowboat alone were more obvious than I thought. By sunset, we were in a wider, faster part of the river. There was a bridge coming up in front of us and we looked up to see a bunch of floodlights shined on us. “STOP! ROW THE BOAT TO THE SHORE!”

My friend immediately began rowing for the shore.

“What are you doing?” I said. “Row faster! Let’s go!”

She didn’t reply, but instead started crying and continued rowing toward the cops. She was giving up! I had no choice. I wasn’t going to swim for it. I sat with my arms crossed as she rowed us in. The cops grabbed us by the arms and pulled us out of the boat, and then the fun started.

(To be continued)