Shalia's Diary Read Online Free PDF Page A

tears, and she looked scared.  I don’t like my mother to look that way.
     
    All my life, my mother Eve Monroe has been either suicidally depressed or abusively angry.  She got the short end of the bipolar stick, since most sufferers bounce between depression and manic highs.  Her highs come out mean.  Since she has an almost phobic hatred of medication and treatment, she never got better.  She was never a picnic to be around, but she was tough in her anger mode.  Even when she was depressed, she never came across as scared.
     
    I can’t handle her scared.  So I said, “We only have his word for it, don’t we?  I think we can put off the panic for now.”
     
    “All right,” she said and went back to eating fruit.  She found a bunch of grapes and wandered into the back bedroom.  She’s knitting baby booties in there, of all things.  She must have enough to keep the toes of fifty newborns cozy by now.  But I don’t say anything about it since it keeps her busy and happy.
     
    I’m really scared of going out tonight, now that the Kalquorians are aware of where we’re hiding.  I’m mostly worried about leaving Mom alone.  But we have to go somewhere else.  We can’t stay here anymore, waiting to be collected by our enemies.
     
     
    August 24
     
    I can’t stop crying, except when I’m around Mom.  I manage to barely hold it together for her, but I do.  I have to.  She can’t be upset, because I can’t control her when she’s upset.
     
    I went out last night to find us a new place to hide.  I was so scared, but there was nothing else I could do, right?  Except give us up to the Kalquorians.  I’ll admit, I seriously thought about it.  I mean, the one who brought us the food could have taken us prisoner at any time.  It doesn’t make sense to try to convince us to walk into the Academy on our own if the aliens mean to make us slaves.  But I don’t know how alien minds think.  I don’t know what they have planned for us.
     
    So as much as I’d like to swallow the sweet bedtime story of food, shelter, and being sent to one of the colonies, I just can’t.  Not until I’m sure we won’t trade a lifeless planet for something worse.
     
    So I crept out with only moonlight to illuminate my surroundings.  I never knew what dark really was until there were no more streetlights to drive back all that black.  Even after my eyes adjusted, it was a real feat not to walk into trees and stuff.  I had a flashlight with me, but no way was I going to turn it on.  Who knew what was out there, looking for a woman wandering around with only a kitchen knife as defense?
     
    I found out.  Oh God, I found out.
     
    I’d gone two miles, moving closer to the Academy, still believing the proximity to it would keep unwanted gangs from venturing near.  I figured at least I’d only have to worry about the Kalquorians that way.  To my thinking, it should have cut my chances of running into enemies in half.  It turned out I had more enemies than I imagined.
     
    I walked along a stand of trees skirting the highway.  The moon kept the road easy to see, like a quicksilver river running straight and true.  The trees were good cover.  I listened carefully too, and any time a Kalquorian shuttle hummed overhead or I heard anything besides the peepers and whippoorwills doing their nighttime concert, I froze.  I held onto that knife with a death grip, ready to do whatever it took to fight off anything that came at me.  I’ve never killed anyone, and I wasn’t sure I could even if my life was at stake.  But it’s not just me I have to take care of.  Mom needs me.  I’m not much of a caretaker, but I’m all she’s got.  Boy, I was feeling that responsibility last night as I snuck through the trees, keeping the road in sight.
     
    The woods were getting a little sparse as I went along, and I began to look ahead to see the best route that would keep me hidden.  It was mostly thin pines, with