Free Paintings from the Cave by Gary Paulsen

never left her face. Mike and Carter were pushing into her legs with their shoulders. “They’re more than just dogs, aren’t they?”
    Jo nodded. “They never hurt anyone and they know everything there is about love and all they want is to help us not be alone and scared. They never give up.”
    Rose said, “Could they help me?”
    “Of course.”
    For the first time in years, Jo was crying. For the first time ever, she was crying for someone else.
    Rose rested her hand in Jo’s. They stayed still for a long time, their hands clasped as darkness fell, looking above the trees, where small white clouds were being gently pushed past the full moon by a soft wind.
    Finally, the dogs stood with a jingling of collar tags, filling the air with the sound of bells.



“ J amie. Time to wake up.”
    I open my eyes and see Erik, my older brother, crouched next to where I’m sleeping on the floor. He’s shaking me awake. The apartment is dark and he’s whispering. “We’ve got to get moving. C’mon. Time to go.”
    I sit up, stretch and yawn while Erik rolls up his sleeping bag. He gestures to me and I slide out of my bag, slip my shoes on and tie the laces while he ties up my sleeping bag. We sleep in our clothes, so after rolling up our bedding and grabbing our backpacks and the duffel bag with our spare clothes, we’re out the door.
    He gives me a dollar when we get to his car before he goes to work.
    I have $1.78.
    That means I can afford a bagel for breakfast because, with tax, a plain bagel costs $1.21. If I’m smart, I’ll only eat half and save the other half for lunch. I’m not that smart, though, so I’ll eat the whole bagel this morning on the way to school and then my gut will be complaining this afternoon.
    But I can usually fool my stomach by drinking enough water at the fountain to feel full. I’m into quick fixes. Quick fixes are the only thing I’ve got these days.
    I don’t have to worry about supper; Erik always brings me food. He works at the Burger Barn and his manager lets him have the patties that have been sitting in the warming tray long enough that they start getting dried up around the edges. No ketchup or mustard or pickles or onions or tomatoes or cheese, and by the time I get them, they’re cold and rubbery and the buns are stale. But there’s usually enough to eat to make me feel stuffed.
    Erik and I ran away from home two years ago when I was ten and he was fifteen.
    No. That’s not quite right.
    We drove away in the car he stole.
    And what we left was no kind of home.
    Erik’s Rule #1: Don’t talk about—don’t even think about—what happened before.
    “That’s over,” he said as we pulled away in the blue Toyota that belonged to some guy who was passed out in our mother’s room.
    I nodded.
    “We’re never going back there.”
    I nodded again.
    “No one will ever try to hurt you again.”
    My brother doesn’t talk much, and when he does, it sounds like rules, or warnings, or instructions. Not regular conversation. But that’s okay because he never yells and all the words he uses are PG-13. Which is a nice change of pace.
    Erik and I have been on the move ever since we left. I tried to remember exactly when that was, but I’m not good with dates so I can only guess. I know it was summertime, because for the first few weeks we camped out, kind of, spreading our sleeping bags in the storage shed at the beach and showering in the locker room.
    We’ve slept in the office at the garage where Erik works part-time. Once, when Erik was dating a girl whose mom owned a dance school, we slept in the studio. That was the best deal yet—we crashed on the couches in the waiting room and soft music played all night long. But then the girlfriend, I can’t even remember her name, started dating someone new, a guy whose little brother didn’t want to sleep in her mom’s lobby, probably, and we had to move on.
    A few times we had nowhere else to go so we slept in Erik’s car, the