I was awoken from quite a pleasant dream by the sound of my alarm on my phone going off. I squinted at my ceiling, trying to figure out why I was awake so early on my one day off. It probably took much longer than it should have for me to remember that I had plans to meet my friend Nick today, and that we were going to go walking. That didn’t explain why it was still morning, since we were meeting up this afternoon. “Must’ve put the wrong alarm on…” I mumbled to myself, “Oh well. Might as well use this time to get ready and maybe eat something. I went downstairs to make breakfast and headed into the laundry room to get what I was planning on wearing out. I spent the rest of my off time scrolling through my phone and lying around. As I was walking out my front door I heard my Mum call out to me. “Max? Where are you going?”

“Nick wants to meet up and take a walk down the train tracks.”
Mum pokes her head out from the living room, “Okay bub, be safe okay?”

“What do you think we’re going to do? Run away and join the circus?” I say, smiling at her. She gives me a look as if to say ‘I wouldn’t put it past you’. “We’ll be fine Mum,” I walk over to her, giving her a quick hug. “Besides, do you really think Nick would get anywhere near a place that is known to have clowns in it?”
“No I suppose not,” she laughs. With that, she waves me off and I start walking to the nearby grocery store. Nick and I had agreed that we would meet there to get some snacks before walking down together. Safety in numbers and all that. It doesn’t take too long to walk down and there wasn’t that many people around since I had just missed the after school rush. I was startled by a voice shouting my name from across the street. I spun around to see Nick running across the street toward me.
“Hey Nick! You’re not late this time.” I said with a grin. He laughed me off.
“Yeah I actually remembered to turn on my alarm before I went to sleep for once”

I winced “damn, they still have you on the nightshift at work huh?”
“Yeah but it’s only until that company in Misty Falls get’s back to me. Then I get the satisfaction of seeing everyone fall to pieces since I’m one of the only people that take nightshifts. You know how many people want to buy bread at 1am? More than you’d think” We shared a little chuckle together and walked into the store. Nick made a beeline toward the candy isle, while I took a wander toward all the drinks. We’d done this a million times by that point so I knew Nick will get what I wanted. I grabbed two bottles of water since we were going to need them later and two soft drinks, lemonade and a cola. I went to the candy isle to wait for Nick to grab my sour worms and whatever his candy of the week was. Once he was done we went to pay for our items and made our way out of the store.
After we got a fair ways away from the store, Nick started to fidget with the bag of stuff we bought.
“what’s up Nick? You seem kinda nervous.” I asked after a while of watching Nick fiddle with the bag.

“Well um…” Nick started “I may have been telling my Dad about our plans to go walking today, and my sister may have been listening in?”
I stared at him, “oh Nick you didn’t.”
“I didn’t want to! She started asking me if she could come and I kept saying no so she went and asked Dad instead, and you know he spoils her so he said that I had to let her come”
“Nick! You know this is my one day off from looking after little brats!”
“What was I supposed to do?? Say no Sarah, you can’t come because this is going to be my one day of the week where I don’t have to deal with you? She would’ve just cried and told Dad about it.”

I groaned at the thought. God that girl can be dramatic when she wanted to be. “What’s the plan then? It’s not like we can walk too far if we have to look after her as well.” Nick shrugs. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him too much. It’s no secret to either family that when Sarah wanted something, she will use any tactic she can to get it. It’s something I respect her for, when she’s not using it to be a brat. “Making it up as we go it is then. Where is she this time?”

“She’s staying at Massie’s since she needed someone to watch the dogs for the night. Massie should be home by now though.”

“So what she played hookie today to watch the dogs?” Nick nodded. We changed course, walking down a little side street to get to the one Massie lived on. The colourful houses paving the way down the street. We started chatting, catching up and talking about anything that came to mind. Nick kept complaining about this one customer that he’s pretty sure gets high, decides he’s starving and buys half the stock of hot food.
“I swear, he’s going to try and sell me some one day. Like c’mon my man, sharing is caring.”

By the time we got to where Nick said he was going to pick up his sister it had warmed up quite a bit. We walked to the front door of the house that Nick’s sister was staying at. Nick barely touched the door when there is a cacophony of barks from the other side. The sound of fast footsteps could be heard before the door is flung open and Sarah came rushing out.
“Nick you know not to knock on the door! It drives the dogs nuts and then Massie gets noise complaints!”
Nick rolled his eyes, “well okay but where’s the fun in that?” Sarah gave Nick a hit over the head for that. Sarah spun around to face me.
“Don’t think that you’re not a part of this either Maxie, you should’ve told him off before he knocked on the door!” Nick and I shared a look, before Nick looked away and nodded.
“I stand by what I said.”
“Periodt.” Sarah shook her head. Clearly she’s not a man of culture.
“Y’all are terrible. I have no idea how you’re considered adults.”

“Damn Sarah, why don’t you tell me how you really feel.” I could hear Sarah grumble something under her breath, but decided it would probably better to leave her to it instead of asking her to repeat herself. I instead brought their attention back to our plans for the day; otherwise we’d just be standing outside Massie’s house all day.

“Okay Sarah, you don’t have anything to do before we leave do you? Also did you remember to get a bottle of water before you made your dash out of the house or are you going to have to brave the hounds to grab one?”
“Ha ha Max, of course I remembered to grab a water bottle. I put it in my bag before you guys got here.” I started to look around for the bag, making eye contact with Nick before turning back to Sarah.

“What bag?” I question. Sarah’s eyes widened before she started to look all over, as if it had somehow teleported out with her. She seemed to wilt as she realised that she had, in fact left her bag inside. “Goddamn it.” She quickly dashed back inside, the barking following her to wherever she left it.

“You know, this would be a perfect time to leave her behind.” I suggested. Nick sent me a look and hit my arm. “Coward.”

“Dude, you’re not the one that will have to deal with her when you get home.”

I rolled my eyes, “that sounds like more of a you problem then a me problem.” That earns me yet another hit on the arm. “Dude I was joking, stop hitting me.” I rubbed the spot on my arm, Nick gave me an exasperated look and started to tell me off some more but before he could, Sarah came running back out.

“Okay y’all walk slow enough without also arguing the entire time.” Sarah quickly took the lead and started walking down the road. Nick and I hurried after her.

“Oh I’m sorry, weren’t you the one that had to go back and get your bag after forgetting it yet again.” Nick snarked at Sarah. Having known Nick and Sarah for so long, it was pretty easy to tune them out from that point. Nick and Sarah kept up a running commentary on what we would come across on our walk, and I couldn’t help but think that the whole situation was kind of off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why it felt that way so I just figured that it was nothing. I couldn’t just call off the entire plan because of a feeling. I really should have though. It would’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble.