Juniper

This village, Devon Shropshire, has been my home since I was a wee little one, when my mother and I came from Ireland to join her sister. After my father's death, mother hadn't known what to do, so we came here.

The town was okay when I was small; playing cricket in the field, soccer on cobblestone streets, yelling "car" when one appeared to interrupt our game and lots of giggling sleep overs at my friend Bridgett's.

As a teenager though, its the most boring place ever. Mum thinks that school stuff should be enough. Play a sport, join a team. Right. No one in this stuffy town likes me since Bridgett's family moved to London. I'm the fatherless girl with super short hair pink, reads too much and has a funny name. Why my mother though Juniper was a good name for a girl, I'll never know. My aunt and uncle mercifully call me Junie, though that's the only merciful thing they do.

They never let me forget that Mum and I are their charity case. My works in a small bakery on the square, my favorite place besides the wood behind my Uncle's home. Its not enough for us to get a place alone, or so Mum says. i'd rather live in tent then with my snobby cousin's Trent and Tracy who get everything they want and leave me with their hand-me-downs. That wouldn't be so bad except that they make sure everyone knows I'm wearing their hand-me downs. I do my best to make them my own, cutting holes in designer jeans and drawing with fabric pens on fancy tops. Doesn't make me any more popular though, just a little more odd.

Today will be different. Today there will be some excitement in this drab little place. I will light it up and light out. I'm seventeen today. Seventeen is the perfect time to start a new life. To leave this place behind. To leave behind the pain, the shame and the bullying.

The last thing interesting thing that happened in this town was some tourists staying at our one little hostel. They got drunk and make a huge mess and even got in a fight at the local pub. That's what qualifies as big news here. It keeps the old ladies clucking, and the old men complaining about foreigners and the good old days.

The hostel has been my training ground. I've met met people from Japan, America, Australia Canada and many more exciting places. They are never coming to my town, just passing through. They come with backpacks, sleeping bags, maps and GPS going to places I have only dreamed of. Its the place I pretended to give up my virginity to a guy name Hans, traveling with his friend Emil, their summer between secondary school and university. It convinced me that both love and sex are overrated.

I did a lot of planning. Super important is that Mum is at work. She's working tonight making a special cake for some event or another. Another event she'll do the work for but we won't be invited to attend. I love her but I can't stand her anymore. She is a shadow of a person. She never stands up for me with our family now matter what they say or do to me. She is the queen of excuses. There is always a reason they are being mean but actually she just doesn't want to upset anyone. She's the same at work. Taking shit from customer's and her boss alike, though she works hard and never says no to extra work or extra shifts.

It's dusk. I love dusk. It gives a surreal look to the cottages, bungalows and semi-detached homes that make up most of this village. Its makes the over-sized mansion I live in look almost like a castle and it makes my wood a place when I can disappear, like a pink haired fairy in an enchanted forest. I always knew dusk would be the time. Dusk brings home my aunt, uncle and cousins where they will acting like a normal, happy family, not my jailers and tormentors. Until supper they wont even notice I'm gone, as I stay gone as much as I can. And then Aunt Dot will just say something about how unreliable and ungrateful I am. Normally, i just head to the kitchen after they've gone to bed, to find leftover and eat in the kitchen. I love Elsa, our cook and maid. She'll be gone tonight, Thursdays are her day out.

There is one thing that's good about being invisible, about no one caring if you are there or not. I can come and go and no one notices. Tonight I wear Trent's black hooded sweatshirt, the one he got but and never wore, and black leggings I looted from Tracy. I edge up to the house and chain all the doors closed with heavy bike cables. Everyone is this family has a bike for rides into the village, so they were easy to acquire. Plus, all the doors are locked with the security system, so they won't expect me. Black spray paint handled all the cameras. I walk slowly, taking my time.

Windows I did last week. Its autumn and no one opens windows in the cold fog that loves England's Septembers so much. It was so simple. Just a few nails and about an hour. I wasn't able to get the second floor though, but no plan is ever perfect.

My beloved timber sanctuary provided the wood I need. What a waste. What family lives on five acres with woods and a wonderful creek and never spends anytime outside except on the cement patio that cover natural earth. I built three pyres. One near the never used back door, one under the window of the guest room, a room used only for holidays when Grandmother Jane would visit. She was Uncle's mother and saw me as some sort of paid help, always asking me to fetch and carry, and talking about me in the 3rd person, even when I am in the room.

Ironically, if these people every used their home, their five acres of land, they may have noticed these strange piles of twigs and limbs. Thankfully for me, they do not.

The gas was easy. Our gardener, Juan, always keeps small cans of gas in the car park for the lawnmower. I am careful when I add gas. I want to use it as an accelerate but I don't want it to flame up and hurt me. I kept this till today, so that the odor would not give me away.

Lighting the bonfires is fast. I rush from one to another, using matches to light them so that the match is devoured by the same flames. I run then, fast as I can, across the lawn and into my beloved wood. There waits for me my backpack and sleeping role, all together as the hostelers taught me. I sling it on and start to run again. Up the well know path I head to the top of the head. I live it all behind; the pain, the bullying, the shame of midnight visits by an Uncle, ones I know I can never tell anyone about.

I've been practicing this run for six months. I reach the top in a record seven minutes, fueled by adrenaline. I am out of breath and excited. I look down the hill on the house. It is engulfed in flames, they lick the sides of the house like an evil spirit seeking to devour it. I watch for a few minutes, memorized by my power.

Then I turn and bike down the hill into town, a short cut as the village council had built a serious of them a few years ago to encourage tourists. As I hit the edge of town, fire trucks roar by me and I cross my fingers. They will be too late. As I pop into the hostel, Siobhan from Dublin and Stephanie from New York, are bundling into the little Volkswagen bought when Stephanie got tired of walking or hitching across Europe. They think I'm 19 and have welcomed me to come along. My pink hair dyed is now into a bland brown just like the village I leave behind. Talking them into leaving at night was easy, based on less traffic and being on the beach by morning.

They welcome me with hugs and small talk, We pour into the car and head out, in the opposite directions of the fire crew. By tonight I'll be 200 miles away and free. My last look at the village reminds of my first, at age four, when I'd thought the place cold and inviting. Well, at least is a little warmer today.