IN WHICH Aunts Shirley and Valerie Run Away

IN WHICH Aunts Shirley and Valerie Run Away

(As requested by Par Jason)

Faith and Val had to help me remember this story, so when we were together basking in the sunshine and love at Eileen's, they told it to me in tandem.
It all started one day when Mama made Shirley and Valerie, about 5 and 9 years old, clean their room. They had serious play planned so they were really mad. It just wasn't fair. As they worked (there was no way out of it) they became more convinced that they were made to work harder than any child should be made to. In fact, their whole lives had become intolerable in this house. There was nothing to do but run away. They knew they couldn't get far in the daylight so they decided to get up in the middle of the night and sneak out of the house when everybody was asleep.
So they got out the small cardboard suitcase and and hunted up stuff to put in it. They couldn't remember what, but Faith thought she would have brought a doll. They tucked it back under the bed and got on with their plans.
Plan 1. They would definitely live in the backroom of Scheid's furniture Store. David Schied was a boy who lived on our block who's family own the small store downtown. Their were windows in the back looking onto the street and we girls loved looking in on the extra beds, chairs, and tables--even lamps--stored there. It would be a perfectly comfortable place to live! And the Sheid's were nice people and wouldn't mind.
Plan 2. They would be able to get food at the meat market downtown. Our brother Paul was a 16 year old apprentice but it seemed like he owned it to us. Paul would give food to them or they could just get it for themselves. The more they thought about the steaks and candy Paul brought home to eat himself (never shared, I add bitterly), the more they liked this part pf the plan.
You may wonder how two little girls who worked so hard and never played during the day and who had never heard of an alarm clock would be able to wake up in the night. Hmmm.
Sooo....in the morning they got up and forgot all about their plan to run away.
For Aunts Faith and Valerie this ended the story. But I remember more of the story:
Days, maybe weeks later, our bedroom started to have a certain ripe odor. Cleaning Saturday came and went and the smell got worse, not better. Mama began to inspect and suspect a mouse had died in the wall. She pulled out the bed and went through all the toys, dirty clothes, and stuff under it. Hmmm. The suitcase reeked. She opened it up to find a rotten piece of chicken along with a missing doll, cheese, an apple and other such provisions long forgotten. The last thing I remember was her hollering, "SHIRLEY!", " VALERIE!"