The Journey Back - Hardcover

Priscilla Cummings is the author of Red Kayak and A Face First, among other titles. She lives in Annapolis, Maryland.

A daring escape.

I was thirteen—no, fourteen—years old and I was in prison because I played a practical joke on the rich neighbor who bought my grampa's farm. My grampa is in a nursing home now, but it used to be, when things were bad at home, I could escape to Grampa's. That's why I hated Mr. DiAngelo so much. He was the snooty guy who bought Grampa's farm, tore the house down, then build a mansion there so he could show off how much money he had. One day, he even kicked me and my friends off his property. So I played a joke on the a-hole, only the joke went sour and his little boy died...

For a minute there, the memories stopped. It was like hitting a wall. Everything stopped for me when I thought back to what I done. Which is why I tried not to think back on it. What good did it do? I couldn't undo the past.

I went to prison for my crime, but now I needed to get home, so I escaped in a garbage truck, which is how I came to be squashed beneath a ton of garbage.

The sound of a distant siren pierced the air. I knew if I didn't crawl out of that garbage and disappear, I'd be right back where I came from with even more time ahead of me.