Naked in School
Freedom to be Free
Chapter 6 - Beginning a Plan
Three hours later, they had reached Pittsfield and decided to stop for lunch. As they slowly rode through the town, they passed a high school and could see kids running on the track next to the football field; and a bunch of them were naked. And there were a number of adults standing near the fence, watching them and taking photos.
High school track at Pittsfield
“Look at that, Drew,” Connor said. “Must be Program shit. Giving a show to those voyeurs too. That’s nasty.”
While they were having lunch, Drew was musing about those kids.
“Connor, after I ran out of the school and decided that I’d have to run away, besides my planning about what I would do to earn money, I was trying to think of some kind of a way to convince people that the Program was bad. Bad socially and psychologically. I came up with some arguments too but I’m not sure how or where to use them.”
“What did you think of?”
“You yourself came up with a few. Exposing kids to sexual and psychological abuse. Making them into sex objects. Trashing their personal body image. Subjecting them to assault, even rape. Making them surrender their personal integrity. Robbing them of their ability to keep their personal limits and moral values.”
“I said all that?”
“Sure you did. Not in the same words, but yeah. I had thought of some of the same things, but also people have the right to personal privacy and the Program denies any privacy to the kids. Then there’s what we saw the first week, like using Program kids to produce kiddie porn in the guise of teaching, not protecting kids from sexual abuse where the clothed kids go overboard with those Requests. Kids who have psych issues get pulled in with no regard for their mental health. There’s personal injuries from abusive treatment, like the guy you stopped with Janet who was gonna rape her with his fingers. The way Wendy’s boobs were bruised. I even saw a girl trying to stick a pencil or something into Scott’s butt....”
“What? Shit! When was that?”
“Um, maybe that Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday. This girl made him do a butt-up pose and she tried shoving it into his ass but he moved away quick.”
“Ooh, I’m sure he did. Damn.”
“Right, then, um, there were those guys who said they were gonna rape us. Wendy having to take drugs because of her embarrassing, humiliating treatment. So how can that crap be stopped? Even having better safety, the teachers can’t see everything, be everywhere. As if they even care, too. If you turn a kid into a sex object, as you told me back in my hide-out, it’s objectifying her, then she’s no longer a person, and the Program rules basically say that’s how she should be treated. As an object to fondle, grope, perform nasty exposing poses, stuff like that, for the entertainment and gratification of the voyeur kids.”
“Damn, you did think about that a lot.”
“I guess. I wish there was a way to set up some kind of organization to oppose the Program. I think it’s too hard to do that through legal or political channels, but what about from the bottom up? Starting with the kids themselves. Maybe civil disobedience, mass refusals, student strikes—that might even get media attention on the kids’ plight. Publicizing some nasty stories or horrifying stories of bad stuff happening could get people’s attention. And I also thought of this: wouldn’t a teacher—an adult—forcibly stripping a kid be a sexual assault? I don’t think that the government would pass a law allowing people to sexually assault anyone, especially kids. Am I right?”
“Jeez, Drew, those are all good thoughts,” Connor praised her.
“Hey. Here’s another thought. Memorial has a Facebook page and kids can post on it, I think. Why don’t we try something like this... Post anti-Program stuff and a call to resist. Mention my idea about stripping kids being a sexual assault. Tell kids that they don’t have to get naked and can’t be forced. If they don’t graduate, they could do the GED thing.”
Connor shook his head. “Wow, you just amaze me. But you’d need to do that stuff so you couldn’t be traced. I’m sure that a record’s kept of the devices that access Facebook—you’d need an account too and that might need something like a real telephone number.”
“Yeah, my idea needs more thought and careful planning; that’s true.”
“Say, it’s 2:30 p.m. now. How much further should we go before we stop at a motel?”
Drew wrinkled her brow in thought. “Stop at 4:30? Then we have time to check that on-line school and have dinner.”
“Okay. Let me check our route. ... So that would put us near Kingston. Let me check motels. ... Several in our price range. Let me reserve. ... Done. Okay, ready to hit the road?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
They left the Kingston motel at 10 a.m. the following morning and headed south on US-209 and three hours later, they reached the Allentown-Bethlehem area, where they stopped for lunch.
“I was reading about that charter high school, Drew. They have classes on line with other kids at the same time and also independent classes. We need to get computers for it, you know. That was something that the Memorial teachers said that we needed for some classes.”
“Yeah, a small laptop—a notebook?”
“That’s it. Say, I think that Hershey’s maybe like the Lowell area, not a huge number of choices in stores. This seems to be a big commercial area, so maybe we can find a couple of used ones?”
“Suits me.”
After a search on his phone, Connor located two used electronics equipment sellers.
“On their sites it shows that they both have some in stock. Two years old, between $150 and 175. Ninety-day warranty on one site, six months on the other.”
“Are they close?”
“Well, within ten miles. Wanna check them out?”
“Okay. I like the longer warranty.”
“Only three months longer, but yeah. That place looks closer—we’ll go there first.”
They purchased two notebook computers at that shop and were able to extend the shop’s warranty to a year by paying an additional 15 dollars each. It was 3:10 p.m. now.
“We’re just about a hour-and-a-half away,” Connor told Drew as they returned to his bike.. “I checked for motels and stuff in Hershey but it’s a kinda resort town and the extended-stay prices are high. So I looked at apartments and house rentals in the area and saw that Elizabethtown has a couple rentals. We can look at them tomorrow. That’s located about eight miles south of Hershey. Meanwhile, I got a motel room there. Ready to go?”
“Let’s.”
Traveling on Old US-22 going west, they passed several towns whose names amused Drew.
“See those names?” she giggled to Connor. “Back there, Klutztown? And here are Grimville and Krumsville. Funny.”
He chuckled. “That’s what I thought too. But Mass has some odd ones too: Belchertown, Ware, um, Assonet... ah, and Braggyville. And hey, do you know that Mass has a place with the longest name in the country?”
“No. I’ll bite. What?”
“Can’t pronounce it. It’s got 45 letters and starts ‘Chargo’-something. It’s in Webster so outsiders call it Lake Webster.”
Later Drew looked up the name. It was “Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.”
Within the next several days, the couple had located a private house rental in Elizabethtown. It was a tiny, 800-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath house, but the rent would be manageable for Connor’s funds for a year; they’d have to get some kind of part-time jobs after a year, though. The house was actually just down the block from Elizabethtown’s high school and the first thing Drew noticed as they drove past it was that it appeared that the school had at least two soccer pitches.
They also managed to get registered for the charter school using the house rental agreement as residency proof; their registration went through despite their not having their past school records, which they would need to provide within thirty days. They began attending classes while they attempted to get their records from their middle schools. For that, Connor contacted Alphonse Garcia, who pulled some strings (or made some threats, Connor was never sure) and the records were made available, although it took over two weeks to get them. After submitting them, Drew and Connor were both fully enrolled in the on-line high school.
They found several places which offered free wi-fi where they could stay for several hours at a time without being disturbed or bothering the management. These were three coffee shops and the local library. Connor also spent about an hour each day attempting to use the internet to track down every “Martin” he could find, to contact them to ask if they shared his great-grandfather, Christoph Martin. He thought that his grandfather’s name was Hans, but he wasn’t certain of that. His searching wasn’t having much luck.
Several days after they had moved into their little rental house and Drew and Connor were sharing the dinner-fixing duties, Drew sighed and looked at him.
“Connor, I feel like a free-loader, taking advantage of your generosity...”
He tried to stop her but she put up her hand to interrupt what he was about to say.
“No, you’ve provided everything we needed but the only thing I could contribute was my $145 and change. It was my idea to run; a really dumb idea, but you just took that idea, turned it into a real plan, and made it work. I...”
“I will stop you there, Drew. You know why I did it? Really want to know? Drew, I kinda fell for you that very first day when you literally ran into me. And I had been making these vague plans to leave the area for maybe two years before...”
Drew interrupted, “You ... you fell for me? You did? Connor, I thought, oh, I was hoping that you felt something for me... I saw something in your eyes when you looked at me but wasn’t sure.”
“Stop, Drew. Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Oh hell yes!”
She flew into his arms.
“It’s funny... we’ve shared the same bed several times and now we’re finally boy-girlfriend,” Connor joked as they broke their first romantic kiss.
“Um, not ready to go that far...” Drew started.
“It’s okay. Let’s see how our thoughts of each other develop as we live here together... can I call you ‘honey’?” Connor asked.
“All terms of endearment are just fine... sweetie.”
After their on-line school session on a Thursday, a week after they had begun school, as they rode home, Drew noticed a pick-up game at the soccer pitch at the high school.
“Oh, let me grab my soccer gear and go back,” she told Connor as they passed the school.
Drew went back to the pitch and spoke to one of the kids who was standing on the sideline watching.
“Hi, I’m Drew and new here. I played fullback where I used to live. I hope that I can join your group playing?”
“You go to school here?” one guy asked. “Name’s Will.”
“No, home school right now. Does the school have a team? And there are more soccer pitches over there too?”
“Yeah, boys’ and girls’ teams. Those other pitches are on the fairgrounds. Are you any good?”
“Just made my high school team but then had to move away.”
“That sucks.”
“It sure does.”
“What say, Stan?” Will asked another guy watching the conversation. “Put her in after next score?”
Stan looked Drew over.
“She’s got the right build. Drew, right?”
Drew nodded.
“And you played D?”
“Fullback in a 5-3-2 formation. I’m also very fast so on some plays I played stopper, you know, a sweeper who plays in front of the back line. Who are the teams?”
“Some of us are on the high school team, some go to Etown College, and other kids who just like playing,” Stan told her. “We usually don’t have enough kids show up to field all 22 positions, so that’s why this game started out 9-on-9 and we’ve been rotating in players on the goals as more kids showed up. So you played defensive line?”
Drew nodded.
“Okay, when the next goal is scored, the four of us will switch in. That’s Jerry.”
He indicated another boy standing nearby.
“Hey Jerry. Come meet Drew here,” he called, and then introduced them.
Drew joined the game when the next goal was scored, and after meeting the other players, they shuffled the positions to allow Drew to play on the back line. As she played and got into her soccer mind-set, she noticed that several players were quite good, and the best were three girls; two were on the opposing team, playing striker and winger. Drew watched the winger’s play carefully as she handled the ball and picked up a tell when the girl prepared to pass the ball.
Several minutes later, that winger approached the penalty box in a three-person offensive attack and set up to pass to her left as Drew challenged her, but Drew saw the tell and stripped the ball from her, executed a Zidane roulette to break free, dribbled ten yards upfield and sent a long pass crossfield to a streaking teammate, who pulled it in and fired a shot into the opposition’s goal.
After that play, Drew tackled other attacking players twice, stripping the ball; blocked two shots on her team’s goal; and when an errant ball, a cross just outside the penalty box, which was meant for the opposing team’s striker, hit a player in the back and bounced wide, Drew beat everyone else to the ball, kicked it away upfield toward the opponent’s goal, and dashed after it on an all-out run.
One of her team’s wingers was hanging back and saw Drew capture the ball. He dashed upfield, pacing her as she brought the ball toward the goal, and when a defensive player moved to block her, she sent a pass to him, juked around the defender, got the give-and-go back, and dodged a second defender with a scissors move, pulling him away from her line to the goal. She needed to spread the defense more, so she fired a pass to the winger, causing the defender in the left of the penalty box to move toward the winger to reduce his angle on the goal, and then Drew found herself one-on-two against the goalie and their center back. Drew’s winger saw it too and whacked a grass-grazing cross at her as she ran into the right outside corner of the box, and when the ball arrived, she crushed a rocket into the upper left corner of the net.
Her teammates gathered around her to celebrate.
“That was one damned sweet play,” Stan told her. “Just how fast are you, anyway? You just tore out of the backfield and was across the center line before anyone else had a chance to take three steps!”
“Yeah, I react quick and can move fast; that’s why my team used me for mounting unexpected attacks. Good thing Joe started streaking when he saw me get that flubbed pass. He was in a perfect position for those gives-and-goes.”
After the game was over, Drew chatted with the two girls from the opposing team. They introduced themselves.
“That was one nasty move you put on me,” Tommie, the winger, told her. “How were you able to anticipate my pass, anyway? I thought my fake would make you bite.”
Drew told her about the tell she had noticed.
“Well, shit. You’re good. Joan and I play on the Etown College team and we usually dominate these pick-up games, but your D play is impressive. You must be new at the high school, yes?”
Drew told her that she had only been in the area for a week. “But I’m doing home-school for now...”
Joan interrupted, “Hey, Drew, I think that Coach Watson—the high school boys’ coach—wants to talk to you. He’s coming over now.”
Drew had noticed several adults nearby who had been watching the game. One of them came over to them.
“Miss? Have a minute to talk?”
Drew nodded and the girls called, “Hi, Coach! Bye, Coach! See you next game, Drew!” as they walked away.
“I’m Coach Watson, the boys’ team coach here, as they no doubt told you. You’re really good. What’s your name? I haven’t seen you around before, though.”
“Just got into the area a couple weeks ago. I’m kinda home schooled, so I don’t go to this school. I’m Drew.”
“Huh. Too bad, Drew. I was going to suggest that you see the girls’ team coach, Coach Aberman. A thought... exactly what kind of home schooling are you doing? I ask because in PA, home-schoolers can participate in public school sports if they belong to a public independent study program.”
“Um, it’s Commonwealth Charter Academy.”
“Well, that works, Drew; you could play on the school’s team. I’ll tell Coach Aberman about you; that is if you agree, and you can come by the school next Tuesday at 2:45; we’ll be having team practices starting right about then. Is it okay?”
“You really mean I can get a chance to be on the high school team then?”
“If what I saw out there is any indication of your skills—I saw outstanding defensive work, amazing speed, excellent ball handling, and a good ball sense—I call that a ‘soccer head’; then yes, I’m sure that you’d be able to make the team. We’re actually in the middle of the current year season so it’s possible that you might not be able to play in games this season, though.”
“Thank you, Coach. I’ll be there Tuesday.”
On Friday, another important encounter happened to Drew and Connor while they were sitting in one of the coffee shops, attending one of their classes on line. A man was seated at a table on the other side of the shop, reading a newspaper. When their class ended and Drew began to talk to Connor, the man got up and came over to them.
“I hope I’m not interrupting you folks, but I have an important question. My name is Pastor William Robertson; I’m the minister at the Lutheran church over on East Street. I’ve noticed both of you in here several times during the past two weeks—shouldn’t you be in school?”
Connor looked at him and the pastor smiled back.
“Actually, sir, we are attending school. The Commonwealth Charter Academy,” he replied. “An on-line high school.”
“Oh, I see, but I sense that there’s something more here, son. May I ask your names?”
“I’m Connor Martin.”
“And I’m Drew Harper, Pastor. What do you mean, ‘something more’?”
“Ah. People normally don’t sign up for an on-line school like you seem to have unless there’s a reason that they can’t attend in person. Yet you are here when you could be in the physical school. Can I be so forward to ask why—is there a problem where I may be able to give assistance?”
Connor looked at Drew and asked a silent question. Drew nodded back; the pastor seemed to be very empathetic.
“We’d really prefer to be in an actual school,” Connor said quietly. “But I don’t see how that would be possible.”
“How do you mean, son?”
“We left our hometown—ran away, really—to escape that new nudity in school program. We can’t or won’t do it, and the school officials were using physical force to strip reluctant kids. So we left. I’ve got no family left back there but I might in this area. I’m trying to locate a relative, a second or third cousin, who supposedly lives somewhere in the Hershey area.”
“Ah, yes. I heard about that school nudity program. Pennsylvania hasn’t adopted it; there’s great opposition to it in the state legislature. We’re an extremely conservative state, especially here in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country. So you’re an orphan, Connor?”
“I am. Lived in a group home,” and then Connor told the pastor more about his situation.
“What about your parents, Drew? Do they know where you are and that you’re safe?”
Drew told the pastor about her family life and concluded with her relationship with her father.
“... and my father never really cared about me. He let Grandma take care of me, but after her stroke, he couldn’t care less about what was happening to me. He got a girlfriend and we fought constantly and he never cared; always took her side. He only wanted to be sure that nobody bothered him.”
Drew went on to talk about her sexual assault at the hands of the girlfriend’s son.
“So the nudity crap scared me so much that I panicked and ran out of school when I got picked. The week before that, it was the first week of school, Connor and I saw how much abuse the naked kids were getting and I couldn’t face that. So we ran away together.”
“I see. So you can’t register in school because of no parent or guardian.”
“Exactly.”
“Connor, you mentioned being in the foster-care system.” Connor nodded at him. “You lived in a group home. With your father’s death, you’d get his survivor benefits...”
“I did, but the social worker back there controlled the account where that money went. The payments stop if I’m not full-time in school, so I wanted to keep being in school full time. But even with the money from Social Security and what I have in the bank, it’s not enough to last us unless we can get some kind of jobs too.”
“That’s good thinking, Connor. And you’re fourteen or fifteen and freshmen. Hmm. One of my congregation members is a lawyer and dedicated to social justice. I’m certain you won’t want to get involved with CPS, the Child Protective Services people; they’d likely want to send you back to Massachusetts.”
“No, we’d just run again,” Connor said angrily.
“I’m sure. This lawyer wouldn’t turn you in and he might be able to help you get ‘legal’ here.” He made air quotes with his hands. “He comes to services most Sundays. If you can come—for services or afterward—I’ll tell him about you and then introduce you.”
Drew looked at Connor who nodded back. “Okay, we’ll come. When do you start?”
“Excellent. Worship service begins at 10 a.m. May I ask, were you a member of a faith community where you grew up?”
“Dad’s family was actually Lutheran but he didn’t go to church that I can recall; at least, he never took me. But I found a baptizing record with my birth certificate,” Connor told the pastor, who nodded, smiling.
“My father never mentioned anything about churches, so I have no idea. Grandma wore a tiny cross on a necklace, so I assume my family is Christian,” Drew said.
“Thanks to both of you. The other thing I want to tell you is that I might be able to help you with your relative search. I’m a member of the local council of clergy. Leaders from over a hundred churches in this region generally participate in exchanging information. If you can give me any details that you can recall about your family, Connor; the family name ‘Martin’ is a common one in this area, I’ll put out a request to the council members to ask in their congregations if anyone knows anything of your relatives.”
“That would be wonderful, sir, thanks,” Connor said.
Following worship services on Sunday, Connor and Drew met the attorney whom Robertson had mentioned.
“Drew, Connor, this is Mr Wayne Gelb, a partner in the Meyer, Geiss, Petermann, and Segrist law firm. They’re a major firm here in the capitol area. Mr Gelb is the managing partner of their local office.”
“Good meeting both of you, and please call me Wayne,” Gelb told them as they shook hands.
“Let’s go to the parsonage to chat,” Robertson said.
The pastor led the three to the little parsonage behind the church and they got settled in the living room as a woman entered.
“This is my wife Ella. You might have seen her seated in the first row at services but she was occupied in the kitchen when we had our light lunch.”
Robertson introduced the youngsters to his wife. Then he brought up the meeting topic.
“So Drew and Connor left their homes under a kind of duress, as I had told you, Wayne,” Robertson began. “They tell me that they were fleeing from being forced into that new school nudity program that our wonderful lawmakers have approved as a federal law.”
He had them both recount their stories.
“All right, as I see it, we have a number of issues here; some more pressing than others,” Gelb said after the teens had told their individual stories. “But first, I’d like to represent you both pro bono—no cost to you—my firm strongly believes in social justice and your issues certainly fall into that category. If you agree?”
“Oh yes” ... “Yes, thanks so much.”
Gelb smiled. “It’s a kind of traditional practice to ask the client for a dollar as a retainer.”
Both teens scrambled to get a dollar out and handed the bills over.
“Here’s what I can glean about your immediate situation. Guardianship issues for you both. You’ve got schooling covered temporarily. Establishing legal ownership of your motorcycle and getting it registered here; I assume that the registration is in your father’s name, Connor?”
“Yes.”
“Knowing how much work the social services departments of states have to deal with, I assume that your father’s estate was never legally settled. That needs looking into.”
“The insurance company refused to pay for the destroyed house. They said it was caused by a criminal act and negligence in causing the fire,” Connor said.
“Do you know if there was a will?”
“No...”
“Issues like those need resolution. Now, Drew, you mentioned that your father didn’t show you any parental support?”
“No, even before Grandma’s stroke, the only time he paid any attention to me was to yell at me for bothering him. Like if I had something from school for a parent to sign. Also, after the cops came to talk to him after that assault in the shower that I mentioned, he punished me for getting the police involved.”
“Punished how?”
“Grabbed me and whacked me on my rear several times.”
“Awful... What I see here is that you have an unfit parent—this is when the parent, by their conduct, fails to provide proper guidance, care, or support. I believe that your father’s neglect makes him an unfit parent. A court looks at the child’s welfare and if the parent or parents fail to assume responsibility for the care of a child, or fail to maintain a reasonable degree of concern, interest, or responsibility for the child’s welfare, the parent can lose custody of the child. In your case, the problem would be witnesses to any mistreatment, and passive neglect is difficult to show.”
“Mr... um, Wayne,” Drew began uncertainly, “that man frequently said that he wished that he was no longer responsible for me. When the weather was good, for several years I kept up a campsite in woods near where I lived so I wouldn’t have to stay in that house.”
“It was quite a cool setup she had there, too,” Connor commented.
“That’s dreadful, though. Being so alienated that you didn’t want to live in your own home,” Gelb replied. “Possibly your father would voluntarily relinquish his parental rights then.”
“I think he’d be happy to,” Drew told him.
“All right, returning to you, Connor. Navigating through the morass of social services departments and switching states absent any compelling reasons will be difficult...” Gelb began.
“Um, one sec, Wayne,” Drew interrupted.
“Yes, Drew?”
“Compelling reason. Connor, what about the drugs? Could you say that the gang was after you and you had to run?”
While Connor reached over and hugged her, saying “Thanks, Drew, what a great idea”; Gelb asked “What about drugs?”
“I didn’t go into those details,” Connor told him. “But Drew’s idea is super. I told you that my dad was cooking meth and that blew up and started the fire. He was heavily involved in the local drug scene. I heard from the cops that they found lots of traces of cocaine and meth in the fire remains and they figured that it had all been destroyed. But he had more coke in a storage locker; I only found it after we began to leave the state. I flushed it all. What if we could say that I heard about a threat from the gang about forcing me to tell where Dad had hidden the drugs and money? Only about two months ago, the cops had finally tracked down one of Dad’s associates and had grilled him. Could I say that other gang members, ones I didn’t know, were planning to grab me to force me to tell them where Dad’s stash was? The cops would back up a story like that; the detective told me that if the gang found out where I got sent, someone might try to contact me for getting Dad’s stuff. That’s why I was placed in my last group home and not one in Lowell, by the way. Make it harder to find me.”
“That’s quite a story, Connor, and yes, I think that info is compelling enough to warrant a change of states. Very good thinking, Drew. And Pastor Will told me that he’s contacted the other area clergy to find your relative.”
“I have more news for you two,” Mrs Robertson said at this point. “I mentioned something of your plight to the ladies at lunch today and one of them, she’s a recent widow, lives in a house with a vacant mother-in-law apartment upstairs. She’d like to meet you and if you get along, you could live there. If you do chores around the house, she’ll let you stay with no rent. She’s just fine financially so doesn’t need the money.”
Drew looked at Connor and smiled. “That would relieve a big financial burden, right?”
“Sure would. Our current rental is month-to-month with a month’s notice and it’s 750 dollars a month. Getting free lodging would stretch our finances incredibly, so thank you, Mrs Robertson, for finding that opportunity,” Connor told her.
She chuckled. “She hasn’t made the offer yet, but I believe that she’ll like you. Drew, you remind me somewhat of her younger daughter—she must have looked like you when she was a teen. Oh, her name is Catherine Neumann.”
“Well, it appears that we’re done. Kids—I hope calling you that wasn’t insulting—it was a pleasure meeting you two, although hearing your stories was less than a pleasure. Here’s my business card and I have your current address and phone numbers. Carry on with your current day-to-day activities and I’ll be in touch, but let me know if you do move. It might take me two or three weeks before I have anything to report.”
They all stood up and shook hands as Gelb said, “Good bye for now,” and he left, with Richardson showing him out.
Mrs Richardson asked the teens, “If she’s available, do you want to meet Mrs Neumann now?”
They both agreed and Mrs Richardson made the call.
“We can go right over now, otherwise not till tomorrow,” she told them when she disconnected.
“Is it close?” Connor asked.
“Two blocks east, toward the high school. A quick walk.”
The pastor joined them as they walked to the house and during their walk, he related some of the area’s history and interesting features.
“We call the borough ‘Etown’ for short,” he said as they walked. “The local Pennsylvania Dutch, actually these are people of western German descent, call it ‘Betzischteddel’ in their lingo, and the ‘Elizabeth’ name came from an early settler’s wife. The Masonic Village here is famous. We also have our own chocolate factory, Mars Chocolates, where they manufacture their popular Dove brand. And Etown College is a highly regarded school, started in 1899, actually. Ah, here we are.”
They met Mrs Neumann at her door and she invited them into her house.
“Oh, Drew, is it? You so remind me of Rachel when she was your age,” Neumann said when they were introduced.
“That’s what I told her, Catherine,” Mrs Robertson said. “I told you about these kids when we were fixing the lunch. Such sad stories.”
“So you both up and ran away then?” Neumann asked them.
“We did, ma’am. Did Mrs Robertson tell you about that school nudity program, how kids were being forced to strip naked and had to allow other kids to grope and fondle them?” Drew asked.
“Oh my goodness, no, just that you were trying to escape abusive situations.”
“Indeed, that’s what it was, essentially legalized sexual abuse, organized by the high school,” Connor told her. “The first week of school, we saw abusive, humiliating, and violent treatment of the kids who had been forced to be naked. One boy even attacked Drew, who wasn’t even in the Program; she was just trying to protect another freshman, who was naked.”
“I’m just speechless about such terrible things. Connor, you’re an orphan?”
“Yes ma’am, my mother got divorced and disappeared when I was little; father died in a fire.”
“And I might as well be called an orphan. My father told me many times that he wished I wasn’t in his life,” Drew commented.
Neumann shook her head in dismay. “Terrible. Are you going to school here now?”
Connor explained about the virtual school and then Drew said, “The soccer coach here invited me to try out for the girls’ team, though. He saw me playing in a pick-up game last week. Maybe with that opening and our lawyer’s help, we’ll be able to register.”
“Yeah, we were reluctant to try registering in person ‘cause when the school found out that we were runaways, they’d tell Social Services and we’d be forced to return. But there’s nothing there for us to return to.”
“Well, you both seem to be well mannered teens. Pardon me for asking this, but are you a couple, romantically?”
Connor chuckled softly. “We only just decided last week that we should be boy-girlfriends. We first met at school maybe three or four weeks ago and then got involved with that nudity program. If you’re asking if we do wild stuff together, that answer is no, never. We both are respectful and we’re independent and self-sufficient—given our home situations, we had to be. If we lived here, we’d take good care of the place and could do any chores you needed.”
“Would you like to see the apartment? It’s small.”
“Ma’am? For the past two years, my living space was the size of a large closet that I shared with another boy. And Drew? When the weather permitted, she lived in an outdoor campsite that she had set up in the woods to escape her home situation. An apartment would be paradise for us. We live in 800 square feet now.”
“Goodness—the apartment upstairs is about 1000 square feet,” Neumann exclaimed.
“See? Paradise,” Drew giggled.
The apartment had two bedrooms, one a bit larger than the other, a small kitchen, a sitting room-cum-living room-cum-dining room area, a full bathroom and a half-bathroom with a washer and dryer. It also had an exterior entrance.
“Mrs Neumann, as Drew said, this is paradise; it’s a lovely apartment. So much nicer than our current place. And you’d offer it for no rent? Just for us helping with your chores?”
“I will. But no parties or disturbances, all right? You two don’t appear to be troublemakers, but if I have any difficulties with either of you, then you will have to leave. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely” ... “It is.”
“All right then. When do you want to move here?”
“Thanks so very much, Mrs Neumann. You’ve made our plans for living here so much more stress free,” Drew sighed. “Now Connor and I won’t feel so pressed to find part-time work, but we still plan to find something that fits our schedules. Connor? Next week is real busy, right? How about Saturday?”
“Yeah, that would be okay for us. Mrs Neumann, is that okay for you?”
“It is. Let’s go back downstairs and I have an agreement for you both to sign. You’re minors, I know, but this is just the formal agreement between us.”
“Sure,” Connor agreed.
On the way back to parsonage, Drew and Connor thanked the Robertsons again.
“May we expect you at services next week?” the pastor asked.
“We’re planning on it, sir. We met a few kids there and spoke together for a few minutes and we’d like to meet more people like them.”
“We have a young adult group that meets monthly; you might want to check it out. First Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m.”
“We’ll try to get to the next meeting then; it sounds interesting,” Connor told him.
They parted and the teens returned to their home.
“Today was—just wow!” Connor enthused. “We have adult friends now, a lawyer who’s gonna help us, and a rent-free home! Just wow!”
Drew just smiled and nodded. I’ll finally be free of Candy—and my father too.
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