Rocket Ship

I always loved when my mom was able to bring home cardboard boxes and leftover crayons and markers from work.  Other than my bed and a few small bookcases, I didn’t have a lot of furniture – a fact I didn’t mind at all.  My room was easy to clean and the lack of furniture made it easy to build the cardboard structures that often covered half of my room.  Our small television in the living room wasn’t turned on very often and my brother and I usually only watched Saturday morning cartoons.  Luckily for us, the public library was just down the street so we often headed that way when the cartoons were over. 

I knew mom stayed up most nights pacing, wondering how to pay the bills because I could hear her walking and muttering through the thin walls of our apartment.  After several months of meticulous work on my cardboard structure, it was almost complete.  I have been obsessed with outer space and any type of adventure so I had worked tirelessly to create my own rocket ship out of the cardboard my mom came home.  Just as I was putting on the finishing touches my mom came in and I knew exactly what was happening.  We were moving again.  And soon.  When she left, I crawled into my rocket ship and wished more than ever we were free and could fly away from our problems and my grandfather.  He was hunting the three of us.