Author – Nicholas
Casey was on the school bowling team, one of the best players on his team. His team is at their local bowling alley for one of the first matches of the year, he comes prepared with his own equipment including a bowling ball, glove, and a pair of bowling shoes. After several hours of playing, Casey and his team won the match but by a slight margin due to a teammate suffering from a cold thus having his performance suffer. Nice game, said John, a friend of Casey. If I were on the varsity team we would have won in a landslide, said Gina, a fellow teammate from the jv team. Alright ladies and gentlemen lets get on the bus and get going said the coach. Everyone started packing up and slowly made their way to the buses.
At times the students will bring their own clothes to change into once their games are over with instead of having to wait until they get back to the school. Casey waved off his friends saying I’ll be on board soon, but they were all talking to one another and left to wait for the bus to leave would usually sits around for 11 or 12 minutes. Casey grabs his normal clothes and proceeds to go to the restroom to change in a stall, he leaves his bowling shoes behind to prevent the bottoms from getting ruined (as bowlers know, its a common thing to not wear them around anywhere other than on the bowling lane).
As he returns he packs his team clothes in his backpack and is about to put on his sneakers but there’s a problem, he seems to have misplaced them. “Oh no you’re kidding me” he mumbles, he searches underneath all the seats his team and the opposing team had played but to no luck. He grunts and figures maybe one of his teammates may have pulled a prank and figures they will return them to him on the bus. Cut to the bus and its moving down the street, Gina asks where Casey is at. “Oh he said he’ll meet us back at school I think, his parents are picking him up”. Cut back to Casey as he see’s the bus make a turn down the road and onto the highway, he’s now been left at the alley shoeless. “Great, just great” He re-enters the alley to see if he can make a phone call to a family member seeing as how his parents were on a vacation celebrating their yearly anniversary. He makes one call after another, first his aunt who’s only 10 minutes away and then a few of his cousins who were a little further than that although only the answering machine would repeat to leave a message.
Nightfall was approaching and the alley would soon close, so instead of waiting for someone to pick him up “I’m walking” he said to himself. As he left the front end employee asked “Yo where are your shoes boy?” “I’m guessing on my bus” said Casey. He walked out and began walking home, carrying a heavy backpack of clothing and equipment and having nothing on his feet other than some white ankle socks which were sure to get dirty on his way home which he imagined to take up about 50 minutes to an hour to walk.
Just a few minutes into him walking he became saddened and frustrated that his sneakers were stolen, by prank or theft it mattered little.Just then Casey felt something hit his face, as he looks up at the dark clouds above he yelled out a loud NOOOOO and it began to rain. Casey hurried to find some shelter to keep him dry and he found his way to a convenient store that would provide him some shelter. As he ran in he was greeted by the owner “need any help my young friend?” “Ah well, I mean… no no I’m fine thanks”
Casey thought maybe holding out inside the store until the rain would dissipate, but the owner approached again “Stores closing soon, If you want something you best hurry up.” Casey placed his backpack down and walked around the store picking up a snack bar and a drink, as he was though he slipped around slightly due to his socks gracing across the slippery floor (both from the style of it and from the rain that hit him). “Where are your shoes boy” the owner asked. “I dont wear any” he joked. The owner seemed to get mad and approached him saying “See that sign? No shirt, no shoes, no service. Now get out!” He pushed Casey out as he was trying to explain his situation.
The owner shoves him out and calls him a bum and locks the door. As Casey runs to find another place to take shelter under he realizes he left his backpack at the store “dammit” he said. He ran back to the store and while it was closed he searched for a possible way in to at least retrieve his belongings. He see’s the owner drive off in his car and makes his move to re enter the store. He finds a back window that had been left open and jumps up through it. He moves in and finds his stuff, but as he does a car pulls up and he realizes its the owner who had came back. Casey frantically runs back to where he entered and runs back out where he came. As he crawls through the window the shop owner opens the front door only to see a set of wet footprints trailing to the back of the store “Thieves, you best not hope I find you”. Before he returns to the back of the store he see’s a familiar figure run across the front of the store. He immediately calls the police and says that he has been robbed.
Cut back to Casey who’s running as fast as he can back home. A few minutes later he’s back at his school and the only thing between him and home is the football field and another neighborhood. Just them blue and red lights begin to flash and a loud voice says to him “Get on the ground” Casey does so but asks what he did. “We got a call that a store owner say you break in and steal some stuff of his” “I stole nothing sir I swear, please just look”. After some light arguing the officer realizes the boy was telling the truth and makes a call in saying it was a simple mistake. The officer looks at Casey and asks him “Now what is a kid doing walking in the rain without shoes?” Casey looks down at his socks and says “Well… It’s a long story” “Well I can offer a ride home for you and you can tell me on the way” said the officer. Casey shed a brief smile and said okay.