I was awoken by my alarm clock screeching down into my ear. My hate for that sound grew and grew, day by day. Every part of me just wanted to go back sleep, every-day is just the same. I wake up, have breakfast, set off for work, finish work and come back home, have dinner, go bed. It’s constant cycle and it is starting to really get frustrating, and boring. I need to find a hobby, something I enjoy, there’s just one problem: I don’t know what I enjoy. Yes, I seem to just be a boring soul without any hobbies.

To start of my day with something new, I decided to enter the local competition, the prize was a charter to see the Bahamas, Hawaii, Brazil and even Europe! Sounded incredible, luxurious and most of all, peaceful. I knew they wasn’t a chance of me winning it though, I mean just think of how many people were entering! I thought to myself “What is there to lose” So, here I am, walking to work whilst transmitting my smile all around the town. I live in a pretty small town, so pretty much everyone knows each other. Surprisingly, I have never actually left my home town, I guess maybe that charter wouldn’t be what I wanted, ‘should I be leaving the town? Especially after this long of staying’, that’s what I could of been thinking, but I didn’t because there was no chance the winner would be me.

After long hours sitting behind a desk, listening to how John lost £700 at the casino, I finally get home and can enjoy a relaxing time just watching TV.

My night ended pretty normally, I watched some films, brushed my teeth, listened to some music and went to sleep, I think it’s what happened the next morning that shocked me the most.

I was awoken by my irritating alarm clock, the same as any other morning. As normal, my hate for the sound of my alarm clock, grew even more than it did yesterday, and I went to get some breakfast. Luckily for me, the competition for the ‘trip around the world’ was being drawn today, so I only had to wait a day for the winners to be announced. So I made myself a coffee, and with no rush at all, I went to sit down in-front of my TV. I got it on the right channel and sat back and relaxed, waiting and waiting for them to just draw out a name. There we go, someone called ‘Roxi’ was drawn out, who would of guessed that. However they carried on shuffling for a name, which I found strange, but clearly everybody there didn’t! Then they said a name, a name that made me shocked. The name drawn belonged to me, I had one the competition! So now them thoughts were coming to my head, should I go on this journey or not!

I had a big decision to make, I have never left my hometown, and I’ve just won tickets to travel the world!

The envelope of butter yellow arrived on a cold November day. The air had a bite as Penny trudged to the mailbox, the snow crunching beneath her boots, creating a path to and fro.

She didn’t even notice it at first, thumbing through the usual stack of junk, a utility bill, and a few flyers advertising holiday sales, humming to herself as walked through the enclosed front porch, through the living room, and into the kitchen.

But then, the golden hue caught her eye and she stopped, next to the small secretary desk where she had once done her homework and now did her paperwork and the occasional doodle. Among the flotsam were several pens, their caps showing the telltale marks of being held in her mouth as she chewed and contemplated.

She slid her index finger along the underside of the envelope, wincing as she felt the paper grab and then cut into the side of the unsuspecting digit.

The words on the single piece of folded paper blotted out the smart and she slid into the cane-backed chair before the desk.

“I can’t believe it,” she whispered, although there was no one there to hear her. Her parents had died two years prior, roughly four months apart. Her mother succumbing to cancer. Her father of a broken heart.

They had left her this house, a modest two-bedroom bungalow and the meager savings left after the medical bills had been paid.

“I won,” she said, her voice louder this time, looking from the letter in her left hand to the item in her right. It was a ticket. A shiny silver ticket that glittered in the afternoon sun streaming in from the windows.

She still did not know what had possessed her to turn on the radio that morning, except they were doing a countdown of Beatles songs and she had never been able to resist the Fab Four. Hours had passed while she did mundane household chores and baked several loaves of sourdough bread, singing along to tune after tune as she dusted, folded, and kneaded dough.

The music was interrupted by the DJ announcing an impromptu contest. The challenge was to name the last five songs they had played and the albums they came from. She reached for her cellphone without even blinking and wonder of wonders, she was the lucky seventh caller.

Luckier still, she rattled off the songs and albums in record time, the final one so fitting considering what she held in her hand.

“Ticket to ride,” she murmured, more reverence than excitement in her voice now. She smiled sardonically, only one corner of her mouth upturned.

From the Help! album.

“Help,” she scoffed. “More like manna from heaven.”

……………………………….………………………………………….

Two days later, she stood on the dusty platform of the train depot, preparing to leave the only home, the only place she had ever lived for parts unknown.

For the ticket truly was a ticket to ride. Anywhere and everywhere she wanted to go. All means of travel were at her disposal but she had opted to see the world she had she little knowledge of up close, through her own private compartment.

She had arrived at the station more than an hour before the departure time, the sun barely on the horizon, yet warming her just the same despite the blustery day, the recently-fallen snow whirling all around her.

The depot manager had taken her two suitcases and gestured for her to come inside but she had shaken her head.

She wanted, no, needed, one last long look at single traffic light town she had been born and raised in. She wanted to drink it all in like the last, best pull on a favorite soda.

She took note of Phillips’ drugstore across the street. It had an ice cream parlor in the back where she and her friends had once sipped shakes or shared enormous, gooey banana splits. Next door was Stan’s barber shop, once a favorite spot of her father’s, and still the haunt of men of a certain age in pursuit of their next chin wag.

Cattycorner was Maxine’s dress shop where her mother had helped Penny pick out a pale pink, strapless formal with a stiff black lace petticoat underneath. A bit old-fashioned for 1968, but she had preferred the style to that of the long, plain gowns she and her like-minded friends had dubbed “dowdy dresses.”

Shiny patent leather pumps were purchased at Driscoll’s store a few steps away. Bunnies and chicks and lilies had decorated the store window then. A Santa, reindeer, and elves were in residence now.

There, too, was a gold star. Placed in the lower left corner of the otherwise gay window.

Not the famed celestial body followed by the Magi over sand and sea to where the Christ child lay in a manger.

Not a symbol of new life but that of loss.

The loss of Don Driscoll’s eldest son, Tommy. The quarterback of our high school football team only one year ago. A strapping young man whose sapphire eyes and dimpled grin sent many female hearts galloping, mine included. He was the pride of the town and the talk of the men who frequented Stan’s to get their ears lowered and filled.

Instead of putting on the colors of gold and cardinal and playing on a field of artificial green, very real palm trees standing close by, he chose to put on fatigues and travel an ocean, and what seemed like a lifetime, away.

It was he that Penny waited for that balmy spring night, her reddish-blond hair swept up in a sophisticated chignon. Standing near the front door in that pink gown and black pumps, her mother’s borrowed pearls warm against her skin.

Only he never came.

He would never come again.

She can still picture her mother’s face as she answered the phone, Penny’s eyes glued to her as if she held all the wisdom in the world.

The initial knowing smile, both assuming the truck he’d planned to borrow from his grandfather to drive into town from their farmhouse ten miles away was misbehaving again. Making him a little late and nothing more.

Her smile faltered, her eyes grew wide and the tiniest bit glassy. Penny saw her swallow hard, looking up at the ceiling, and then her gaze returned to her and, in that moment, she knew.

Penny was out the door and running before she could stop me. Racing towards the very depot where now she stood.

The place where Tommy and she planned to depart someday, after they were married in the small white chapel in the center of town.

Two years had gone by. More than, nearly three now. Taking not only her first love, but also her parents, and friends who went off to college. Or to war.

Few came back. Sending the occasional postcard from parts far more exciting. Although sometimes, Western Union and its unwanted telegrams came to announce the impending arrival of another flag-draped coffin or, if the fates were kind, a boy-turned-man who was coming home.

Not quite as he had been before but better by far than a pine box.

Even the Beatles had broken up and gone their separate ways.

Just as Penny was going hers.

She sighed, brushing a wayward strand of hair out of her eyes, hearing the whistle of the train in the distance, the plume of smoke above the engine car, the tracks near her singing a tune as familiar to her as breathing.

Minutes later, she was seated in my private car, looking out across a frozen landscape. Yet as the wheels chugged beneath her in a rhythmic pattern, Penny smiled that same half-smile, knowing that she was heading into the west where sunshine and possibilities were waiting for her.

Orion stretched in bed, he was midway through having a lovely dream about spending hours on end in a boundless forest. Every time he saw a squirrel, he was successful in pinning it down and cheekily carrying it back to his human, big black tail thumping hard against the air. On one instance in his dream, he even managed to catch a bird.

He ran back to the main trail and was met only by cheers, “Oh Orion, you good dog! Look what you brought me! A real life robin! You know what we can do with this right? We can take it home and put it in a display case! Or it could be a lovely little coffee table decoration, I think the red feathers would accent lovely with the sofa’s throw pillows! Or, we could just cook it! What do you say about a little barba que for the best dog there is?”

Orion was especially pleased by that last request. Unfortunately, his owner never did seem nearly that pleased when he managed to catch a mouse under their porch deck and trot inside with his head held high. Instead, he was immediately given a bath targeted at removing the blood from his mouth (a horrible waste of insanely cool looking blood), and then he was kicked outside while his owner tried to wipe something up from the hardwood floors.

Nevertheless, a dog could dream. So Orion did just that, his tail beating hard against the air to his right side, always only wagging on his right side. And the big black lug of a mutt was lucky for that, because on the other side of the bed, Sarah was sleeping, and his wagging tended to wake her up. She seemed to have had an extremely busy day at work yesterday, seeing as how she walked in the house lazily, whole-heartedly shut the door to the howling wind behind her, kicked off her work shoes mid-stride, and pored the dog an extremely generous portion of food. Which, of course, he ate in one sitting.

Orion watched as she trodded, her back hunched from hours of staring at a piercingly magnetic blue computer screen. As if without a care in the world, she flipped the covers up and fell into the bed, all in one impressive motion. Now she lay above him, sprawled into a free-fall paused mid-action. Her mousy dirty blond hair was spread into a staticky mess around her face, cheeks rosy red with deep and fulfilling sleep. Right above them, her bright jade cat eye glasses fixedly askew, one side pressing into her fair skin.

She was midway through a long and drawn out snore when came a jaunty rapping on the front door. Orion reacted first because, of course, nothing mattered more than deep sleep except the pleasure of greeting a stranger with a terrifyingly deep bark. The noise pierced through Sarah’s dreamless rest, but didn’t leave her feeling any more awake.

Sarah reluctantly pushed up on one elbow, the rest of her body seemingly limp in bed.

“Ms. Pricklegrove! Hello? Anyone home?” A voice that seeped with an offensive amount of exuberance for such a disagreeable time of morning rang out past the door.

“Wha—?” Sarah snapped her head lazily toward the door before registering the request, “Uh, yes! Yeah I—Oough!”

Sarah’s attempt to step out of bed, drunk with a chronic desire to sleep 24/7, was met with the full force of gravity. A loud thump summoned a whimper from Orion. Of course he wanted to check on Sarah, but he wanted to—had to—keep his eye on this exciting stranger and make sure she didn’t go away.

“Mrs. Picklegrove, everything all right in there?” The voice called back with a bit of a laugh and a tone that suggested a very wide and toothy smile was currently plastered onto the woman’s face.

“Uh ye-yes!” Sarah yelled back. I’ll be there in just a moment, ah dammit!” she twisted her neck back to see that her foot had been caught in her nausea-reminiscent green-colored sheet. It was now torn where her foot remained twisted in a knot of fabric. Had the been on sale at the dollar store anyway? Yes. Had they always had an extremely unappealing chemical smell to them that never quite washed out? Even with the employment of heavily perfumed “tulips by the seaside” detergent? Yes. But still, she wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed replacing things until they were really broken. She assumed now she should replace these, if she must.

Sarah’s bare feet padded pitifully across the creaking wood floors as she tipped to the side to grab at the eccentrically designed quilt which she had acquired at a garage sale a few years ago. No, it didn’t keep her warm ever. And no, it did not even look good in the house. She was sure it wouldn’t look good anywhere, but that sort of thing, obviously, didn’t matter to her much. She’s leave interior design cares to her more fashionable sister.

Rolling her neck and stretching out the stuff joints in her fingers was more a mindless habit now for Sarah, and one that did nothing to alleviate the nagging strain in each of her bones. The cold January weather seemed to be working against her efforts anyway. Office work was wearing, and she currently was not wearing it well. Blush-colored lines wrinkled from the stiff pillowcase rumpled around her forehead and a deep red line from where her glasses had sat smudged into her soft cheeks, Sarah opened the door to the blue hue of a barren front yard. Barren, that is, except a woman in a sharp pink pantsuit, the unbuttoned blazer hanging unbuttoned like a powerful flag against the wind. And it was worn with more confidence and gusto than Sarah had ever seen any man wear a tuxedo.

Of course, the only time that had happened was at his brothers now meaningless wedding, where most of the men there had worn solely sweats and a video game t-shirt for most of the year. But this woman, she looked like something as suave and pronounced as this was the only outfit that ever truly worked on her. The pressed button-down underneath was a zealots green, buttoned all the way up to the nape of her neck and concluding in a dashingly large silk collar. She smiled a flash of her perfect white teeth at Sarah. Sarah’s matted and formless hair waved sadly in the wind, catching it from all angles where it say above her head. Beside her, vibrant balloon strings which had just been tied to her cobweb-covered sconces vibrated with the gust.

“Hello! Ms. Pricklegrove, it is so lovely to see you at last! I’m here with the Channel 9 Sunup Stories with some very exciting news for you!” She bounced in her heels, ostensibly on her third expensive latte of the day already.

Sarah didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before, but then again, she didn’t know how to function on only ten hours of sleep to make up for four previously sleepless nights. She blinked back the fog in her head as she looked alarmedly at a large television grade camera hoisted over the shoulder of a man’s black puffer and pointed at her. Behind him, she could see someone reaching deep into the back of the Channel 9 News van grappling for a hold on something. He was only visible past his waist now as one loafered foot tipped high in the air behind him.

“Uh—“ Sarah paused, eyes flicking between the unexpected scene laid before her, “Hey, hi.” She waved meekly at the camera directly. She really hated cameras.

“What’s this all about again?” She stumbled through the question, gesturing vaguely towards the balloons and the woman, who seemed to be competing for dominance of the rainbow. Of course, the cheery reporter already had green and pink in her grasp, looking like a Strawberry Shortcake ready to tackle the business world with her charisma alone.

“Well Ms. Pricklegrove,” Ms. Shortcake began, not missing a beat, “It seems luck is in your favor today! The results for the 2022 Channel 9 News Travel Raffle tickets have come in, with your name alone victorious!”

The man in the loafers and drab charcoal suit walked up behind her, trying to fix strands of his jelled back hair into place. Trying, that is, unsuccessfully. At the same time, he was fighting desperately to stop a gargantuan poster board rectangle from acting as a sail and blowing him away with each blow of the teeth-chattering air. At the smell of his leather shoes clacking down the chipped walkway, Orion shoved his head past Sarah’s now heavily mangled khaki pants, ruffles from a deep sleep.

“Wha—what?” Sarah slowly looked down at the poster board in front of her. It looked like one of those giant checks you see on TV when people win the lottery in advertisements. Except this one was formatted like a plane ticket. She read each like silently in her mind.

In playful font, she made out, “Winning Traveller: Sarah Pricklegrove!; A 14 day pre-paid plane ride and vacation to any catalogued destination of your choice with one guest; 2022 Channel 9 News Travel Raffle.”

The disoriented and shivering woman moved downward toward Orion, who was now dying to sniff at and most likely pounce on this large new toy. She shoved the large dog backwards and creaked the door’s gap closer to the frame, standing as if pressed into a corner.

“I don’t understand,” she mustered, eyes narrowing on the poster and looking to each face for an answer. All of their masks; however, seemed completely impenetrable. The camera man’s face was perky covered and focused, the poster man seemed nearly as tired and cold as Sarah, staring mesmerizedly at the balloons, and Ms. Shortcake’s smile was fixedly strained.

“Have you chosen your destination from the catalogue yet, Ms. Pricklegrove? Tokyo? Barcelona? Ooh! Perhaps Barbados?”

“I—I haven’t seen any such catalogue before!” Sarah shook her head, still trying to rid all the fuzz from it. She may still be immensely groggy, but this? She wouldn’t have forgotten entering a raffle for a free two week vacation. And it had been—well—longer than she’d like to admit since she’d last gotten drunk, so that definitely wasn’t it.

“I’m sorry,” she forced messily through her shyness and panic, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this raffle before.”

“Haha, oh dear, you are charming as a verb! Even so early in the morning, ah! I love some good humor at the job every now an then, not very easy to come by, I can assure you.” Her laughter trailed off as she durned back disappointedly toward her coworkers, both ever-unmoving. Ms. Shortcake cleared her throat briskly.

“Anyway! Probably time to get out of your—hgmn—hair,” the reporter made a strangled noise in her throat, as she probably noticed Sarah’s tangled mane for the first time since their meeting.

“We’ll let you get onto calling that special someone and letting them know you’ve won an exciting travel opportunity for two!” She nodded directorily toward the poster man, who slid the ridiculous paper through the gap in the door with a start. Orion immediately leapt for it, sinking his teeth deep and shaking his whole body from head to toe pads like he was dancing.

“Orion! No. That’s not ours!” Sarah felt energy leap into her system finally. What was happening here? It was decisively a very big mistake that needs to be set right. She grabbed at the torn poster as Orion forcefully prepared for another bite. She slid it out through the gap again, gasping back against the cold as her bare feet landed on the patio for the first time.

“Wait!” She called as she snapped her head upward to see the van packing up and rolling away.

“There’s been a mistake! This was meant for someone else, I didn’t even enter your raffle!” She waved the poster high over her head, it’s stiffness now broken as the bits where Orion had chewed bent helplessly.

The van’s engine revved powerfully. Before pulling off, Ms. Shortcake rolled her window down, one hand on the poster man’s shoulder, obviously telling him to not drive off quite yet.

“Oh, dear, I almost forgot! Make sure you scan the QR code to set up your account and everything! Wouldn’t want to miss out on a chance like this just because of some technical confusion!” She beamed before rolling her window up.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you! There’s been a technical confusion! I’m not—“ Before she could finish calling desperately to the winters morning, the van pulled off with a screech of gray smoke, and that was that.

Sarah looked down again to the mangled poster in her aching hand.

“Winning Traveler: Sarah Pricklegrove!” she read again silently in her head. If Sarah was sure of something, it was this: she had never been one for winning anything, and she certainly wasn’t a traveler.

I didn’t sign up for this! And if he knew that the “winner” had no choice in where they traveled, and for how long, he wouldn’t have submitted my name. Unless he wants me gone.

My flight leaves at 10 tomorrow. I don’t think they’ll literally drag me out but they made it clear that I would be on a plane tomorrow morning. A plane??? I’ve barely even left Rolling Rock - let alone left the ground, in a plane!

I don’t know where I’ll be going, only that I’ll be gone for a year. And I have no choice in the matter.

She sat anxiously awaiting the ring of her doorbell that may change her life forever. She sat at the edge of her favorite turquoise recliner and read her favorite book titled, “we all looked up.”

Her palms were sweaty and her heart pounded against her chest. She knew this was her last chance to escape Hudson valley.

She ran her fingers through her long wavy brown hair. Her eyes glided across the room and met the gaze of her large German shepherd named Revelations.

His amber eyes glimmered with affection for his owner. He is an X- police dog. And she is an X- officer. She loved her job. But after a while she realized there was never any crime in the small town of Hudson valley.

So she set her sights high, she was born and raised in this small town. She never left. Never traveled. Never saw the world like she so desperately wanted to.

She sat so focused on her book. She was always so intrigued by books, and the creativity and brain power it would take to wright them.

It had became completely quiet when she heard the ring from her doorbell. Her eyes lit up with excitement, and her heart fluttered around like a butterfly in her chest.

She quickly stood up, she ran about half way to her front door but she tripped over a shoe. “Dang it! Who left that there!? Ugh!” She snapped at the air.

She made it to the door and opened it excitedly. “Hey! Howdy! Hello!” She slapped herself internationally as the words came from her lips.

“Uh, hey?… can you just sign here for the package.” The mail man said in a daze. “Oh! Uh. Eh. Yea! I. Uh….” She had forgotten her name. internal scream

She remembered her name and signed the best she could with her shaking hands. “Eh, thanks.. have a um.. have a good-“ She slammed the door in his face and ran to the kitchen table.

She punched the box over and over until she broke the tape. She was in a daze too. She finally got it open and inside was a golden ticket.

Her dreams were finally coming true after all these years! She pulled it out of the box and gazed at it intimately as the gold shimmered in the sunlight that flooded in from her window.

It was bitter sweet. She was leaving the place where she spent her whole life. But she spent it wishing she was somewhere else. Would traveling be everything she hoped? Or was it all bitter, and no sweet?

(Not sure if y’all want a part 2, if you do let me know. Have a blessed day!)

Taromi holds the ticket in her hands. There must’ve been some kind of mistake. She couldn’t have won - actually won. When she entered her painting into the competition on a whim, only to prove to her older brother that there would be people that would enjoy her painting, she did not expect to actually win the grand prize. She observes more closely at the ticket. It has borders with golden ribbons and in the middle, a blue cursive font “Dear Taromi, congratulations on winning the grand prize, a one month trip around the world. You are invited to an interview to discuss the painting further”. She graced her fingers across her name, double checking that it indeed spells T-A-R-O-M-I. Yes. That is her name. Her mind races.

The sky echoed as I felt in my heart. The sun was shining the blue sky bright. But there was a touch of darkness. It was heard to explain but it was there. I turned back to my husband and kissed him and kissed my 2 baby girls on the cheek. One was 5 and one was 2. I entered the plane with one look back at my life. In a tiny town off the coast of Ireland. With grandma Lia’s grocery store off the 16th street. Turn the corner and you see the daycare. This place has been my home. Until I got a lottery ticket allowing me to visit 50 huge cities. She’ll be back in 10 years. Her babies will be all grown up. But this was an opportunity to finally get money for her children. She headed onto the plane with no more glances back but with promises to call every day. The plane lifts as I see the clouds next to me. Then I hear screaming and crying and the engine rumble. I see the clouds go above me again and the plane start to fall. I hear crying. I hear my brain scream that i was an idiot. That this was all corrupt. But the last thing I think of is the face of my husband and children.

It’s time. I can do this. I step onto the tiny airplane, ready for a new experience. I haven’t ever been on an airplane, let alone out of my small town. In some ways, i’m nervous, but I’m way more scared of never doing anything with my life. When I bought that lottery ticket, I didn’t expect anything of it. I would have never guessed that I would be the one to win a one in a lifetime, all funds paid, trip to Hawaii. In my average small town, things like this don’t happen often. It feels like I have the whole town cheering me on as I find my seat. I sit down and it just happens to be near the window. From here, I can see the place where I grew up. The high school that just got out of session, the swing sets that I broke my arm on in second grade, even my little sister Abigail selling her lemonade on the street. I feel like i’m someone watching a movie, looking at their lives without them knowing. Even though I’ve never been on a plane before and I hear those horror stories of people crashing, I’m not nervous. I actually feel excitement bubbling up from my stomach. I don’t know what the future holds in Hawaii, or even after, but I do know that I will accept it with open arms. I am ready to leave this town behind, not to forget it. I can accomplish bigger things, but sitting here, staring out the window, I promise myself to never forget where I grew up.

The moment I’ve been waiting for. I used to dream of the shiny ocean waves right in front of my face. I’ve once imagined how the stars in Greece would look like. What it would be like to feel so… grounded. Present. And now I’m here. I take a deep breath in. How could anyone question whether or not It’s worth leaving their small town for? Nothing else feels this way. I would never know the boundless hills in Ireland, or the colors of Peru if I never left. The world is not only made for discovery of culture and nature, but discovery of self.

It’s crazy how Henry won a ticket to Maine. A ticket outta the terrible town of Tusko Mississippi because he was tired of living here for 23 years. Just 23 years of his life that he had spent here dealing with everyone’s drama and his own. As he boarded the plane he took one last look back and breathed in the Mississippi air “Ahhh never gonna come back to this trash fire” A rather old man dressed in a fine black suit grumbled “Move it!” And shoved Henry into the plane as he stumbled and paced forward looking now for his seat. The seats were all packed and there was one spot open for him to sit at by a window near a beautiful young lady. As he scooted to the window he sat extending his hand to the girl saying “Hey the name is Henry Wilkes pleasure to meet you miss!” And smiled she was startled by his optimism and didn’t know how to respond so she sat quietly for a few minutes, but his smile never broke so she felt like she had to respond “T-The name is Mary Jameson” And shook his hand. He eased into the seat because now the awkward air was broken and tried to make conversation with Mary. “So where you headed Miss Jameson?” “Call me Mary, and uhh I’m headed to Maine for-“ “What me too!” She sat awkwardly smiling looking around “Sorry sorry continue” “I’m headed to Maine for paranormal investigating” Henry never believed in spirits or spectral having not witnessed any himself. He believed seeing was believing and if he has never seen one then it isn’t real. But he was headed to Maine because he received a letter in the mail from a relative saying that he now owns a mansion in Maine because his great great grandfather passed it onto him. Even though he never knew this Grandfather he didn’t wanna pass the opportunity to get out of Tusko and quickly left. “Paranormal investigating?” He said chuckling “You believe in that stuff?” “Oh yeah” She pulled out her phone and showed him where in Maine she was headed “The Wilkes Mansion, there’s stories from all over saying this place is haunted and that an angry ghost lingers around the halls of that mansion” She said eyes wide and at that response he laughed so loud everyone in the airborne plane starred at him with a weird expression on their face. After a few minutes they went back to what they were doing and he now felt comfortable to respond “That mansion” He said “Is my families mansion now entrusted to me, and I won’t let anyone else damage this mansion since it’s my home ticket outta Tusko” “Please please please” She begged with puppy eyes “No” He said firmly now turning to the window “I can’t that’d be like me ransacking and walking in your house how would you like that?” “I’ll do anything” She said desperately “Hmmm... well Mary I’ll need money since ehhhh I don’t really have any” He rubbed the back of his head chuckling quietly. She fumbled into her purse and pulled out $500 “I have $500 would that work?” “Hmmmmm” placing his hand on his chin he really needed the money since he left everything he had in Tusko because he didn’t want anything to remind him of that place. But stupidly he also forgot money and realllly needed some change to survive any place. “Yeah sure that’ll work” “Eeeeeeee” She shrieked with glee hugging him, and he felt awkward and just sat blushing inside. The plane had been flying for hours and they just chatted to become more aquatinted with each other. And Henry learned that Mary was 22 and from a different city of Mississippi and had searched and been to every paranormal place in Mississippi and this mansion in Maine would go on a documentary if the footage was appealing enough to the producers. Mary was a strange girl. Brunette silky hair, geyser blue eyes and a chubby complexion. But Henry thought she looked beautiful and wouldn’t mind if she kept him company at the “Haunted” mansion. After talking the plane rattled as it was getting ready for landing and the captain said “alright passengers we’ve now arrived at Maine” And it landed as everyone got off, and Mary and Henry were the last to get off and they dialed a taxi ready to head to the Wilkes Mansion.