Summer Reading Essay by Allyson G

Damien had arrived in Memphis only a week before today. He remembered the first day. Junice and her sister were welcomed into a good foster family, which was hard to come around in these times. For that, he was grateful. He had a hard time finding a place to stay for the amount of money he had, and it had to be near Junice’s house, because she was the whole reason for coming here.


Sitting on the stoop of his apartment complex in his old, dark purple hoodie and baggy jeans, Damien remembered the long bus ride and the trouble it took him to find his new home. It had taken almost all of the money he had saved to get the apartment. He had paid the rent for the apartment two months in advance and in that amount of time, he would have to conjure up more money to pay for the next two months and this was why he got up and started to walk down the main street, looking for help wanted signs.


Soon, he was amongst the crowd that filled the street during everyone’s lunch hour. He observed the different people swarming about, trying to get into their favorite café. There were so many different people. They were all sorts of shapes and sizes and ethnicities.


There was one family that caught his attention. It was a family of six. There was a mother a father, and four boys, but one of the boys looked unhappy. Damien assumed that the boy was simply not getting his way and being sour about it, but then he looked closer and, Damien couldn’t tell what it was, but there was something different about him. The boy looked more than unhappy; it seemed that he was scared.


Damien also noted how the family was dressed. They were definitely tourists by their ball caps and cameras, but something was strange. The family was dressed nicely, but this one boy looked like he was wearing rags.


Noticing all of these strange things about this boy, Damien decided to follow him and his family to wherever they were going, forgetting all about his job hunt. They lead him to a nearby hotel and Damien stopped following them once they reached the lobby.


Leaning against the outer wall of the hotel, Damien thought. Why was he chasing these people around town? So, the little boy made him interested in them, but that was no reason to be following their family.


Damien was startled when his thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. Out walked two men that were wearing maroon bellhop uniforms. One man had curly blonde hair and the other had straight black hair. They were talking to one another.


“Sam, I’m not sure if we’re going to find anyone in time. We’ll never get that raise if we can’t find someone to fill Harriet’s spot. Mister Collins will assign the job to one of his daughters, and then we’ll be bossed around even more than we are now,” the man with curly, blonde hair said to the other bellhop walking beside him.


“Well, Barry, We’ve still got time. Tom said we have another two days. Who knows, we might find someone,” the other said reassuringly.


“Hey, you need someone to work here?” Damien asked, standing up straight. The two men spun around, surprised by Damien’s sudden interjection. Sam nodded his head vigorously.


“Yeah, we’re in desperate need,” Barry said with a smile. All you need to do is ask Tom Collins, but make sure you say Barry and Sam found you. His office is right next to the desk in the lobby. Ask the girl who‘s sitting at it.”


Damien nodded and said a quick thank you as he turned around and entered the hotel. After speaking to the girl named Candy sitting at the desk at the end of the lobby, Damien was allowed into Mister Collins’ office. Damien didn’t need to knock because Tom Collins had already opened the door to let him enter. He was asked to sit in a cushioned chair in front of Mister Collins’ desk.


Within thirty minutes, Damien walked out of the hotel with a smile on his face. He would start his new job tomorrow, and he would have enough money to pay rent within the first month.


On the next day, Damien arrived early for work in the morning. He walked down the stairs of the hotel to the basement, where the laundry mat was. He would be bringing fresh towels to people’s rooms while they were out.


He grabbed a white rolling bin that was filled with warm towels. A man named Carl had showed him how to do his job yesterday, so he already knew what to do. Damien pushed the bin up a ramp and into the elevator.


He took the clipboard off of the side of the bin and read it, going down the list of people who hadn’t had their towels restocked in a while. The first number was two hundred and seven, which was on floor six. He pressed the six button on the elevator and he felt it start going up. Damien scanned the rest of the list to see if there were any more rooms on that floor that needed towels. There were seven.


Once the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Damien quickly pushed the rolling bin out of it and went to the closest room, which was two hundred and three. He knocked on the door. Since there was no answer, he swiped his card through the lock and it opened.
He soon began throwing old towels into laundry bags and replacing them with new ones.


Then, as Damien left the bathroom, he heard something. It sounded like a quiet mumbling. It was coming from the bathtub. He thought it was strange and assumed he was just hearing things. He still had to see what was making the noise, if it was anything at all.


Damien slowly and quietly stepped towards the bathtub, his heart beat growing faster. Once he was standing right next to the bathtub, he yanked the shower curtain open and was startled. There was actually someone sitting in the bathtub. It was the boy he had seen yesterday. He was sitting on his hands and staring up at the ceiling, which made Damien crinkle his brow.


The boy brought his gaze to meet Damien’s eyes, instantly saying, “I’m sorry, mother.” He then looked in almost disbelief to see Damien in her place. “What?” he asked, puzzled. “Who are you?”


“I’m Damien. I brought clean towels up. I work here,” he told him.


The boy nodded and took his hands out from under him. “I’m David,” he replied.


“Well, why are you here?” Damien asked him. “Why isn’t there anyone else here with you? Where’s the rest of your family?”


David’s eyes seemed to look panicky the moment Damien asked him. “Well, I,” David stammered, trying to think of a sensible excuse. After a while of thinking, David just couldn’t find an answer. With a sigh, he said, “Mother made me. They‘re out getting breakfast.”


After Damien cocked his head in uncertainty, David told Damien the story of how his mother was once a nice person, and then she changed.


Damien, who was now sitting on a chair that he had brought into the bathroom, looked at David in shock. He had never heard of any mother abusing her child without being completely out of her mind, and David’s mother looked pretty sane to him.


“So, she does horrible things to you everyday, and doesn’t even treat you like a human being?” Damien asked David when he was done.


David nodded his head. “It’s not all that bad,” David said with a crooked smile. “Sometimes, when I’m sitting like I was when you came in, I pretend that I am Superman. I fly over the town and I rescue people. It’s loads of fun,” he told him, his smile increasing in size.


Damien then remembered the mumbling that he heard coming from the shower. That’s what it was. David was pretending he was Superman. Damien smiled weakly back at him, feeling an immense amount of pity for the child.


Damien’s eyes grew serious. “David, you need to get out of here. You need to get away from your mother. You can’t live with her beating you all the time. Why don’t you come home with me? I promise, everything will be better if you do that,” Damien told him, thinking of a fast solution.


“Come home with you? Is that possible?” David asked him in awe. Was he really going to get rid of his mother that easily? Could he go home with his new friend? There would be no more beatings, no more feeling like he was nothing. David couldn’t believe it. He was finally going to be free of her!


Damien nodded. “Come on, if we go now, they wouldn’t know what hit them. You’ll be free,” he said with a reassuring smile.


David was so happy, he couldn’t contain himself. He stood up and hugged Damien with all his might and they both laughed.


Damien’s eyes grew wide as he heard the doorknob jingle as a key card was swiped through the lock on the door. “Oh, no,” he said, breaking their hug.


David’s eyes filled with fear. He looked up at David for help. “What’re we going to do?” he asked, panicking.


“Quick, get back in the shower. I’ll come back tomorrow after they leave, I promise,” Damien quickly whispered into David’s ear.


He shut the shower curtain and took a deep breath. He then continued to pick up dirty towels and replace them, trying to make it look like he had been doing this the whole time.


David’s family then came in, talking in happy tones and laughing. They all stopped once they saw Damien. David’s mother looked at him in pure horror, hoping he didn’t find David in the shower.


“Sorry to scare you,” Damien said with a pleasant smile. “I was just restocking your towels. I’ll be going, now.” He pushed the bin out of the door after David’s family had moved out of the way.


Once the door was shut behind him, Damien let out the breath that he was holding in the whole time. He could hear David’s family start to talk again, but they were quieter this time. David’s mother could be heard over all of them.


“I never trust those people,” she said loudly. “They could take something of ours, you know. That man could’ve taken all of our belongings!”


The next day, the first thing Damien did was go up to number two hundred and three to see if David’s family were out. He didn’t even bother to go down and get his towel bin.


He knocked on the door. Once again, there was no answer. So, Damien entered with a smile. All of this was going to work out! He was so proud of himself.


He went directly to the bathroom and opened the shower. David wasn’t there. That was strange. Damien went out into the bedroom and called his name. There was no answer. He looked around the room. It seemed more bare than it was last time.


Something must have clicked in his mind because he knew what had happened. There was no luggage, which meant no David. Damien ran out of the room, not having time to close the door behind him. He then got onto the elevator and pressed the lobby button.


The time it took to get down to the lrobby seemed like forever. Then the elevator stopped and Damien ran out of it, almost bumping into two people. He ran to the front desk, cutting in front of everyone in line and said, “Number two hundred and three. When did they leave?” he asked quickly.


Candy looked up at him and looked through a stack of papers. “Oh, here it is. They left last night at eleven o’clock,” she said with a smile.


Damien stared at Candy in disbelief. “Alright, thanks,” he said gloomily as he walked away. He then felt this pang of determination run though him. No, he wouldn’t just leave David to live through this anymore. He had to be out there somewhere. No matter how much it would take, Damien would save David, even if it took him years!