That Day, We Run as Fast as We Could

My class just finished. I rushed to leave. I got to meet my sister at the schoolyard. As usual, A, my sister, had to wait for about 2 hours so she could leave the school together with me. She was at her 1st grade and I was at my 4th. The 1st grade students finished their class earlier than the other classes.

"Pol", she said to me once I was next to her, "Mom said there is no need for us to go to the farm. Let's go home. Mom is at home now."

I didn't trust my sister. Mom said to me before I left to school, "After school, you come right away to the farm!" It was a morning routine for me to hear that from mom.

How come mom said another thing to A, my sister? I trusted my mom more than trusting my sister. If mom said so, why my sister didn't join her classmates to go home? She had some classmates who were our neighbors in our villages. She could walk home with them. Why she needed to wait for me?

That was what I thought at that time. Only now, after 7 years, I am aware that my sister seemed to decide to wait for me so I didn't go to the farm, right? Also, most likely, if she went home without me knowing, I could feel confused since all the time, she and I walked together to the farm, after school.

At that time, I tended to not trusting her, that was why I couldn't see her true motive. I thought, she probably wanted to stay at home after school, no need to go to the farm. We did enjoy and were okay that we went to the farm right away after finishing our school every day. However, we liked it too when once in a while, when our parents were not at the farm since they needed to take care any kind of errand or attending any event such as Adat-events, we were asked to go home after school instead of going to the farm.

"Mom said to me that we got to come to the farm", I said to my sister, and asked her to not wasting time arguing and we better started walking, leaving our school.

We walked at the left side of the main asphalted road for about 15 minutes. There were houses along the road at the left and right sides. A church stood at the right side not so far from our school on a higher spot.

Soon, we were to leave behind all the houses at both sides and entering a fork at the left side, Dalan Gareta[1], water buffalo chart road. 

There were still a few houses along Dalan Gareta, but soon, after a few minutes, it was going to be quiet with only bushes on the left and right sides of the road along with hilly and valley of expanse farming fields.

Once we got ourselves into Dalan Gareta, I noticed that a grand mix pick up (a kind of medium truck) with few secondhand stuffs in its rear, came along behind us. Within seconds, I knew it was parbotot's truck.  

Weird. I started to feel suspicious. Why parbotot's truck entered the road to the farm where my sister and I were walking? That's illogical to me. Didn't they know that the road was to the farming area and there were no houses there?

I noticed that there were two men in that truck, one drove it and the other sat beside the driver. There were only a few things in the rear of the truck, unlike usual parbotots as I knew so. It made me even more suspicious.

I started to being panic since the truck kept on following us to that road to the farming area. I was getting more suspicious and in fear. I sensed that those men in the truck had bad intentions.

Now, 7 years later, by analyzing the situation, could it be that, they had been watching us for a while, to see the pattern like the time, when we left our school, and the direction we went to? Could it be that they had been driving around our school to observe us and picked up their targets?

 I quickly asked my sister to run as fast as we could. The truck was slow since the road to the farm was bumpy. The landscape from the main asphalted road to where my sister and I was also steep and then flatty. We needed to be unseen by those men in that truck, so we must run faster to reach the flatty road over there in front of us.

 We no longer saw the truck, but I knew, it was soon going to be where we were. My sister and I run into a middle of a farm to the left, leaving the main road, the Dalan Gareta. There was a shortcut through a farm there. We both decided to quicky hided inside a grove of banana trees.

 We were engulfed in fear and anxiety. Even worst, by peeping from the banana grove where we were hiding, we did see the truck up there on Dalan Gareta. There was no even a house there. No. Nothing. I knew my sister and I were in real danger. Those men were following us.

 They couldn't see my sister and I hiding in that banana grove. They might be wondering where the kids were, suddenly disappearing. Following the road, the truck had to go through a half-circle pattern, while me and my sister, we took a straight shortcut path till we reached the banana tree.

 There was still some distance from the banana tree to the road. If we run as fast as we could, and since the truck had to move slowly due to the bumpy road, we could avoid the danger of being kidnapped.

In seconds, after seeing the truck about 200 meters away from us, I told my sister, "Let's run as fast as we can! Just run! Run! Run! Run!"

 We reached the main road to our farm. The truck was farther from us since it needed to move even further away following the half-circling road before turning left to where we were.

 We run and run and run. We run to avoid being seen by those men in the truck. I didn't want to hide in a bush along the way. I knew that if we both simply run as fast as we could, soon, we would reach our farm and be safe,  for our dad, mom, and grandma were there.

 Finally, we reached our farming land. We looked for our mom. What? Mom was not there. Dad was not there. Grandma was not there.

 We checked to the hut. Nothing. Usually, mom brought our clothes and lunches inside a bucket. Also, mom used to bring a bag to keep her things and ours. Nothing.

 I was gravely disappointed not seeing my parents and grandma at our farm after all that just happened to me and my sister. We both had to face such an extreme danger of being kidnapped. That was awfully scary. It was all beyond what could be told in words.

 Exhausted, disappointed and still in danger at the same time, since mom, dad and grandma were not there, I wanted to cry but I couldn't since I had to think faster. I said to my sister, we needed to leave the farm and took an unusual shortcut path to get home to the village.

 We didn't follow the usual path, rather we took another path rarely taken. We run or we walked as fast as we could through bushes and swamps, then, walking up on a steep landscape. I knew that those men in the truck were not the locals, so, they hardly could follow my sister and I on the twists and turns of the path we took.

 The temperature of my body was still hot out of running and walking fast. Soon, we read a dam, we felt safer. I heard the sound of water. The wind blew softly. We walked slower, taking breathes.

 After a few minutes leaving that dam, we could see our house from a distance. We felt calmer. We decided to slow our paces. In less than 5 minutes, we already reached the main asphalted road. Houses were started to appeared at the left and right sides.

 Passing through a bridge where a river flew down there, and still up to today, we kept on walking uphill, turn left, and we were home.

 Our school uniforms were full with lot of Biden pilosa's seeds. Our school bag packs were on our backs. We were exhausted and worn out.

 From a distance before reaching our yard, I could see my mom there, drying paddy-grains. I was speechless seeing her there. If only she was at the farm instead of there, I told myself. If only I knew that my sister did tell me the truth that mom asked us to come home in the village instead of going to the farm.

 My sister said, "See Pol, didn't I tell you that mom asked us to come home and not go to the farm? You didn't trust me, did you?"

I knew at that time that the most important thing was, both my sister and I were safe, away from parbotot who did feel to me were hunting us. It happened already. I was thankful that both of us were able to run away and saved our life."***

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