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Lost in a Good Book- A Child's Tale

The cover caught Rebecca's eye. There was a girl with a backwards baseball cap and blond hair looking at her. The cover read "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon," it sounded like a nice story to Becca. She didn't notice the clawed shadow in the background. If she had she might have selected something else.

Pushing the book open recklessly she waited to be pulled into the book. It didn't happen. She turned the page and a pop up appeared. There was a family in a car a mom a brother and a sister. None of them looked very happy. They were heading toward a hiking trail. Rebecca read through the story. Excluding the fact that it was a pop up it seemed very ordinary- but very creepy.

Rebecca read about the little girl getting lost and how she loved Tom Gordon who played baseball. She read about the girl's radio wearing out. She read until she came to the monster. She was about to close the book when it happened. Her belly twisted and she was smack dab in the middle of the woods- not WITH the lost little girl. She WAS the lost little girl. She looked at her clothes and started to scream. She yelled for help. This is a pop up book she told herself.

No one responded, but she saw a shadow in the distance moving closer to her. Her skin was itching as bugs kept biting at her flesh. She screamed again. Her eyes burned, and she wanted her mother. Even if her mother hated her, her mother would not have left her to this. There was movement beside her. She shouted again.

There were dead animals- animals that had been eaten by- something. Rebecca gagged as she ran she felt tired her legs ached. She had once been told to stay put if she got lost and that someone would find her. She didn't want to stay put there might be a bear in the woods waiting for her. She knew it was watching her. She just knew it.

The radio slipped out of her pocket and she bent to pick it up. It was broken- she had nothing left now. Her pocket had the remains of a melted chocolate bar. It would bring animals to her. She threw it behind her thinking just maybe the search team would find it and know she had come this way.

Rebecca tried to remember what her brothers and father had told her about camping. It was getting dark, she screamed again for someone to find her. No one came. She sat down and was nearly in tears when she felt that little twinge in her belly that meant she was going home. She had never felt so relieved to return to her unhappy family as she felt in that moment.