Misspent Youth
This will be very long most likely. Apologies in advanced, but it's all true, and hopefully at least mildly entertaining.

When I was 14, my parents stuck me in a boarding school. Less than two weeks in, I ran away. Called my Dad from a phonebox and he said he'd come pick me up, and to wait there. Well he grassed me to the school and the most dreaded teacher in school appeared a few minutes to drag me back. My Dad DID come over to see me however. He did what was best for my safety, and even at the time I didn't hold it against him.

So, fast forward six months. We've just come back from summer holiday. The fifth year kids are put in charge, and of course go batshit insane power crazy. My bed squeaked. Everytime I moved, it squeaked. One of the fifth years saw this as a direct attempt at insubordination, and would punch me in the stomach when it did so. Delightful individual.

So I planned an elaborate escape. Well, elaborate for a 14 year old I guess. First of all, I told one of my few friends there I was planning on leaving, and would be doing so at midnight. This was a ruse, as I actually planned on leaving at 11:20pm. I wanted to tell him I was going at an exact time so if he decided to tell anyone because he was concerned, I'd be long gone. I did the usual cliche... Put pillows under the covers, shaped it to look like a body was there etc... Got dressed, packed my bag, and left a note under the pillow saying I'd left. (So they didn't think I'd been taken by Freddie Kruger or Gary Glitter or similar.)

I crawled out through the bathroom window (doors were locked, obviously) and ran through the grounds. ALMOST got caught by the groundskeeper as he was still up in his little shack, but I ducked and continued on and out of the gates.

Now I knew the route to get back to the main road. It was a seven mile hike though. I was sure I knew what I was doing, so I started walking.

Now I had a cunning plan. I thought "Cars will go past and see me walking... How can I alter my appearance. I know, I'll limp!" Yep, at 14 years of age, my great attempt at disguising myself was to limp. I was a scrawny little bastard so quite obviously a kid. Despite many MANY cars driving past me, not one stopped. No, my cunning disguise worked perfectly. The roads got pretty busy at a couple of points, and I thought for sure that any minute now, a police car would pull up and it'd all be over. Nope... I was left unmolested. (In every sense.)

About an hour into my epic quest, I made it to the bridge across the river. I was a couple of miles from the main road now. Yay! Nothing had stopped me so far. Bristling with renewed confidence that this was a plan of sheer genius, I kept trudging on. Not far to go. It was about 1am at this point. I figured I could be home by midday at the absolute latest.

Now came the tragic error. I had, apparently, not paid enough attention when travelling to the school... At the end of this road, I should have turned left down the main "A" road. My plan was to strike out for the Holiday Inn about 6 miles down that road from where I was at that point. By the time I got there, as the plan went, it'd be close to daylight. I could get to the Holiday Inn phones and not wake my parents that early, but early enough that I'd be the one to call them first, NOT THE SCHOOL! The key was to get there before 7am. At this point, I had about 5 hours to cover six miles. I didn't want my parents to be scared that something bad had happened to me.

So, with the planned destination one direction, I stupidly I went the other way, completely blivious to the fact that I was heading in the wrong direction. Somehow I managed to cross a busy motorway junction without getting obliterated, and was on my way. Every step, a step closer to freedom, adulthood, HOME.

Now I kept walking north, hoping to see something I'd recognise, which of course I didn't. By this point, it's about 2:30am. I've been walking that way for over an hour, and I have no idea where I am... So I admit defeat and go into a phonebox and call the police. Literally as I'm dialling, a police car pulls up. Despite being pretty scared by this point, I manage to crack a joke to myself... "Now THAT'S service".

Policeman asks me what I'm doing. I figure it's all over. I'm totally lost, no idea where I am. If I lie, he's going to be suspicious, so I may as well just tell the truth, so I just say "I'm lost. I've just run away from boarding school. Can you help me?" He helps me into the car and we go back to the station.

He calls my parents, but it'll be a while before they can get there because, obviously, they're asleep, so I'm going to be stuck in the police station for a bit. I remember being very tired, barely able to stay awake, and eating Kit-Kat's waiting for one or both of my parents to turn up. I remember being a little concerned about their reaction, but really, by this point, I didn't care.

Turns out it was my Dad that came to get me. I later found out my mothers reaction was "I'm not going anywhere. He can bloody stay there." and going back to sleep, thus setting the tone for a parental relationship that would end incredibly acrimoniously some 15 years later. (NOTE, this was the first time I'd ever done anything irretrievably stupid.)

My Dad wasn't mad that I remember. Just glad I was safe. I don't remember the drive home. What I do remember is that by getting lost, I'd apparently wound up in a really bad neighbourhood, and was told I was incredibly lucky to have not had anything very nasty happen to me there.

I was returned to boarding school the next afternoon. Teachers were all freaked out and eyed me with suspicion, like I'd just stumbled upon their stash of something illegal, or like by doing this, I had somehow stripped them of some power. It was really strange. The kids, who normally treated me like shit, treated me like the returning hero. "Would you like my dessert?" and that sort of thing. Got a few lectures from various authority figures, but mostly, things DID improve. Not sure if it was respect from the other kids, or the fact they thought I was deranged enough that I might stab them while they slept, but whatever the case, things were more bearable after that.

I never ran away again, though my parents took me out of the school a few months later, realising that me and boarding school would never get on, and that if they'd left me there, they may as well have just renamed me Hilts and bought me a baseball mitt...
(Bonedwarf is the size of a lemon, Wed 16 Aug 2006, 23:28, Reply)