First day of Summer Vacation

May 28. The first day of summer vacation for Paige Murphy. After her first year of high school, it was nice to finally have some down time. Or so she had thought. Paige lived on a dead end street. At the end of the street, was the "rich" family. The JoHansens. The had the biggest house on the lane. That's what they called it. "The Lane."

So, here we have Paige, all ready to sleep till noon, when she is awakened by the high pitched screech of an alarm. Her eyes snap open and she practically falls out of her bed. She runs downstairs to the living room, still in her pj's, to see her two brothers huddled under the window, taking turns peeking out of it to see what happened.

"All right, you two, what did you do?" Paige asked her twin brothers.

"It wasn't us!" said Nick

"Yeah, we think it's a tornado alarm thing!" said Nick's brother Neil.

"Please! The sky is pure blue, and there's hardly a breeze. I highly doubt that there's going to be a tornado." Paige threw a skeptical look at her brothers.

"You believe what you want, but we're going to the basement!" Neil stuck his nose up and Nick nodded in agreement.

Paige's eyes went wide. "But you two hate the basement!"

"We hate tornadoes more!" Nick yelled over his shoulder as the two ten year olds ran down the basement stairs.

Paige scrunched up her eyes. Obviously, the boys weren't behind it. And she was starting to get a migraine. It was Thursday, so all of the adults were at work. Every house on The Lane had at least one kid in it, except for the JoHansens. She looked outside. Not a soul out there. They must all think it's a tornado alarm. Well, she reasoned, it looks like it's up to me. She made for the door, then stopped. She decided it would be best to change first.

After her clothes were changed she dashed outside. She stood still and tried to isolate where the noise was coming from. It was the JoHansens. What a shocker, right? She grabbed her bike off of her porch and pedaled to the end of The Lane. Yep. It was definitely coming from here. She parked her bike outside and pushed open the front gate. Her plan was to knock on the door and ask them to kindly turn off the alarm, or whatever it was. It didn't work out quite the way she had hoped.

A low growl emanated from around the corner of the house. Paige froze. A massive dog, a boxer, came from around the corner, an invisible fence collar around it's neck. Paige dashed for the door and jiggled the handle. It was open. She shut the door behind her as the dog closed the distance. Paige sighed with relief. Up the stairs she ran and into the master bedroom.

"You have got to be freaking kidding me." Paige said. She had gotten a migraine and ran past a guard dog for this?

She walked over and closed the door to a safe. The alarm went quiet. Paige shook her head and went home.