As soon as I had been arrested I had been taken to the sheriff's office, where I was put in the women's section of the jail.
     There had been some sort of a hearing, I didn't get to say much.  Everyone else seemed to have a lot to say though, all about me, none of it seemed too nice.  Some of them, judge included, seemed downright angry at me.  I really couldn't understand why they were so angry at me, all I had done was move the airplane about the field a bit.  Burned up a little gas.  I would have gladly paid for that.
     I guess the thing that did get my attention was when the judge said he was sending me back to the training school, "To pay for your crime."  I wasn't too sure what a crime was so how was I going to argue with that.
     I guess, after everyone had their say, I felt I was a "Bad Boy" and I should go back to the training school.  I wasn't too sure what a “Bad Boy” was.  Of course I felt pretty confused and helpless at the time and was going along with whatever they wanted to do to me, sort of a way life for me wherever adults were concerned.  Maybe that is why I didn't fight the man when he came and took me back to the training school.
     It had been the day after the hearing, while I was laying on my bed in my jail cell, not really knowing what they were going to do to me or when they were going to do it, trying to figure out a way of escaping when the sheriff had opened the door to take me down to his office.  A man was sitting there in the office, when he seen me he held out a pair of handcuffs and asked, "Well Son, you ready to take a trip up to Eldora?"  Not wanting him to put the handcuffs on me I had replied, in somewhat of a broken and subdued way, "Sir, you don't need to put those on me.  I won't run."
     "Sorry Son, it is the rules.  I have to put handcuffs on all boys I transport to the training school."  He had said it in somewhat of a concerned way.  The way he had said it, it had a soothing effect on me as he snapped the handcuffs around my wrists.  I hadn't fought him as I had the first time someone had put a pair of handcuffs on me but I hadn't led the way as he took me out to the car.  I had sat on the front seat as he attached a short section of chain to my handcuffs the other end of the chain was attached to the floor of the car.
    As he had drove me back to the training school I hadn't said much along the way.  I don't know who he was but I know he didn't work at the training school.  I felt he was nice towards me.  He had told me I wouldn't be in the training school long and everything would work out all right.  I don't know if he knew I had been there before, I never told him I had been.  I had sat there, not even bothering to look out the window, looking down with tear filled eyes at the handcuffs on my wrists.
     When we arrived at the training school we stopped first at the admitting office.  The same lady was there when I was brought to the training school the first time.  She had always been nice to me.  I had asked her on several occasions (at times with tears in my eyes) if she could find my brother for me.  But each time I had always gotten the same answer, "He has been adopted and you will never be allowed to know where he is."  When I had walked into the room she had said, "I am sorry to see you back, Larry."  Then as though to show me she wasn't mad at me, she put her arm around my shoulders and with a light shake asked, "What on earth got into you to steal an airplane?"
     It had been hard to even watch her lips as she spoke to me.  As soon as I had understood what she had said, I dropped my head and slowly shook it back and forth, making no reply.  I had tears in my eyes and I was feeling ashamed of what I had done.  As though I had let her down.
     I was taken to the hospital where I took a bath, was given a physical, pajamas and was locked in a room in the basement of the hospital.
     It had hardly been a week since I had flown up to the training school to see Mr. Parker.  By now Mr. Parker knew what I had done.  The boys in my cottage probably did too.  How was I ever going to face them, especially Mr. Parker.
     That night I laid and looked up, out of the small window above the bed.  The moon was shining brightly down on me as I laid there with tears in my eyes.
     Sending me back to the reform school for what I had done, seemed like so. . . .   so over reacting.  But that is the way my whole life seems to have been.  When I had ran away, I had made so many people so angry at me.  There were so many things I couldn't understand.
     I knew this time I would have to stay in the training school for twelve months.  Something I felt I couldn't handle, not for a whole year.  I knew if I ran away and didn't get away they would make me start my time all over again.  If I had been there a month and ran, I would lose that month.  If it had been two months, then I would lose two months.  Whatever good time I had I would lose it.  But I was going to run and if they caught me I would have to run again.  I just couldn't go through another year at the training school.
     As I laid there that night, I felt very sick about life, there seemed no end to it.  I had laid there and cried myself to sleep.
     The first month I had to stay in the orientation building.  Sort of a calm me down period.  To discourage me from running away when I went to my cottage.  But all I did was plan and wait for the day when I got out so I could run away.
     Shortly after the first of October I was sent back to Cottage #1 and my old job in the butcher shop.  I didn't like the Leapers but Cottage #1 had been my old cottage and I felt it had been better to go there than a cottage I didn't know.  Anyway, I knew the routine there and my escape plans fitted that routine.
     The boys had all been away from the cottage when I got there.  I was thankful for that for it gave me a little time to adjust before I was to meet them.
     The boys in orientation hadn't known why I was back at the training school.  They didn't even know I had been there before.  I had never talked about anything I had done.  Even when I was in the training school before none of the other kids had even known I had been in the juvenile home or the orphanage or why I was in the training school.  I just never talked about it.
     Unlike most kids in the training school, I never talked about anything I had done or where I had been before.  I was ashamed I had been in the orphanage.  I had been ashamed I had been in the juvenile home.  I guess more than anything, I was ashamed of so many things I had done or was involved in.  There had been so many things I couldn't talk about.
     I dreaded the time the boys would be returning to the cottage to get ready for supper.  I felt by now they knew I had tried to "steal" an airplane.  The way I viewed trying to fly the airplane, was something very foolish for me to have done and I was ashamed of it.  So I think it is very understandable I didn't want to talk about it but would rather have everyone forget I had done it.
     About 4:00 that afternoon the boys started coming into the cottage.  As soon as the boys who knew me, seen me, they rushed over to me, slapping me on the back.  Some putting their arms around me.  They all seemed to be happy to see me.  None of them I knew asked anything about the airplane.  A "New Kid" though had asked me two or three times if I had really stolen an airplane.
     It seems the word was, I had stolen the airplane and had flown it up to the training school to visit, then getting caught when I flew it back.  I never did correct that impression for I was never to talk to anyone about trying to fly the airplane.
     I had ignored the boy who had kept asking me about the airplane.  After about the fourth try one of the boys I knew told the "New Kid" I was deaf and had to read lips.  I wouldn't look at the kid so he had given up.
     The one I was really worried about was Mr. Parker.  What would I say to him the first time we met?  Even worse, what would he say to me?
     The first day I got back to my cottage I had planned on running away.  But as it turned out the first day was Monday, the evening Mr. Parker took care of my cottage.  No one had ever ran away when Mr. Parker took care of them.  I didn't want to be the first one to break his record so I had to wait until the following night.
     Because Mr. Parker was to take care of our cottage that night, I would see him before we went to supper.  As it turned out, when Mr. Parker had seen me, he had slowly shook his head and said, "I would never have believed you would have been back."
     I had felt ashamed of myself as I stood there in front of him, with my head bowed, I had heard him without reading his lips.  He had let it drop there but I knew that we were still friends.
     The next day I went about my duties as normally as I could.  Doing my cottage chores, going to work in the butcher shop and associating with other boys as much as I always did.  I didn't trust anyone though so none of the boys even suspected I was going to run away.
     It wasn't unusual for me to stay by myself.  So that evening no one paid any attention to me as I picked up a baseball and bat about an hour before it was time to go into the cottage.  I would throw the ball up and bat it.  Then go and pick it up again and bat it again.  But as it got nearer the time to go in, each time I would hit the ball I would hit it a little bit further from the cottage.
     By the time Mr. Leaper called everyone in, I was by Old Cottage #1.  It was an old building, about a hundred to two hundred feet south of my cottage.  It had set empty and hadn't been used since New Cottage #1 (my cottage) had been open shortly after I had come to the training school the first time a year before.  When Mr. Leaper had called us in, the sun was near the far western horizon.  In about an hour and it would be dark.
     My timing had been just right.  I was at the rear stairway of the old building, where I wanted to hide until everyone had gone into the cottage.  As all of the boys started for our cottage, I dove into my hiding place under the stairs.  One instant I was in the open, the next I was gone.
     I could see from my vantage point no one had seen me dive into my hiding place.  Also I could watch as the boys went in the back door of our cottage.  It was important I leave as soon as the last boy entered the cottage.  Roll-call was soon after that and I would be missed.
     With the last boy in, I came out from under the stairs in a hard run.  I had a long ways to go and I didn't want to burn myself out but I had to get out of the open areas as soon as I could before someone seen me.
     Past the west side of the gym, I crossed the road and jumped the fence in one bound, into the hog lot.  Not slowing I ran through the hog lot and over another fence on the south side of the lot.  Still running hard I headed for the weeds down by the creek, where a few months before I had buried Bingo.  At the creek, among the weeds and brush, I was able to slow to a trot.  Following the creek south for a distance, I then turned east, allowing me to pass well to the south of the dairy.
     When I had first planed on running away, I had a destination I wanted to get to and that was Iowa Falls where I had some relatives living I felt would help me.  But that was northwest, about fifteen miles from the training school.  I was heading southeast in the opposite direction.  If someone had seen me as I had first taken off I wanted them to think I was headed in that direction or would think I would later swing southwest towards my home in Nevada and look for me in that direction.
     Once past the dairy, I continued on east for two or three miles.  It was dark by the time I had gotten to the Iowa River, which bordered the east side of the town of Eldora.  At this point of the Iowa River, the embankments are steep and about fifty feet high so I couldn't cross the river, to later swing north allowing me to pass further to the east of Eldora.  So at the river I turned north and followed it, staying well clear of the steep cliffs along the river.
     As I walked north, I had to walk through a residential area of town, staying well out of the lighted areas.  When I had come to the highway that ran through town and on west to pass in front of the training school I waited until there was no traffic on the road then I ran quickly to the other side where it was dark.  Once across the highway, I continued north but now I started to slant in a more westerly direction.
     Coming out of some trees I seen a baseball field ahead of me.  The Eldora High School was having a baseball game and I had ran right into it.  To my right it was dark and I felt I could pass directly behind the bleachers without being noticed.  So working my way around to that part of the field I passed back of the bleachers.  I could see everyone was paying close attention to the game so I felt it was safe for me as I walked in the dark behind the bleachers in my full uniform.  That was until I spotted Mr. Parker sitting about halfway up one of the bleachers.  His attention was also on the game.  He was so close to me I could have called to him in almost a normal voice.  It was too late for me to turn back so I had quickened my pace for fear he would turn around and see me.
     Leaving the ball field I walked northwest towards Iowa Falls.  Walking across farm fields, over fences and staying well off of roads.
     It was after midnight when I had seen the barn, about a quarter of a mile off to my right.  I was tired and it was getting cold, here in early October.  I wasn't wearing a jacket and the barn looked like a safe and possibly a warm place to sleep until morning.  The farm house was not more than a couple of hundred feet from the barn but I could see the house was dark and that there was no dog about.  So I felt it was safe for me to go into the barn.
     Easing one of the big double doors open, I slipped inside.  I could make out the form of a car parked just inside of the door.  Quietly opening the passenger side door of the car, I looked for something like a blanket to wrap around me to keep me warm.  Not finding anything I could wrap around me, I looked in the glove compartment where I found a pack of cigarettes and some matches.
     Thinking I would be warmer by smoking the cigarettes I took them and the matches.  But now I was afraid to stay in the barn for fear the farmer would come out in the morning while I slept, looking for his cigarettes, not finding them he would look around and find me.
     I left the barn and walked about half of a mile west until I came to some trees where I felt it would be safe for me to sleep until morning.
     Not wanting to build a fire for fear it may be seen, I first tried to get warm by smoking the cigarettes.  I quickly found that smoking didn't help a bit.  I had seen other people smoke but I had never smoked before.  I had found out very quickly,  I didn't like it.
     When I had lit the matches they had warmed my hands slightly but not enough to really help.  So off and on for the rest of the night I would light small twigs which would soon go out.  I tried to sleep but because it was so cold it was almost dawn before I had dropped off to sleep.
     When I woke up the ground was covered with frost and the sun had just cleared the eastern horizon.  It's warm rays had felt good.
     I had nothing to eat since supper the night before but I was too cold to worry about that.  I knew after I got started I would warm up and when I got to Iowa Falls my relatives would give me something to eat and a warm place to sleep.
     Getting up, I got my bearings again and started northwest.  Staying well out in the fields, staying off of roads except to cross them.  Each time as I approached a road, or even if I was well out in the field, if I seen a truck or car on the road I would lay down until they were well out of sight.
     After traveling this way for three or four hours I must have gotten careless, I don't know just what happened.  Maybe they had seen me before I saw them.  I never knew who they were.  They could have been from the training school or they could have been a couple of farmers who knew a boy had ran away from the training school.  My escape had been reported on the local morning radio news.  At that time there was a $10 bounty on all runaways from the training school.  At that time, I wasn't too sure if the training school was very particular in what shape the boys were in when they were brought back.  Dead would have been just as good as any other way.
     Dressed the way I was in my uniform it was easy to spot me for a runaway from the training school.  I had thrown my cap and tie away but there wasn't much I could do about the rest of my uniform.
     Anyway as I approached the road I didn't see them.  Before I had jumped the fence I had looked both ways up and down the road and I hadn't seen anything.  Jumping the fence I had quickly ran up the embankment to the road and across to the other side.  As I had taken a flying jump down the embank- ment on the north side of the road I heard a man off to my right yell for me to stop.  I was in midair when I had heard him yell.  As I hit the ground I turned towards him.  I had been somewhat shocked when I had heard him yell at me.
     About a hundred yards or more to the east of me, I seen a pickup truck sitting down off the north side of the road where I couldn't have seen it as I approached the road from the south.  Two men were standing in front of it, both of them armed with rifles.
     Fear shot through me as I turned and jumped the fence in one bound.  When I hit the ground I was running at top speed, maybe even faster for I was running for my life.  In my mind there was no question, they were going to kill me.
     My quick action must have taken them by surprise for I had increased the distance between us by more than a hundred feet before they started firing.  I don't know what kind of rifles they had but the bullets were making the dirt fly all around me.  I didn't feel they were only trying to scare me.  Those bullets were coming way too close for that.
     With the feeling they were trying to kill me, I ran for the trees that were some three to four-hundred feet ahead of me.  The ground slightly sloped upwards towards the trees which didn't make running any easier.  Reaching the first large tree I spun around it and fell to the ground behind it.
     I laid there on my stomach, with my face buried in my arms, waiting, waiting for the sounds of their footsteps as they approached me.  Laying there believing they would rush up, put the muzzles of their rifles to my head and kill me.  In my mind I waited for a shot I would never hear.  I was scared but in some sort of way, I wanted it to end there.  At that very moment, I was so exhausted and scared I didn't care.  In some way, as I laid there shaking with fear, I wanted them to kill me for I couldn't go back to the training school.  I couldn't go on living the way I was.
     They came up running and grabbed me, none too gently.  They led me back to the truck and there they took some rope and tied my hands behind my back then made me sit in the back of the truck for the return trip to the training school.  It had taken me hours to go as far as I had gone but it had only taken minutes to get me back to the training school.
     They had parked in front of the administration building then helped me out of the truck.  Dragging may be a better term.
     As we walked towards the heavy wooden doors of the administration building, I remembered the first time I had seen those doors.  I had been very much afraid that day.  Because of what I thought laid ahead for me, but this time, I was sure I knew what laid ahead.  How many times had I been warned since my cottage mother at the orphanage had warned me?
     I had never heard of any boy ever running away from the training school.  Not in all of the time I had been there.  But I had been warned it would be the last thing I would ever want to do.  They hadn't spelled it out, not exactly, just what they would do but I didn't think they had to.  A quick bullet in the head would have been a lot better than what I knew they were going to do to me.
     This time though when they took me into the office I wasn't crying.  Now I only cried when I was alone.  I had been told in one way or another, "Big boys don't cry."  I wasn't crying but I was very scared.  There had been no words of comfort.  No one had said everything would be all right.  No one said anything about what was going to happen to me.  I wanted to ask but I didn't see anyone there to turn to.  To say I was scared?  I was so scared I was sick, so sick I felt like throwing up.
     At that time my life didn't seem to be worth much.  These men had shot at me, knowing who I was and how old I was.  It hadn't been like when I was twelve years old, when the man in the railroad yard had shot at me in the dark.  He didn't know he was shooting at a couple of kids.  Here though, they knew I was only a fifteen year old boy who's only crime had been to run from the training school.
     I tried to understand.  All I had done was to run away.  I hadn't hurt anyone.  I hadn't done anything that would justify them into sending a bullet into my back.  I tried to understand but I couldn't.
     Only minutes before they had tried to bring me down with rifles.  Now, standing in the office with my hands tied behind my back my life didn't seem too important.  I knew they had killed a boy here by beating him, just on the suspicion he was going to run away.  I knew I was going to Isolation.  If they were going to beat me, I knew that was where it would happen.  Behind closed doors, with no one to protect me.  I can fairly well relate to the feelings of a person about to be executed or any animal being led to slaughter, for a very slow and painful slaughter is what I felt what I was being led to.
     I was held there in the office with my hands tied behind my back until a man from the isolation unit came for me.  My hands were untied and handcuffs and shackles were put on.
     The isolation unit itself, as it turned out, wasn't as bad as at the juvenile home.  There was a bed, the room was well lighted and I had three regular meals a day.  The rooms were like the ones on the other side of the building, in Orientation.  Yes this was better than the juvenile home but I was still scared.  I didn't know exactly what they did to boys who ran away but I was fearing the worse.
     When I had been taken into the isolation unit I had to strip and take a shower.  Then I was given a pair of white pajamas and led to my cell.  I had been told, as long as I was there I was not to speak unless I was first spoken to.  I would make absolutely no noise.  It was deathly quiet on the unit.
     They called it isolation but during the day I was very seldom on the unit.  Two other boys (why they were there I don't know, I didn't even know their names) and I were taken out during the day to unload coal from railroad cars and to cut weeds along the road to the dairy.  It was strictly punishment.  Nothing was said about it being for my own good.  I had made them mad and this was their response.
     It had been the second or third night after I was brought back I was awakened sometime during the night.  It had been the sounds of my door being unlocked that had wakened me.
     I had felt, if I was going to get a beating it would come sometime during the night, for that is when I had thought I had heard the screams coming from the isolation unit while I had been in orientation over a year before.
     I was laying on my stomach, with my left arm under my pillow and my face turned towards the wall.  Over me was a sheet and a blanket.  I had laid there pretending I was asleep, with the vain hope they would think I was sleeping and not wanting to disturb me would go away.
     I felt a hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me and a man's voice, "Larry, wake up."  Then he shook me a little more, this time harder.  Then in a little more sterner voice, "Larry, wake up."
     I had pretended to slowly wake up, still hoping he would go away.  The door was closed.  The room was dark.  The only light that entered the room was through the small glass window in the door from a corridor light several feet down the hallway from my door.
     "Sir?"  I am sure the fear showed in my voice as I answered him.
     Pulling the covers off of me he said, "Get up and take your pajamas off."
     I could only make out a dim outline of him but I was sure he held a strap in his right hand.  I knew once my pajamas were off he would take me down to one of those rooms at the head of corridor, to a room where I felt they had a place to tie boys down and give them beatings.
     I got up and did as he told me.  First taking off my top then I untied my pajamas bottoms.  Taking them off I laid them across the bed.  I was so scared, I was shaking, thinking of the pictures I had seen back at the orphanage of the boy who had been beaten so badly, feeling I would soon be looking as that boy did, if I lived though what I felt was about to happen.
     "I want you to lay down on your bed and I don't want a sound out of you."  His voice had been crisp and stern as though there was no emotion in it.
     I had nervously sat back down on the bed and started to lay back.  I couldn't make him out too well, but then, I wasn't looking at him but more towards the window.  As I started to lay back he told me, as he stepped closer to the bed, "Lay on your stomach and put your hands above your head."  I did as he had instructed me.
     "Please Sir, I'm not going to run away again."  It had seemed so helpless to be begging.  I believed exactly what I told him.  I was never going to run away again.  I meant it more than anything I had ever said in my life.
     "Quiet, I told you I don't want any sounds out of you."  My fingers were tightly wrapped around the head rail of my bed and my face was turned towards the wall.  I could feel his breath on the back of my neck as he had leaned over and warned me to be quiet.  I braced myself for the first one to come.  Every muscle in my body was tight as I laid there waiting.
     Moments passed, then I felt his weight on the bed as though he had put his hand on the bed and pushed down.  Then his weight was on top of me.  Then I knew what he was going to do to me.
     I could feel his bare body next to mine.  His breath was at my right ear.  I couldn't hear him breathing but I could feel the warmth of his breath.  He was breathing somewhat hard.
     "Spread your legs open."  He had told me, pressing his between mine.  I was so scared I would have done anything he wanted me to do, if it meant keeping me from getting a beating.  Or if it meant, only delaying it.
     It had hurt so bad at times I had to bury my face in my pillow to muffle my cries of pain.  My grip on the rail had become even tighter.
     As he had gotten up he warned me, "Don't you ever tell anyone about this or you will get that beating you have been expecting."  He had emphasized "ever" and "will."
     I knew there wasn't anyone I could tell.  It there had been, they would have said I was lying only to get a staff member in trouble.  I couldn't even tell other boys for I knew what the boys would have thought of me.  I had seen how they treated boys that had been assaulted by other boys.  No, I couldn't have told anyone for it would have only gotten worse for me.
     While I had been in Isolation those two weeks he had come a couple of more times.  When I heard my door open in the middle of the night, I knew it would be him and what he wanted.  By the last time he didn't have to tell me what to do.  As he had stepped into the room, I had gotten up without being told, removed my pajamas, laid down and spread my legs open as I grabbed the head-rail of my bed.
     This in itself, was to later make me feel I had easily submitted to avoid punishment, as though this was what I wanted him to do to me.  A secret attitude I was starting to develop that would briefly surface a couple of years later.
     It was to be another event that was to enter that little crowded room in my mind, where I kept my hurts and shameful secrets of my life.  A place where no one else could see but a room where I constantly dwelled.
     As it had been in the juvenile home, I had to spend fourteen days in isolation.  I didn't know at the time how long it would be.  I didn't even know it was the fourteenth day when in the morning they had brought the other boys their clothes and took them out to their details, leaving me behind, a change that was of somewhat of a concern to me.
     It had been towards mid-morning when my cell door had been unlocked and I was told to come out of my cell.  I had done as I was told, standing by my cell door with my back to the wall until he had locked my door again.
     I didn't know what happened now.  I knew something different was about to happen, this alone was unsettling.  In my mind a beating, a very bad one, looked imminent.
     Once he had the door locked he had turned and directed me down the corridor ahead of him.  To where I knew not.  He had directed me to stop at a door, at a door to a room I always thought was the room where they tied boys down and beat them.
     He had directed me to stand near the side of the door, with my back to the wall.  Then after a couple quick raps upon the door he had opened it and went in, closing it behind him.
     The corridor had been deathly quiet and I had heard no sounds from the room the officer had gone into.  To me, in my mind, I believed he had gone into the room to prepare it for the most dreadful beating of my life.
     There had been no resistance in me.  I was like a sheep being led to slaughter.  Hoping to the very last minute they would show some kind of mercy and not give me a beating, a beating I felt could end only one way.
     Within a couple of minutes the door opened and the officer reappeared.  Holding the door open he had directed me to go into the room.  As I entered the room, my gaze first fell upon a long table in right half of the room.  Behind the table sat several officers.  I didn't recognize any of them.  In my mind, I had just met "They."
     In front of the table, sat one lone chair, where I was told to sit.  As I approached the chair, I was very conscious of the officer walking behind me for I wanted to turn and leave the room, in the quickest possible fashion.
     As I had approached the chair and then sat down I hadn't looked about the room for fear of what I might see.  I had sat there in my white pajamas, no shoes, no socks, with my eyes downcast, looking at my clasped hands in my lap, fighting the tears as hard as I could.  I had been afraid to look up for fear of what I might see in the faces of those men. Was I afraid?  I had never been so scared in my life as I was as I sat there before those men.
     Several moments had passed, an eternity to me, before one of the officers had spoken.  Then each in turn all had some questions or comments of their own.  There had been some questions as to whether or not I liked Isolation.  Whether or not I had any plans about running away again.  Some clarification I was no longer in the juvenile home.
     I was scared and I said and acted every way I thought they wanted me to.  I told them, I was very sorry I had ran away and that I wouldn't do it again.  Even though at that time I meant every word I said, I said it only because I knew that was what they wanted to hear.
     After they had talked to me for awhile there had been a stern warning.  They were going to trust me this time, in me giving my word to them but if I ever ran again. . . .  I think the phrase was something like, "God help you."  Or was it, "Even God won't be able to help you."  They hadn't clarified what they had meant but then I think I had a very good understanding of what they would do to me.
     It had been about that time I realized they weren't going to give me a beating, not this time anyway.  They had asked me if I wanted to return to my old cottage. They had told me Mr. Leaper and the boys were quite angry with me for running away.  They weren't too sure I could be protected from the boys in my cottage.  It seems, because I had ran away my cottage had to miss a movie or two.
     I didn't want to go to a cottage I didn't know.  As a matter of fact the cottage they were thinking of sending me to I feared even worse than Mr. Leaper's cottage.  (It had been the cottage of the boy who had been killed had lived in.)  I had heard stories about the cottage father there.  True or not, I didn't want any part of his cottage no matter what laid ahead for me in Mr. Leaper's cottage.
     I had felt what they had told me about Mr. Leaper and the boys being mad at me was true but I also knew there wasn't one boy in my cottage brave enough to try me. Of course there wasn't much I could do about Mr. Leaper, he was going to do to me pretty much what he wanted to do.
     They had let me return to my cottage.  None of the boys had approached me, threatening or otherwise.  They had acted as though I had never been gone.  Of course Mr. Leaper wasn't too happy with me, seeing I had ran away while he was taking care of me.  He warned me, all I had to do, "Just screw up once and you will be on your way back to Isolation, so fast your head will swim."
     Of course by now I had my fill and more of Isolation.  I had no intentions of ever going there again.  All I wanted to do now was to get out of the training school the fastest way possible.  The only way I felt I could do that was to stay out of trouble the best I could and work in the butcher shop.  I knew if all went well I could go home in twelve months and I felt Mr. Parker would make that time go by fast.  I did have a complete attitude change about my running away.  So did they, anyway their attitude towards me.