“Get them!” the storekeeper cried to the nearest guard. Jonah was off, again. He was on the run from the guards for the third time this week, but this time he had food to eat for dinner and not just useless bird gizzards. Jonah and Ben were brothers and orphans who had to steal to survive. Their dad was sacrificed to the sun god and their mom had passed away from grief shortly thereafter. They had been alone for the past six months and loneliness was still new to them. They didn’t own a sleeping mat, so they had to sleep under the stars. They had used up all of their dad’s savings in a matter of months, so they had committed themselves to stealing to survive. Jonah was a rather burly fifteen year old kid. He was the one who did the hard work (in his opinion) of the burglaries. Jonah was the one who would physically go to the market and grab as much as he could and then make his escape. On the other hand, his brother Ben was a really smart kid. Ben was the one who planned which market to rob, and on which days, so the guards couldn’t deduce where Jonah would strike next. Ben was also the one who distracted the guards by asking them silly questions like, “How many pounds of stone did it take to build that pyramid?” One morning, the brothers were working through their routine of removing all evidence of their slumber behind the great pyramid. “Where and what am I looting today?” asked Jonah. “You are getting jade from the shop at the edge of the jungle,” replied Ben. “That’s impossible to do; you know it has the highest security. No way am I going to be able to fool those guards!” replied Jonah. “I know, but all of the other shops are closed today,” explained Ben. “Fine. But don’t blame me if I get sacrificed, okay,” replied Jonah. They promptly left for the store. Ben paused, “I need to go to the bathroom.” Jonah ignored him because his brother was always needing to go to the bathroom. He must have had a
bladder the size of a peanut. Jonah gave Ben some time to go, but strangely Ben never showed up. Thinking this was a misunderstanding, Jonah went ahead and snatched a piece of jade off the counter and started to run out of the shop, but two guards cornered him by the entrance. “You foolish child! Did you not know that this was the most secure shop in the whole village?” said the first guard. “You are going to be in so much trouble when the emperor hears about this,” said the other. Ben came out of the bathroom to find his big brother being held captive. He had to act quickly in order to save his sibling, so he ran to the guards and asked them about the thief. In the time it took for the guards to turn their heads to answer Ben, Jonah slipped away. Once the guards realized they had been bamboozled, they played a game of chase through the village, running after the two brothers who were as quick as a pair of jungle jaguars. When Ben started to wear out, Jonah realized he had to improvise a new plan to lead his brother to safety. He yelled to Ben once more, “Hey, get into the jungle!” After tripping over branches, and getting their heads stuck in the vines, they finally made it out of the jungle and stumbled upon a narrow beach on a sand-swept isthmus. As the two boys hurried towards the water, two old wooden boats sat on the wet sand like two beached whales. The first one, a large sailboat with a small rip in the sail, seemed to be calling to Ben as he walked up to it. The second one, a small canoe that could barely fit the two of them, sat waiting to be used again after a long day of trading. It was a windy evening, and a storm was lurking on the horizon. Ready to escape trouble and get some rest, they looked at both vessels. Ben thought the sailboat was the better option, but Jonah wanted to take the canoe.
