Chapter 2

Zanto been gone for about 10 minutes, and he was wondering when he would be back. He saw him go in the big thing which he went into often that Zanto has only been in once or twice in his life.
The bird could sense that the boy was still in the house, yet he wondered why he hadn't come out yet.
Zanto heard a sound towards the front of the big thing, and recognized that the sound was made by one of the portals that brought you in and out of the big thing. Zanto just knew it was his boy, and didn't know what to do. His boy was leaving him! Zanto knew he wasn't allowed to ever come out of the back yard, although he thought about it now.
He could hear the boy walking on the hard ground outside the front of the house. Chirp! Chirp chirp chirp! Zanto chirped and chirped, but his boy didn't come back.

II

Pablo walked down the steps and onto the cold, hard dirt that was considered a road in his poor section of his poor village. He was softly weeping now, knowing that he would probably never see his parents again. He just couldn't comprehend the fact yet.
As he turned to walk down the road, he didn't think once about his pet bird. At any other time and wouldn't have even opened the front door without forgetting the bird, but this was not any other time.
He started thinking about how long of a journey it may be. It may take him years to find a land where he could have freedom. He knew the land where he wanted to go, but that didn't mean it was the land he was going to be able to go. He had learned about it in school. This wonderful land of freedom and wealth was called Amerika, if he remembered correctly.
He started walking down the road that ran through his small "neighborhood," if you could it that. He walked for about 5 minutes, not noticing of paying attention to anything around him. All of a sudden he stopped. "Zanto!" he though. He had completely forgotten his bird. He couldn't believe it. In all the years he had had Zanto, he had never just completely forgotten his best friend and pet.

Pablo turned around and started running back towards his house. This little 'problem' was going to make him sad, as he had his courage built up so high and he though he was gone from his home forever, and now he had to go back.

III

Zanto suddenly had a feeling that nothing was wrong and everything was going to be okay. He felt that his boy was coming back. Chirp chirp! He ejaculated excitedly.
When he heard the footsteps, he knew his boy was coming back, and coming back fast. The footsteps got closer and closer until they were in font of his house, which is where they stopped. He heard whistling and recognized it as the boy's call for Zanto to come to him.
As fast as he could, the small bird jumped from the porch and flew as fast as he could in the direction of the whistling. He could see the boy now, standing on the ground down below. Although Zanto had no idea what was happening or where he was going, all he worried about was getting to his boy.

IV

As Pablo stood in front of his house whistling, starting to feel even sadder about leaving home, he saw Zanto flying toward him. His face lit up with a smile, which right now he didn't think he would ever do again.
Zanto flew up and landed on Pablo's shoulder so gently that the boy barely felt it. Chirp chirp. "Zanto," Pablo said, "I'm sorry I left you. I guess I was so wrapped up in this whole mess that I forgot about you..." Chirp, Zanto "said" as if he was accepting the apology.
"Well, I guess we better get out of here before I change my mind about leaving," Pablo said, but he knew he would never change his mind about leaving. He turned around with the bird still resting on his shoulder, and started walking down the street again.

V

Nerina Rodriguez woke up feeling pretty good, no headache or backache like she usually woke up to (which probably had something to do with the "bed" she slept on every night.)
After laying in bed awake for a few minutes, Nerina got up out of the bed, without noticing the note that lay there. She stepped around the coffee table which she usually stubbed her toe on in the morning when she had just awoken. Her husband was at work as he always was these days, so (as she though) it would be just her and Pablo in the house again today.
She walked into the kitchen of their small home and shouted, "Pablo! Where are you, honey?" No answer.
Maybe he's outside with his little bird or he's still asleep, she thought. She opened the raggedy back door and stepped out onto the screened in porch.
Nerina saw that her son's bed was made and knew that he had already been up. "Pablo?" she called. No answer...
Where is he? she wondered. Little did she know that she would never see her precious son again, or at least not for many, many years.
She walked back into the house a little worried. Maybe he's gone to the library to get a book... She thought, but she didn't really believe herself. She knew he wouldn't go out without her being awake or knowing that he was going, because it would have worried her.
She went back into the living/bed-room and that was when she saw the piece of paper on the floor by her bed.
Nerina walked over and picked up the paper and started reading it.
"No! N...n....noooo!!" she cried out. With tears streaming down her face, she sat down and sobbed, hugging the paper. She couldn't believe this was happening.

VI

Nerina sat and cried for at least an hour before she even thought about telling Richard. When she finally did, she jumped up with the horrible note in her hands and ran out the door. She leaped down the steps and took a right onto the little wooden sidewalk.
She ran most of the two and a half miles to Lanson Oil, where Richard Rodriguez worked.
Once she got to the large warehouse where oil was processed and bottled, she burst into the small front office build where Richard worked as a secretary, which here meant he wrote down documents and ran errands and such.
Nerina had only been here four or five times in her life, so she wasn't exactly sure where he was stationed.
She walked up to the front desk and asked a short, chubby girl where Richard worked. The lady said, in a nice but and high and squeaky voice, that Richard worked down the hall to right, last door on the left.
Nerina started towards her husband's office, wondering how he was going to take to what was happening.

VII
Richard Rodriguez had just gotten finished with his first cup of coffee and was about to go take a sort of inventory of the amount of oil the company was refining a day. He grabbed a clipboard, a pen, and a piece of special paper that was used for this part of the job.
As he was walking out of the door that led to his office, he heard a voice which he didn't usually hear at Lanson Oil. Now, this wasn't unusual, but the voice sounded very familiar to him. "Nerina," he mouthed silently.
Richard walked out of his small cubicle and into the main room, or lobby, of the office building.
"Honey," he asked, "what are you doing here?" Her eyes looked red like she had been crying and she had a very sad expression on her face.
"Look at this," Nerina said reluctantly. She handed him the sheet of paper. He held it up to his face and started reading.
When he was done he had tears in the corners of his eyes. "Why...?" was all he had to say. He walked through the main entrance and exit door, and walked to the pay-phone up the street.
Nerina was right behind him when Richard dropped a coin into the phone and dialed the number for the constable.

VIII

Pablo didn't have a clue have to get to the city of Frahn, but he knew that was where he needed to go. It was, as far as he knew, the biggest city in his country, and it was only fifteen to twenty miles from his hometown.
Now, this meant about three days of walking in his old battered shoes that were already falling apart, and he didn't have another pair. He knew he was going to have to, probably sooner than later, use some of the small funds he has to buy some new footwear.

IX

Pablo took a right onto the Big Road, which he though was going to take him to Frahn. Zanto flew above him, flying away every now and then to check out the scenery, but always coming back within 10 minutes.
Pablo looked at the sad looking wooden sign with directions and distances written on it, trying to find out which way he needed to go to get to Frahn. He though it was to the west of his town, but he surely did not want to walk for days in the wrong direction, just to found out he had gone the wrong way.
The sign said Frahn was west, like he thought, and that it was twenty two miles from where he was. "Okay, Zanto. That means we have about a day or a little more of traveling ahead of us. That isn't too bad," Pablo told his bird.
Chirp.
Pablo started walking and Zanto started flying toward what we hopefully a new beginning for the young boy.

X

The constable answered the phone to a frantically talking man who sounded like he was around forty years old. "Hello, constable?" the man asked. "Yes, it's me," constable answered. "Good. I need your help. Today my son left a note at home that said he was leaving to go pursue a new land to live in. He does not like the way our country is run. Anyway, I don't want him to leave. He will probably die if he does. Now, he didn't say where he was going, but I think he may be headed to Frahn. It's the biggest city around and he'll probably want to go to a big city. From there I don't know what he plans to do, but I hope he wan't be able to do anything. Do you think you can go or get someone to go and find him?"
"Well... I suppose. I'll get someone to head to Frahn now and tell the authorities over there to be looking out also," constable answered.
"Thank you so much!" Richard told him. "You're welcome. Bye." "Bye," Richard said, looking a little less sad.
"They're going to try to get him back. He said he's going to get someone to let Frahn's authority know because I think that's where he's headed," Richard told his wife. She also started looking a little less sad.
"Okay. That's good. Now all we can do is hope," Nerina said.
"Yes, yes indeed," her husband said with hope in his voice.