Turn around to have a look at your visitors out the window
From Create Your Own Story
It could just be that the lady downstairs locked out her husband again, but to be on the safe side, you double back to have a look. Surely, you think, as you lean out the window, it couldn't possibly be...
It is. Standing outside your door is your worst nightmare: your landlord himself! He's waiting impatiently to be let in, flanked by three very big, very dumb-looking armed goons. You're so surprised you nearly fall out the window, and involuntarily let out a little shriek of terror. One of the goons hears you and looks up: you duck, but too late.
"DERE SHE!" announces the thug, triumphantly.
"Don't let her get away!" roars your landlord, who bangs furiously on the door again. Your heart skips a beat as you realize he must have spoken to some of your former landlords. Either that or he finally figured out that those "gold nuggets" you've been paying your rent with are actually hardened dog feces, painted yellow.
Praying that your neighbours can't hear him hammering at the door over their own shouting, you start sprinting around your room, flinging all your possessions into a sack while trying to avoid tripping over your floor-length dress (quite a feat).
"Break it down!" you hear your landlord thunder.
As you hear a splintering of wood and a crash, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall below, you reach under your mattress (which, regretfully, you'll have to leave behind) and pull up a certain floorboard. You pull out the gleaming silver circlet that is your only heirloom, passed down to your sister by your parents and from your sister to you.
You are the very last De Angelis of Fiume.
You carefully stow your precious family treasure beneath your other possessions and slide the floorboard back into place. As you take one last look at your soon-to-be-former home, a poem springs to mind, unbidden:
- By the stinky, smelly docks
- There was a house
- Made of rocks
- With holes for-
- A poor little mouse
- And there was one angry lady, probably crazy
- And six tiny children
- The allies of Satan
- And a big fat drunk slob
- Who won't get a job
- And lice (who aren't nice; they keep eating my rice)
- And a girl who's generally quite bad at life.
- Goodbye room
- Goodbye goons
- Goodbye great view of the moon
- Goodbye docks
- Goodbye vermin
- Goodbye constant smell of urine
You're beginning to enjoy yourself so much that you forget for the moment that you're in mortal peril, and start reciting your improvised poem aloud.
- "Goodbye mattress
- Goodbye children
- Goodbye tiny little demons."
Footsteps echo up the stairwell. You continue with gusto:
- "Goodbye lady
- Goodbye mouse
- Goodbye ancient crumbling house
- Goodbye door
- Goodbye drunk slob
- Good-"
You are rudely interrupted by the sound of your bedroom door crashing to the ground. You blink a few times as you remember where you are and what's going on.
"There she is!" Your landlord points dramatically through a cloud of dust. The goons grin and draw their clubs. Better get a move on.
You sling your sack over your shoulder and lower yourself out the window. Nimble as a cat, you scale the wall one-handed and take off down the street while your landlord gapes at you from the window.
"AFTER HEEERRRR! STOP!" he howls, as his goons crowd dumbly around the window. Before they can register that you're gone, however, you disappear down an alleyway. You know these streets like the back of your hand, and very soon you're confident that you've lost them for good. You slow your pace to a walk.
"And goodbye to the old landlord hollering, 'you're evicted,'" you mumble. Once again, you're homeless, and you got your only dress filthy. You kick at a pebble in your path and miss.
The first thing you should do is:
