CHAPTER 12 – The Canned Goods Aisle
Friday afternoons at Henson’s Grocery were always the same: the whir of the old refrigerators, the squeak of carts with bad wheels, the clatter of cans on metal shelves. Most kids avoided the store unless their parents dragged them inside, but for Fleta, the aisles had become a place for quiet thinking.
Today, she wasn’t just thinking.
She was scouting.
Food was the last major piece of her plan—simple food she could carry, food that wouldn’t spoil, food that didn’t need cooking. Trail food. The kind she’d read about in hiker journals again and again.
She slipped through the automatic doors with her hands in her pockets, trying to look like just another kid killing time. No one paid much attention to her except Mrs. Dalton from church, who gave her a tired smile before heading toward the dairy section.
Good. Adults were distracted. Busy. Asleep at the wheel of their own lives.
She drifted toward the canned goods aisle.
She knew she couldn’t buy much now—she didn’t want to shrink her emergency money too soon—but she needed to learn what the store had. What she could afford. What she might take later.
Her eyes scanned the shelves.
Beans. Too heavy.
Vegetables. Too bulky.
Soup. Too messy.
Fruit cups. Too much liquid weight.
Then she found the smaller things.
Tuna packets.
Peanut butter crackers.
Granola bars.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Beef jerky.
Instant oatmeal.
Her heart lifted. These were light. Cheap-ish. Packable. She picked up a tuna packet and turned it over in her hand. Nine grams of protein. Seventy-nine cents.
She could make this work.
She pulled out her notebook—small enough to hide in her hoodie pocket—and scribbled:
Food options:
– Tuna packets
– Trail mix
– Jerky
– Crackers
– Oatmeal
– Hard candy for energy
– Peanut butter (small jar)
Then she wrote underneath:
Priority buys before leaving:
3 tuna packets
1 jerky
2 oatmeal
crackers
ANYTHING cheap + light
Her pencil stopped moving when she heard footsteps behind her.
“Shopping for a campout?”
Her heart jolted.
She turned to see Mr. Brower—the school janitor—standing with a bag of dog food under one arm. He wore his usual faded denim jacket, the one with the missing button on the chest pocket.
She forced a small smile. “Sort of. Just… looking.”
He nodded like he believed her, or at least didn’t care enough not to. “Well, tuna’s good if you’re out somewhere. Don’t need a can opener.”
Her pulse jumped.
Did he know she was planning something? Had she been too obvious? Had someone told him?
But no—his expression held no suspicion, just casual conversation.
She managed, “Yeah. It’s… easy.”
“Better than nothing,” he said, adjusting the dog food on his hip. “You need a lift home? Saw you walking earlier.”
She shook her head. “No thanks. I like walking.”
He shrugged. “All right then. Stay safe getting back.”
He walked away, boots thudding against the linoleum.
Fleta exhaled slowly.
That was too close—not because he knew anything, but because he was the kind of adult who might help if he understood how badly she needed out. And she couldn’t risk help. She needed silence and invisibility far more.
She tucked her notebook away and grabbed a single granola bar to buy—it cost forty?nine cents, and she needed a reason to have been in the aisle. Something to show at the register. Something to avoid suspicion.
As she left the store, she kept glancing over her shoulder, half-expecting Mr. Brower to call her back. But he didn’t.
At home, she went straight to her room.
The granola bar went into the backpack pocket.
The notes went under the floorboard.
Her heartbeat went back to normal—slow, steady, certain.
Later that night, as her mother argued weakly with her stepfather in the next room, Fleta unrolled the map one more time.
“Three more things,” she whispered to the paper mountains. “Food, timing, and courage.”
Two of those she could gather.
The third… she felt growing inside her every day.
