Dear Dad,

  Some things happened and didn’t happen. We didn’t end up doing the free labor they wanted of us. In reality, Reese snuck into the mapmaker's house and stole the map that we’d needed. Wish for the record I was against. I wouldn’t have minded doing the free labor as long as it was fair, but apparently, Reese didn’t feel it was fair, so he and Riley broke into the workshop and then rousted the rest of us from bed in the middle of the night, they even grabbed a horse to make our getaway faster!

  Why didn’t I realize sooner?

  I don’t know what got into them. I would have thought they’d be more interested in keeping up people helping us and giving us free lodging. They didn’t really explain why they did it, but either way, it’s done now. I think I’m going to push that we at least figure out how to get the map back one day because if the map was really as expensive, or even half as much as the man wanted us to work for, then it had to be a lot of effort on his part. Really, there are a lot of details, so it had to be a lot, and I feel like we shouldn’t have taken it. It’s wrong of us. Even if we really needed it and the man was just taking us on a wild goose chase.

  We could have done something, anything really, to get it. Instead, we took the most uncool path possible. And we took their horse, which was nice to have less of a burden for a while but is still majorly uncool.

  Willow agreed, but it was already too late for us to go back because by the time the Riley explained what they’d done, it was dawn, and we were probably a mile or more from the town. Zunair doesn’t want to pick a side. He thinks it was wrong, but also wrong for us to be taken advantage of as we’ve been. But it wasn’t these people’s fault that others took advantage of us. They were letting us work legitimately for the things we needed and weren’t forcing us to do it. We chose to! I wanted to turn around, but the others voted against it, even unfair, which I thought was insane.

  I can’t believe that Grace agreed to it, too. I thought she was better than that. She says that even though it was wrong, it’s been over a month since she’s seen either of her parents, and she doesn’t care if we’re making it hard on the one person when they’ve all been making it hard for us to go home.

  I think most people would have helped us. And plenty of them have, but this is a lot of work and money we stole because they didn’t want to work a little more.

  I understand why they didn’t want to do the work. They’re tired. I’m tired. Trying to get home has been ridiculous, but we’re not monsters, we’re not thieves, we’re better than this. And yet we still did this. It’s already weighing on me, even though I didn’t do it, and even though I miss you, I wish we hadn’t gone down this path.

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  I’m sure it will come back and bite us sooner rather than later. The real question now is when.

  We’re still moving forward. We walked through the morning and into the afternoon by the time Reese insisted on a break. I admit I reacted badly. I said we should keep on if he was willing to steal to get home. After all, if one person’s feelings didn’t matter, then his didn’t either, and we should just push on. who cares if he’s tired?

  That made him and Riley really mad. They did it for all of us. That’s what they said. I said they didn’t do it for all of us. They did it for them. Doing something for all of us would have been doing it legit, so we could go back there if we needed to. However, they said that I was just a dumb kid and that we needed to get back home sooner than they would have given us the map.

  Willow backed me, but when RiIey yelled at her that we were being dumb, that we wouldn’t get home because no one was actually helping us, and that we wouldn’t have gotten the map, probably just a new defunct one that could have kept us going in circles, I got mad too.

  I guess that it was something we could have dealt with, or we could have just left, or we could have figured out somewhere else, or just asked for directions.

  Riley said they wouldn’t have given us directions, but they would have. They wanted to help us, and sure, lots of other people have claimed that they wanted to help us before the bow. Then they didn’t or trapped us or something, but we were actually talking to people. It was all willing. It’s just, it’s just wrong, we did and do everything right, and people go to help us, and then these two ruin it, and now we’re probably going to be punished or something, and we’ll never get home at this rate, because it’s all going to go to shit.

  She’s wrong, though. She has to be because they’d planned to help us.

  I don’t know what to do cause it was wrong of them and I’m so angry. I’m trying to think of what you would do or what you would want me to do, but all I can feel is this anger at them and at this whole place and all the people in it. I think what they did is going to have severe repercussions, and I think we could have just gotten home easily, but we’re never, never ever going to get home, are we?

  What would you do, Dad? Make them turn around, make them march on? No, you wouldn’t, but then again, woulds and wouldn’ts don’t matter. Would and wouldn’t doesn’t matter cause here’s what happened.

  They stole the map.

  We can’t go back to give it back because who knows what would happen.

  We need to get home.

  For that, I gave up my argument, but I won’t forget it. I won’t forget that they were willing to do harm, even if it wasn’t physical.

  What do I do, dad? What do I do in response? How do I act from here? When might they turn around and do the same to me?

  I wish you were here, or that I could talk to you and get some advice. I miss you, and I feel adrift.

  Love, Jack