“Lance, I am out of my medication,” said his grandmother. “Would you please go to the store and pick up my refill?”
“Yes, Grandma” said Lance, as he got his jacket out of the closet.
“Please hurry,” said his grandmother, there is a storm coming, and I do not want you to get soaked.
As Lance got on his bike, he worried about his grandmother. During the past several weeks, she had become more weak and fragile. Lance was very concerned about her. She was the only family that Lance had left. Lance had lived with his grandmother, for two years. Despite her age, she agreed to take him into her home, after his parents died. Lance loved his grandmother dearly, but there were many times when he missed his parents and felt lost and alone.
As he rode to the store, Lance thought back to when he had first arrived in Lawrence, Kansas. The town was smaller than Omaha, Nebraska, where he had lived his first eleven years. It was not easy for Lance to adjust to his new surroundings. He was grieving the loss of his parents, but he kept his emotions to himself. He put up a wall around himself and would not let anyone in. Lance felt like an outsider at his new middle school.
When he started the seventh grade, he met a new girl named Kelly Lucas, who had just moved to town. Lance knew how lonely it could be as the new kid in school, and he befriended her and helped her to feel welcome at Lincoln Junior High. After two years, Kelly and Lance were best friends. Even though they each had made other friends as well, the two of them felt a special bond between them.
After Lance had paid for his grandmother’s medication and a few grocery items, the store clerk told him to hurry home, because the sky was already beginning to get dark. As Lance rode his bicycle towards home, the wind became stronger. It became harder for Lance to see where he was going, and it was a struggle to keep pedaling.