Lionel's Monologue

When I was younger, I used to run away when I was confused. I often was scared easily by small things that most of the other kids did not find odd. I was different from most of the other children my age. When I was about four, and my daddy was away for work, I ran away to his dinghy and sat in there to get away from my mom and the maids. Even though she tried to help me, my mom never truly understood me the way my dad did. I didn't like when dad was away for long, because I had to stay home with just mom and the maids, who I especially didn't like because they said rude things about daddy. I tended to run away more when daddy was away, to escape from my mom. The day I hid in the dinghy, I had run away after hearing the maids insult daddy. I sat alone on the water for a long time, with my hand on the tiller. I was pretending to steer the boat; it made me feel like I had more control, the way daddy did of the boat when he took me in it. When my mom came down to the water and found me there, I remember clearly that I was trying everything to defy her. I threw her brothers goggles in the water, I wouldn't let her in the boat, and I wouldn't tell her why I had ran away. I couldn't help myself when she did the admiral bugle call for me though. The peculiar sound made me confused and in awe, but I knew she still wasn't an admiral because daddy had said so. I still wouldn't let her in the boat, because I didn't want her invading the space that was daddy and mine with her smelly cigarettes and overprotectiveness. After that she gave me a keychain, and she told me it was just like daddy's except there were more keys. That made me angry, because her keys should not have more than his. I threw them into the water and I began to cry. At that point I couldn't stop her from getting in the boat, and she tried to comfort me. I didn't feel better until she reminded me that we were going to pick up daddy from the station, and I got to go pick him up. What I learned then was that I was going to be a sailor, and that as soon as possible I would get away from home, from my mother, from the other kids who weren't like me, from the maids. I would escape by boat and sail far away from home so that I wouldn't have to run away anymore, and I would take daddy with me.