A Good Old Fashioned Kidnapping

You can’t go wrong with a good old fashioned kidnapping.

That’s what Elle told me, and at first, I thought she was right. I mean, it made perfect sense…but it’s actually harder than it looks.

Elle and I were hiding under the floorboards of my bedroom. I had discovered a while ago that there was a loose board under my bed. I pulled it up, slipped through, and I was under the house. Admittedly, it was very dusty, and I was certain that those black things were rat poo. But rat poo aside, Elle and I had fallen in love with it. It was now our secret meeting place.

We were both hunched over in the secret meeting place, our heads almost hitting the floor above. Elle’s eyes were glinting in the dim light. “We have to kidnap Sprinkles.”

There was silence. “Why?”

Nobody in their right mind would want to kidnap Sprinkles, the prized possession of Christie Hopeman. Sprinkles was the grouchiest, fattest white blob of a cat you could ever imagine. I’d only met him once, at Christie’s 10th birthday party, and I was traumatised for life. I had the scars on my face to prove it.

“Haven’t you heard? Christie is also entering Sprinkles into the competition.”

The world went cold, the light dimming. No. This wasn’t possible. I needed to win that Prettiest Cat Competition. And if Sprinkles went in, Mimi didn’t have a chance. Even though I thought Sprinkles was a great ugly blob, grownups loved him. It was so annoying, especially since Mimi was so much more beautiful.

“No.” My voice was faint. “She can’t be!”

“She will enter Sprinkles, no doubt,” Elle reminded me. “If she’s going in, obviously Sprinkles will win. So, if we remove Sprinkles…”

“Then Mimi wins the cat show,” I said. A slow smile spread over my face. “And we get the money, and Christie loses.”

“And we win in a glorious shower of roses and glitter,” Elle finished, giggling. “You can’t go wrong with a good old fashioned kidnapping.”

“We’ve got to do it tonight,” I said. “The pet show is tomorrow morning.”

Elle shrugged. “Sure. So, here’s the plan…”

When I said that we’d kidnap Sprinkles that night, I forgot that it was Friday night, which meant pizza night. There was no way I could sneak away without eating a lot of pepperoni first.

I sat down at the dinner table, and almost before anyone could blink, I had gulped down three slices of pizza.

“Woah, slow down,” Mum said, barely glancing at me. She was occupied by the fact that Lennie the Cow, Alice’s favourite plushie/chew toy, had fallen into the barbecue sauce pizza. Alice was wailing her head off. Then Lennie the Cow’s head fell off into the apple juice jug, and Alice sobbed so loudly that I was scared she really would wail her head off.

“Sorry,” I said. “May I leave the table?”

I don’t know why I bothered asking to leave the table. Bobby was jumping on the table, and he didn’t ask for permission. I bet he ate too much ice cream at that birthday party earlier.

“Sure,” Mum said, her long greying hair sweeping the cheese pizza as she fished Lennie’s head out of the jug.

I pushed back my chair and ran from the chaotic dining room, to the safety of my own room. I guess one of the pros of being the oldest was that I was the only kid who had my own bedroom.

I found Mimi cowering under my bed, and I scooped her up. She lay trembling in my arms, a little ball of fluffy grey fur. “You stay here, Mimi,” I whispered. Walking over to my door, I locked it so Mimi would be safe from my crazy siblings. “I’ll be back. Don’t forget, you’re gonna win me a hundred bucks, just by being amazing.”

Giving Mimi a reassuring pat on the head, I put her down gently. I grabbed a hoodie, a torch, and my shoes from various places in my room. I put the hoodie and shoes on, then slid my window open a crack. Nothing moved outside in the twilight.

I slid a leg out of my room, ducking through the window frame. With only a slight thump, I dropped down to the ground, shutting my window behind me.

The grass rustled more than I would have liked. It was hard to convince myself that nobody was out there to hear me…

I crept low under the dining room window. Light radiated out from within, and I could hear thuds and screeches and Alice’s wails. Something about Lennie needing the doctor. I couldn’t suppress a grin at the thought of Lennie the Cow’s head bobbing about in the apple juice. Sorry, Alice.

There was a light tap on my shoulder. “Ready?”

I jumped. “Seriously, Elle, don’t sneak up on me like that! Yes, I’m ready.”

“Good.” Elle grinned at me. She was wearing her favourite black hoodie, the hood concealing most of her face. I would have been impressed with her kidnapper outfit, except that the black hoodie had a very visible white slogan stating that GIRLS RULE on the front. Anyway. “I’ve brought the disguises.”

She handed me what looked to be a flat piece of cardboard. On closer inspection, I saw that it was crudely cut out into a cloud shape, painted over with broad green brushstrokes. “Um…what is it?”

“It’s a bush,” Elle said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Christie’s family would probably notice two kidnappers in their backyard. They won’t notice bushes.”

“Riiight…”

“I’ve also brought a bag, to put Sprinkles in, party poppers, to distract people in case of an emergency, and two guns.”

“Guns?”

“A water gun is still a gun, right?”

I had never been so glad in my life that Christie lived five houses down from me. It eliminated the need for getaway vehicles.

Sprinkles hated me like I was a mouse or something, so we’d decided it would be Elle’s job to kidnap him, and my job to distract the family. Armed with party poppers, water guns, and two ‘bushes,’ we snuck along the street.

Once we reached Christie’s driveway, we paused. Conveniently, there was no gate. But still, we paused.

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” I said, dangling the bush by my side. “I mean…”

“If you mean if we should be getting Christie and Sprinkles out of the competition, then definitely,” Elle said firmly. “You need that hundred bucks, and could win every pet show in the world if it wasn’t for her. That’s why we’re doing this. Now, be a bush.”

It wasn’t weird that my best friend was telling me to be a bush. With a slight nod, I held up the cardboard bush in front of my face. Crouching down, I crept into Christie’s backyard.

As I slid off the driveway onto the lawn, I looked up at the house. It was one of those fancy modern houses that seemed to be made up of all these different blocks of black and white. It looked exactly the same as when I had last bothered looking at it a year ago.

Light shone out from behind the curtained windows, but either the walls were soundproof, or Christie’s family was really quiet, because I didn’t hear a single sound.

Holding the bush up, I sidled closer to the front door. There wasn’t a side door that I could see, and all the windows were shut. There was no way in.

“Slight problem,” Elle said, reappearing at my shoulder. “There’s no way in. Time for plan B.”

“Which is…?”

“Pretend to be Christie’s friends.”

My through tightened, and I felt a wave of disgusted dizziness flow over me at this suggestion. “Oh.”

“Come on,” Elle said, discarding her wonky bush and skipping up to the front door. She rapped loudly on it.

I had to do this. If I was ever going to go to art camp, I had to. But…ugh. It was just too much. Christie’s friends. Did this mean I had to pretend to be like Sandy, Miriam, Becky? Like them? I could think of nothing worse.

Except not going to art camp.

So, when the front door opened, all Christie’s Dad saw was two happy grinning faces. Just two annoying girls, excited to visit Christie.

“Hello, girls,” he said. He held a large cucumber in one hand that he may have forgotten to put down. “Are you Christie’s friends?”

“Yes. Mr. Hopeman,” Elle said dutifully. “I. Am. Elle. And. My. Friend. Is. Amy. May. We. Please. Come. In?”

I winced. Elle spoke in such a robotic manner that it was instantly obvious she was lying. But then, Christie and all her friends were so ‘good’ that they spoke in much the same way.

“Certainly,” Mr Hopeman said, holding the door wide open. “Christie and Sandy are upstairs in Christie’s room.”

“Sandy is here?” I could not keep some of the despair from creeping into my voice.

Mr Hopeman had already disappeared.

We stood in a spotless hallway, with tiled marble floors, lit with sleek hanging lights. There was a staircase that swept up the the second floor in front of us, the silvery railing gleaming in the light. The whole place was so calm, clean, quiet, that for a moment I almost envied Christie.

We silently slid up the stairs. Elle glanced behind us nervously, like she thought we were being watched. “Remember, we find out where Sprinkles is, you distract and I kidnap. Then we get outta here.”

Once we stepped up onto the landing, it was easy to tell which room was Christie’s. The pink door was indication enough. Elle slipped away into another room with a poster on the door. The poster read SPRINKLES’ ROOM. Perfect.

I burst into Christie’s room without knocking. “Hey, Christie! OMG, so good to see you. It’s, like, been for-ev-er.”

Christie and Sandy were sitting delicately on Christie’s flower-patterned bed, playing with…dolls. Dressing them up in bonnets and aprons. Christie gazed mildly at me. Excitable and irreverent was not her style.

“Hello, Amy.” Christie smiled a perfect smile. “Have you come to help Sandy and I play dolls?”

“Yes, totally,” I said. I picked up a baby doll with big blue eyes that stared creepily into my face, pink pursed lips giving the illusion of wrinkly sausages gone wrong. “Wow. Cool doll.”

It was hard to believe Christie and Sandy were my age.

“Thank you,” Sandy smiled. “Come and play with us. There are plenty of bonnets to share, since you don’t have any.”

“Sandy is right,” Christie said. Her straight brown fringe hung so low over her eyes that I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be kind, or just being annoying. “We will all share our things, since it is right to be generous.”

I fought hard against the urge to roll my eyes sky high. She thought she was so perfect. A epiphany of all humanity, along with all her good little friends. This was why I detested her.

A high pitched wail came from the next room, then a strange scuffling noise. Then a scream, long and loud. I stiffened.

“What was that sound?” Sandy said.

“It was Mr Hopeman, I think,” I said. “He was making a really intensive cucumber soup.”

“Cucumber soup is very wholesome,” Christie nodded seriously.

“It has a lot of vitamins,” Sandy added. “We will be grateful for the cucumber soup.”

What can you do with girls like them?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“I don’t think that is cucumber soup,” Christie noted.

“If it is, it must be very wholesome indeed by now,” Sandy said.

BANG!

“It is certainly not cucumber soup,” Christie said, her big blue eyes serious. “We must check what is wrong.”

Elle had ducked into Sprinkles’s room. Later, Elle told me that fancy cat accessories lined the floor, treats scattered everywhere. The light pink walls made the whole room glow with a peachy hue.

Sprinkles was there, looking every bit as ugly and fat as he always did. Elle was quick. She whipped out the sack, and dumped it on Sprinkles’s head. She scooped him up like a sack of potatoes, slinging him over her shoulder. And for a moment, I’m sure she looked like a pretty awesome kidnapper.

Until Sprinkles let out that ear piercing howl, and leapt out of the sack.

He went for Elle’s face. She screamed, frantically trying to dislodge Sprinkles’s claws. The party poppers all tumbled out of her pockets. It was just her luck that they all went off.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

“Sprinkles!” Elle wailed, as Sprinkles took off and did 3 laps around the room, his tail fluffed up to the size of his body. “Get back here!”

He was such a fat cat, but he could run. She raced after Sprinkles, sack held aloft. Slamming the sack down over him, only to discover he wasn’t under the sack. Face scratched, feet pounding on the floorboards.

“Yes!” Elle cried, slamming the sack down over an angry Sprinkles. She tied a knot in the top of the bag, just as the door burst open. Christie and Sandy matched in. I helplessly trailed behind them,

“You must not kidnap Sprinkles,” Christie said, her signature patronising smile gracing her lips. “He is my pet.”

“Run!” Elle shouted. She hefted a wriggling sack over her shoulder, pushed past all of us, and tore away down the stairs.

“It is wrong to kidnap,” Sandy said.

And Christie snapped.

“Of course it is wrong!” She shouted. “After her!”

Christie began to run, but she was already puffing away before she had taken more than two strides. Being ladylike doesn’t do much for your physical strength. But she kept going.

I drew my water gun.

Christie got a huge jet of water in her face. She gasped, hair dripping, blinking madly.

“You deserved it,” I called over my shoulder as I skipped down the stairs. “See ya’ later!”

I met Elle outside the house, and we ran.

We didn’t stop till we got to my house, Sprinkles wailing all the way. At last, we stopped outside my front door, panting for breath.

“We did it,” I breathed.

It was then that we realised we had no idea where to put Sprinkles.

We couldn’t go back into my house with a sack full of cat. Plus, I couldn’t open my window from the outside, and I had closed it earlier.

“We can’t just leave him in the sack,” Elle said.

“Yeah, that would be mean,” I said. I frowned, then glanced up to the huge oak tree that sheltered our entire front yard. “I know. Why not put him in a tree? Cats can never get out of trees.”

“Great idea!” Elle grinned, then walked over to the oak. She untied the sack. Standing on her toes, she deposited a decidedly angry, very grubby Sprinkles onto the highest branch she could reach.

“Mrrow,” Sprinkles said disapprovingly. He sat there on the branch, making no move to get down. It occurred to me that he was trembling up there, his little paws gripping the branch.

“Yes!” I said, delighted. “It worked!”

“We did it!” Elle shrieked. “You’ve won! You’ve won! Now you can go to art camp with me…this is the best thing ever!”

“Thank you, Elle!” I cried, grabbing Elle and giving her a huge bestie hug. “You are the best! Come on, let’s go tell Mimi the news!”

With that, we rushed away into my house, chattering excitedly. This was it. We had done it. Now, for the best time of our lives.

It was too bad that as soon as our backs were turned, Sprinkles leapt heavily out of the tree, stalking away. Back to Christie, who was outside of her house with Sandy, calling Sprinkles’s name over and over again.

Sprinkles leapt into her arms, purring like a demented lawnmower.

“You did right, Sprinkles,” Christie said, snuggling her perfect face into Sprinkle’s matted fur. “You are such a good cat. Let us go to bed, and tomorrow we will win the pet show together.”

They did.

This is why I detest her.