In Which The Beginning Is Begun

He shifted uneasily in his tracks. It was getting dark, so maybe it was just the shadows… and that ice cream he’d co-raided the freezer for must be disagreeing with him. Too many handfuls of chocolate chips with anything that cold on a hot day were bound to do something to people who were game enough to down them. Because something kept prickling strange things at him, and while he’d never known ice cream to come with prickles before, he figured it was as logical a culprit as any.

He shook the feeling off. It was the ice cream, had to be. But he was still glad he wasn’t on nightshift, because all he had to do yet was snag Rich from the shop and head for the truck, and home.

He started toward the shop and then paused, frowning in the darkness. He could have sworn he heard footsteps behind him... leaves crunching underfoot... but when he stopped, it did too. He must be getting paranoid. But... no... there was another noise... a whisper? There was someone behind him... he whirled to face whoever it was, but before he could even turn all the way… the world went dark. Very dark indeed. And scratchy. And it smelled of—was that—chicken feed?? 

He sneezed violently. Yup, chicken feed alright. If he was gonna be kidnapped, the least they could have done was shake the sack out decently first! And it was they, and not just one somebody. He could tell. There were two very distinctively different grunts happening over his head.

His arms were unceremoniously pulled back behind him, and “handcuffed” with what felt rather a great lot like the best duct tape money could buy. The stickiest and toughest, at any rate. Because he tested the integrity of it thoroughly in those next few moments, which also tested the strength of whoever it was who was holding on to him whilst the other taped.

"Just hold still, won'tcha?" someone whispered, laughing. Eric groaned. Rich... he should've known.

"You seriously think I'm gonna go down without a fight?" Eric cried, but he got no further for someone clamped a hand over his mouth. Struggling furiously, he lunged blindly forward but was knocked to the ground before he could bolt. 

"You haven't got a chance," Rich was still whispering, but he had to pause often on account of bouts of hysterical laughter. "Quick, grab his ankles," this he directed towards the mysterious other person who would not speak and therefore would not be identified.

He felt himself being dragged bumpingly along, and was extremely glad when the gravel of the front yard turned into the somewhat softer backyard, which consisted of mostly grass and only the occasional hole to fall into. 

“Now let go, I’ll hold him while you get that door open. But for goodness sake, hurry, will ya?? This is like holding on to an angry hippo!”

That was Rich again, obviously, but the other party still maintained perfect radio silence, though he did strain to hear anything that might give him an indication of who it could possibly be. There was a turncoat somewhere on this yard! He heard desperate rattling as Rich repeated his demands to hurry and then a door swung open on squeaking hinges.

"C'mon... we can at least get him over the threshold... will you hold still?!" The last bit was for Eric, of course, and he didn't listen, not one bit. He only wriggled harder, nearly managing to get loose of Rich's grip... not that it would do much good anyway. He was trussed up tighter than a Thanksgiving turkey and it was making him mad. At least... oh, blessed thought! He still had the keys in his pocket and that meant Rich was stuck, for they only had the one truck.

He heard bumps and thumps and squeaks and muffled grunts, found himself being lifted (with some effort, sounded like) off the ground altogether…. And then a very hard floor rushed up to greet him, and a wall joined in the welcome party as he was slung up and over the doorstep, and they couldn’t quite stop their momentum as fast as expected. Eric yelled angrily and he heard the other person, the silent one, gasp. Aha! It was a girl, that much he could tell. 

"Sorry buddy," Rich laughed ruefully. "You okay? Aight, see ya later!" he didn't wait for a response, although Eric gave him plenty. But the door slammed shut and he heard the sound of a lock being turned in addition to whispering and giggling going on on the other side of the door. But they were muffled now and he still couldn't make out the voice of the other culprit.

And then the sounds stopped, and his little prison went silent. He could tell it was small, because no matter which way he struck out, both ends of him hit solid wood. After 5 or 6 attempts at finding the door, his headache sternly told him Enough Exploration, and commanded him to lay still. This did not keep him from guessing which direction he was facing as he lay there, however, and he was pretty sure he was pointing due east. Straight towards the house.

"I'm so gonna get her for this and I mean it," Linnaea snapped, clenching her hands into fists as she pressed her face against the window. 

"Hey, get back from there," Sophie dragged her away. "You want them to see us? Now we gotta think this through calmly and logically... what we need here is a plan... and also invisibility. Did I mention invisibility?"

Linnaea took a waveringly furious breath, and nodded hard. 

“Invisibility. Yeah, let’s do invisibility. Invisibility is good, very good.” 

She crinkled her nose, confusion shouting loudly from every freckle. 

“But—what’re we gonna do with it???”

Sophie looked at her pityingly.

“Just think about it. Take all the mad and just channel it into rescuing him, ‘kay? It's dark, that helps. We just gotta get over there and find out what kind of condition they got him in…. And we can’t go straight for the door, they’re watching it. Enter invisibility.”

"Hey, what if we create a diversion?" Linnaea pitched in eagerly. "Like get them in the house somehow?"

“But that would make them suspicious, and they’d be looking out the window all the time….”

“Yeah… I think we better just make like Sir Percy and seem to be where we are not, and be where they do not see us.”

"Right. Operation Rescue Linnie’s Oodle is now underway..." Sophie saluted and Linnaea glared. 

"Don't call him that!"

"Why?" Sophie giggled. "That's what he is! Ahem... let us sally forth... don't you love that phrase? After you, m'dear." She swung the door open and both girls looked warily out into the darkness.

Donning dark cloaks that suspiciously resembled Kindred Spirit hoodies, hoods up for more cover…. They snuck out the front door under guise bringing in cookie dough from the freezer. Every proper operation, whether it is on behalf of an oodle or no, requires a good cover story…. and this one was to be no different.

On the way to the deep freeze, of course, everything must appear perfectly normal. But once inside, they broke into a tiptoeing scramble of a run, winding as cautiously as they could in their hurry to get around back of the Big Shop. Once past it and heading South again, it would be a simple matter of not getting caught sneaking to the chicken coop…. And then the fence would cover them on the rest of their perilous foray of rescue.

"Romantic, isn't it?" Sophie whispered as they paused to catch their breath behind the chicken coop. "The heroine on her way to rescue her hero! Perhaps he'll give a kiss as reward!"

"If I wasn't trying to be quiet, I'd getcha for that," Linnaea whispered, stifling a giggle. "Y'know what we should've done was string Nikki up beside Rich rather than let her free to get him loose..."

"Patience, Linnie, patience," Sophie whispered. "We'll get them and get them good, just you wait and see! Okay, let's run... thank goodness for that fence…

With a cross between a creeping crawl and a waddle, and the aforementioned hearty gratitude to whoever built that fence exactly where it was…. They inched their way along, staying low to the ground and silent now. The shed was just a few feet away now…. Three feet…. Two…. And they turned the corner with relief, knowing the south wall would lend them shelter.

Linnaea caught her breath first, (almost caught it, it was still a little wheezy) and stuck her finger in a knothole, popping out the plug. It fell to the floor on the inside with what sounded to them like a painfully jarring thud, and bounced three times. And each time it did, they cringed all the more fearfully. There was a surprised scuffle inside it. Something banged against the wall. And then Something groaned.

"Good grief, the poor guy," Sophie muttered to Linnaea. And then through the knothole, whispered loudly as she dared. "Hey, Eric, can you hear us? We're gonna attempt getting you out of there, although I haven't a clue how yet..."

There was a short silence. A startled silence. A silence that most likely reflected disbelief and shock, but not being able to see his face, it was kinda hard to be sure what kind of a silence it was.

And then it was broken.

Broken by a muffled whisper that had half a chuckle in it. But only half, because the inside of the sack really was unbelievably itchy.

"Yeah I can hear you. And good luck, don't think I've ever been in a worse pickle than this one..."

"Are you okay?" Linnaea whispered, her voice trembling with something between exasperation and concern.

"Oh sure, just fine.... never been better. Hey, they didn't see you come out here, did they?"

"Rich and Nikki?" Sophie grinned. "Not hardly. We be sneaky..."

There was a muffled hoot inside. 

“Is THAT who it was!! I’ve been laying here trying to figure that out. At first—but never mind, of course it couldn’t be initiation rites of The Secret Society Of Turnips, cause there was only one cohort.”

"Don't you even dare think we were in on it," Sophie said quickly. "We couldn't be that cruel... could we, Linnie?" and she winked at her friend, images of Rich dangling upside-down from a tree flashing through her mind.

"Course not," Linnaea said quickly, who was barely thinking of Rich at that point, more of Eric about whom she was really quite terribly worried in spite of the fact that he DID seem to find the situation funny. 

"Now." Sophie sat back on her heels and put her hands on her hips. "How do we get inside?"

Eric chuckled ruefully again.

“Well whatever you do, make sure they don’t catch you at it, or we’ll ALL be in this pickle together…. And there ain’t room for three in here!”

Linnaea came to life then, snapping her fingers. 

“Distraction! That’s what we need! What’s the most excessively diverting thing you can think of?” 

At this, Sophie giggled, and Eric stuck to the distraction part, because the rest made no sense. 

“I tell you what would distract ME right now,  and that’s a stack of chocolate cookies. Being kidnapped gives a guy an appetite!”

"Bingo!" Sophie laughed, almost too loudly, and waved her package. "I've got the cookie dough right now and Bekah's up at the house. Linnie, you stay and keep Eric company."

And with that, she was scrambling carefully for the house, not leaving Linnaea time to protest. With an awkward laugh, she settled against the wall of the shed and wondered what on earth to say next.

"How on earth did she manage to magic up cookie dough like that?" Eric was saying incredulously. 

"We keep it on hand, in case of emergencies..." Linnaea grinned. "In the shop freezer. We were just out there."

"Promise me cookies when you get me out."

"Of course," Linnaea looked nervously toward the house and wished desperately that Sophie would come back already. She wasn't sure how on earth to carry on a conversation just now. It was, after all, the strangest predicament she had never dreamed up… And she’d dreamed up a lot of strange predicaments. A LOT. With a lot of highly intriguing characters in them. But Dream-Linna never got tongue tied, always had a retort for everything…. She wished desperately that Dream-Her would lend Real-Her some words right about now, clever ones. But she did not, and it looked like the Real-Her was on her own here.

She was just about to say something—she never could remember quite what afterwards—when she heard the  alluring cry of the Pied Piper out the front door. 

“Coooooooooookiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiessssss, come and get ‘em!”

And she wilted with relief against the wall, accidentally thudding it. There was a corresponding rustle inside the shed. 

And here came footsteps. The worst kind of footsteps. Nikki’s footsteps, along with what had to be Rich’s….

She froze. Nooooo nononono, not now! Not when they were so close…. Whispers that seemed like shouts caught her ear, and she panicked. It sounded like—no, there WERE footsteps coming her way!”

"Looks like everything is still secure, eh?" she heard Rich's voice and then the shed door swinging open. "Yup, he's still there... How ya holding up, Eric?"

There was no answer, but Linnaea could hear him laughing softly. 

"Better case the joint," Rich added and the footsteps were coming around the corner. "Hey, you're allowed to talk," he laughed. "He'll probably find out anyway..."

But Nikki answered in nothing but giggles. Panicked, Linnaea flattened herself on the ground and rolled into the ditch. She lay still as a dead thing that was dead as Rich walked around the back of the shed. As still as a VERY dead thing, that was deader than most dead things.

Because if they caught her now, the gig was up, and she could look forward to a very uncomfortable evening of being kidnapped and stuck in a shed built for one alongside the first victim. Which would make them two. Which…. Okay, that didn’t actually sound so bad. 

But, as she told herself very sternly, it was the principle of the thing, and never yet had Linnaea J Kincaid backed down on a rescue! Even if being kidnapped did kinda (here she blushed at her own forwardness) sound interesting….

She kept on playing dead.

The footsteps got closer. And correspondingly, so did the voices.

Just one or the other would have been plenty to scare anyone in this situation, but both were terrifying indeed. They stopped in unison at the corner of the shed, she could hear that much. Her heart was beating so loudly she was sure they must hear it—try though she might to keep it quiet—

And indeed they must have, because they spotted her at that very moment, glanced at each other with instantaneous mutual consent, and pounced.

"Whaddaya know, it's one of the turnip girls!" Rich cried, laughing. "Traitor! Got any of that tape left?" The last phrase he spoke over her head as he held her arms pinned to her sides. 

It was ridiculous, of course... Linnaea knew very well that it was Nikki... But still she wouldn't open her mouth. Just grinned and produced the tape.

Linnaea struggled furiously. Oh, she knew perfectly well that she was outmanned and out gunned at every turn, but that didn’t means she was gonna make it any easier than absolutely necessary on them getting her in there! She gulped, hastily taking back every word she’d thought  just before the bandits struck. It didn’t sound fun anymore, it sounded like terrifyingly close quarters. At least Sophie was safe…. Sophie could maybe even carry on the rescue herself and save them both!? Blessed thought…. And fast. The faster the better!

But Sophie was coming back right then, at the worst possible moment she could possibly have chosen. And Linnaea, panicked, suddenly yelled as loud as she could, hoping to warn her friend of the looming danger. But Sophie, not seeing what was happening, only picked up her pace, just as a hand was clamped over Linnaea's mouth.

"Hey, Linnie!" Sophie cried out. "Are you okay?"

Very suspicious sounds were coming from behind that shed, muffled squeaks among them…. Muffled squeaks that not just anyone would recognize, but she was not just anyone. That very plainly was the sound of a Linnie beset upon by bandits! She snatched up a roasting stick someone had left outside, lest she need to defend herself.

To leap the cliff, and ditch the hanger…. Y’know what to do!! Push the red button, even if it IS blue😜

Here it is.

Sticky Struggles