Oops! My Croissant Started a Coup! | Complete (ONC 2021 Longlister)

12. Fascinating Revelations

Slowly, Winnifred and I had amassed a small clump of girls like a snowball collects snow rolling down a hill. Our ever-growing circle made it more and more difficult to hide from those who pursued us, and yet we stuck together as a group. Maybe they were scared of the dark, too? Who knows?

"What happened back there?" I whispered to the girl to my left. In the darkness I had no concept of who anyone was, but I wanted to know what I slept through. The day had been a disaster, of course, but I still didn't understand why I was supposedly being chased through a very bumpy forest. "Did the people who own the land come back or something?"

"Nah, it's public land. No fears. We think the government mighta found out where we were hidin'. They don't usually check the prison too much but maybe we got real unlucky."

"Yeah, maybe."

I had to save the rest of my inquiry as I found myself hurtling to the ground face first into what I really hoped was moss, having tripped over some type of exposed root or fallen log.

"Did someone fall?"

"Is everyone okay?"

"What happened?"

"I don't want to step on ya!" That one was the girl who I had just been speaking to.

"I'm okay," I whispered into the night. "I'll be fine, just don't move for a minute."

As I pushed myself up off the ground, my left hand landed in something I was trying to convince myself was mud. "Gross!" I said aloud.

"Can you get up?" another irritated voice said from behind me. "They're already too close behind and it's slow moving in here."

What's with the sudden urge to smash my hand into her face? Probably shouldn't do it, though. In this darkness who knows which face I might land on.

"I'm getting up just wait like five seconds, would ya?" I settled for a little sass rather than complete retaliation. After all, there is a small chance they are right and we're actually being chased.

Finally, I managed to get my feet under me and wiped my hand off as much as I could on some type of leaf. Hopefully nothing poisonous, I thought after I did it. Probably a little late to think of that, but nonetheless.

"Okay let's keep going. But I really need to know what on earth is going on. I mean, I was woken up in the middle of the night and now you are all telling me someone is chasing us but I haven't seen anyone chasing us at all. I'm starting to wonder if this isn't some kind of elaborate initiation prank you are all playing on me and, frankly, it isn't very fun."

When everyone spoke at once, it quickly became clear I wasn't going to get an easy answer to my question.

"There was this guy, and his face kind of looked like a popcorn, honestly. Well he came in and asked for some type of snack, you know. Like some type of snack." The way she emphasized the words made it clear she meant something in particular, so I played along.

"Oh, yeah. Okay. So did you give it to him?"

A shocked gasp emitted from the group around me. "No, of course I did not. But well that's a code we have, right? Then Popcorn Face asked if he could come and join us and we said yeah because it's a celebration, right?"

Another girl took over the story at that point. "And then, this other guy with a blackberry hat, right? Well, this other guy comes up with one of our beer in his hand so we just assume he's with us, you know? Because who else would have one?"

"But then," the original girl cut back in, "Popcorn Face and Blueberry Hat got completely crazy and started handing out snacks. Like a different certain type of snack, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yeah of course." I had absolutely no idea what she meant.

"So anyway after that things get really fucked up which—" the sound of her hands smacking into someone's skin led me to believe she was flailing her hands around as though to indicate some type of chaos. Or maybe she was just indicating it was what she expected? Honestly in that darkness I couldn't tell one thing apart from another. Maybe the girl beside her just smacked her.

"And then I think this purple guy, or maybe he was orange, started coming toward us with this really ugly black suit on."

"The guy was definitely green. What are you talking about?"

And that was all I would get from the story because they all started yelling at each other about the colour of this guy's skin. The few among them who had not tried the man's brain control snacks were trying to get the rest of them to shut up.

"We are being chased!" Winnifred yelled. "If you all do not shut up and keep moving we are going to be captured and they are not sending us back to Camp Prison, okay?"

There was a low murmur throughout the group and some apologies littered the air as everyone switched to quietly debating the people beside them rather than yelling for the whole group to hear.

"So let's go!" Winnifred's whisper was as loud as a shout amongst our group and everyone started moving forward, leaving me behind slightly.

I wonder if the men in ugly black suits are, like, the men in ugly black suits from back home. Because honestly that's looking pretty good right now.

I was in the middle of debating myself as to whether I should take a risk with the girls I didn't know or the men in suits who I also didn't know when the decision was made for me. A bag slipped over my head and someone held my arms to my side.

"I'm not sure how necessary that is," I said calmly. "I already can't see anything in this forest and I was just going to come find you guys anyway."

I am choosing to believe these are the men in black suits who had sent me here and hope that they were here for good reasons. What else can you do?

The man held me by my upper arm, not bothering to secure me in any way before leading me through the forest.

He did a pretty crappy job, too, because he kept dragging me through places with too much undergrowth and almost losing his grip on me when I inevitably tripped.

"Can you be careful?" I asked the second time I tripped. "As you might have noticed, I cannot see anything."

"Almost there," growled a voice I didn't recognize. "Walk."

What else am I gonna do? Cartwheel?