Cherry On Top

Chapter 6: Office Mishap

Finally, the time arrived. I had spoken with my mom and she said they could sleepover at our house, we just had to be good. Ha, fat chance. "DING-DONG!" The doorbell rang. "I'll get it mom!" I called, running downstairs. "Agent Claire, and Kass, come in." I said, smirking. Kass looked unsure and nervous, but Claire looked eager to begin. Samantha walked downstairs with a small purse in her hand. The only thing in it was a walkie talkie in case we got separated ,at the town courthouse. My walkie talkie was in my pocket, and Claire and Kass would share with me.

"Alright girls, ready to go?" My mom asked. She looked nice wearing a black dress with a red leather belt, red earrings, and red heels.

"Yep!" We said, eager to leave, all except for Kassidy at least.

"Okay, well then let's be off!" Dad said, shooing us out the door. We walked down a couple blocks to the courthouse, and walked up to the front desk.

"Do you have a meeting? The mayor does not have much time right now, he is about to leave for a dinner." The lady said to us.

"We are actually here because we are accompanying him to the dinner," My mother explained politely.

"Well, in that case, follow me right this way." She said, walking across the marble floors to a room a few glass doors down a hall with portraits of all the mayors. I will say, Crosby may be small, but our courthouse is awesome!

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Morgan." The mayor said, smiling.

"Hello Mayor Brown." My mother and father greeted.

"Hello Miss Eliza. I am so pleased to meet you." He told me.

Something was strange about him. Oh well. "Same to you!" I said, plastering a smile on my face. I pretended to be extremely interested to buy time for Samantha to plant her purse.

After and extremely long and boring explanation about what the mayor does and why it's important, him and my parents finally left for dinner. They were going to Pasta cielo dell'angelo in another little town about 30 minutes away. I think the restaurant name means Angel's Pasta Heaven or something like that. Anyway, we started for the door, so far everything was going as planned. Starbucks would close in about an hour, so we just had to get our supplies ready. We were casually walking out the door when the lady at the front desk walked up behind us. "Girls," she called, "Does this purse belong to any of you?" She asked politely. Shoot. What now? I wondered.

"Yes," Samantha claimed it. I sure hoped she had a plan ready. It turns out she did. We walked out the door holding her purse and sat on the bench outside the courthouse.

"What.Just.Happened?" Claire asked slowly.

"Don't worry, I have a plan." Samantha promised. "All we have to do is say something fell out of it, and ask to go see if it's in there."That's a great idea, I thought to myself.

"This could be God telling us not to attempt this prank." Kass said thoughtfully. All three of us glared at her. "Okay, okay. I'll help you as best as I can, but this feels wrong to me." So, we headed back inside. On our way in, the front desk lady walked out, which means her shift was over and someone new was coming in. It was a tall, strong, African American man whose name tag read Darren.

"Hello ladies, may I help you with something?" He asked in a voice that sounded a lot like Elvis's.

"Um, yes, actually." Samantha started. "I believe something fell out of my purse while we were in the mayor's office. May I go see if it's there?"

"Why don't you tell me what it is and I will go check for you." He suggested. I panicked.

"NO!" I accidentally shouted, everyone looked at me, surprised. I cleared my throat. "Umm, I meant... I meant... well it's just...." then it hit me. "It's kind of a feminine thing..." I said, proud of myself for thinking of that in time.

He nodded. "I see. Well I'll give you a couple minutes..." He agreed. Samantha and I headed back there while Claire and Kass distracted him so he wouldn't turn around and see us take the keys.

"Darn it!" I heard Samantha call after she finished rummaging through the third drawer of the mayor's desk.

"What? No luck? We better hurry or Darren will get suspicious." I said, looking up at her from the shelf, hitting my head on the potted plant. "Ow...." I moaned, rubbing my head.

"Stop complaining and look over here at this HUGE ring of keys I found." She said, surprisingly dully. I looked over, getting excited, but then I realized why she wasn't. The key ring was huge.... way to big to fit in her small handbag. We sat in silence for a minute, thinking of a way out of this.

"Uh, look around, do you see a grocery bag or any other type of bag in here anywhere?" She asked, suddenly.

"Yeah, there's an old Target bag over here, but don't you thing he'll notice you are walking out with an extra bag?" I wondered.

"Follow my lead." Samantha said. I was confused, but I nodded all the same.

"Claire? I think you left your house keys in here!" She called, jingling the keys in my hand, and then dropping them loudly on the ground. "Ewwww, they're all slobbery! Did Muffin get into your drawer again?" Samantha asked. Muffin is her dog's name.

Claire looked at me in confusion, but then it hit her. "Uh, yeah, he got them off the counter and was chewing on them this afternoon." She stuttered.

Darren turned around and looked at us down the hall. I waved the Target bag in the air. "Can we borrow this? Her keys are all gross and wet!" I exclaimed. He nodded. I gave him a thumbs up and he turned around, continuing to talk with Kass. Stuffing the mayor's keys into the bag, I walked out of his office with Samantha.

"Did you find what you needed?" Darren asked.

"We sure did." Samantha said.

Finally, we could move on to the real excitement. But, I got to thinking, what if Kassidy was right? We had already experienced many trials and we hadn't even arrived at Starbucks yet. Well, it was too late. We already had the mayor's keys, we couldn't just walk back in and return them. Wait a minute.... we hadn't figured out how we were gonna sneak the keys back in! I couldn't let my team down. This had to work.