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Caught

     The first complication was the fact that Crusty was allergic to pollen. This was early spring. Pollen season.

Crusty looked miserable. Ashton looked alarmed, for two reasons. The first problem was that now Crusty would need more food to help him get better. The second problem was that if Crusty sneezed, the whole plan would go down in flames. And they'd get caught.

Crusty sneezed.

Ashton facepalmed.

"No!" she hissed. Then, she reconsidered. "Run!" She turned and sprinted two blocks before she realized that Jonas was still in the shop.

She turned and hurtled towards the shop, not caring about how much her lungs burned. All that mattered was just then was getting Jonas out of there.

As Ashton got closer, she made out Jonas in the store window. Probably attempting to chat with the storekeeper, although, she thought with a grin, knowing Jonas, he probably wasn't doing so well at it.

Which leads us to the second thing gone wrong.

At the moment when Jonas's hand snaked towards the bread, a policeman walked into the shop.

Oh, brother.

Ashton found a rock just big enough so that it would anger the cop, not injure him.

Then she had a better idea.

With a grunt of exertion, she hurled the rock forward...

Into the shop window.

Ashton could've sworn that she could see the rock connecting with the window in slow motion. I couldn't have, as I wasn't the one throwing the rock. But maybe she did.

Slow motion aside, her plan went exactly as it should've.

The cop turned, saw Ashton, and roared in outrage.

Ashton grabbed a short but heavy stick as a weapon if the need arose.

She would never get to use it.

Before she knew it, the stick was out of her hands and handcuffs appeared around her wrists.

Then, she passed out.

A long day later (which was spent bouncing an old tennis ball off of her jail cell wall), she was escorted out in front of a big fat police chief, who looked like he never had stolen for food and would never have the need to. She guessed he lived by the principle of,"if I fits I sits" in choosing chairs. A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. She made no effort to suppress it.

"G'day, sire." She said this with a bit off a mocking edge. She was infamous for her lack of tact.

This seemed to amuse him. "G'day, Your Imperial Majesty." He managed to heft himself out of his enormous chair (So I was right, Ashton thought.) and bowed so his huge posterior stuck up into the air.

Ashton suppressed giggles. Then, her face went back to normal.

"So. Enough of the acting. What exactly do you want?" Ashton asked bluntly.

His gargantuan backside lowered itself back into the chair. "We want you to stop causing trouble."

He leaned across his desk. "Can you do that?"

Ashton shrugged. "Sure"

The huge police chief smiled. "That's more li-" he started.

Ashton interrupted. "Me and my group could live on one of your rations for all of us, though."

The chief's eyes bulged angrily.

She was taken back to the jail cell.