Nine Lives of a Cat Burgler

My appetite's opinion of the prison lifestyle

The food here is gross. I mean seriously disgusting. As a homeless, poor street urchin I have had to eat various unrecognisable things. This has a category of its own. I mean, I have eaten various, nice, not nice and in between bits of food. This is not food.

"Do you have anything edible here?" I ask cat lady as she comes to take away my plate. She glares. I smile, triumphant. As she leaves, there is a crash from a higher floor of the building. She stops in the doorway, puts the plate on the tray and walks to the stairway, leaving the door open. Leaving the door open! My chance for escape! I slip out of the door. Day A.B gone. Night A.B activated. Running out into the corridor, I see the signs for another set of stairs in the opposite direction to cat lady. That seems like a good idea! I scramble down the hall disappearing behind the door of the stairway just as cat lady returns. Glancing through the window I see her pull my door shut and walk away, her cat grinning at me from over her shoulder as she carries it away. I turn and walk up the stairs till I reach a grate in the wall. This may seem a weird place to stop at but I feel too vulnerable in the stairway. The ventilation shafts are better. I'm less likely to encounter as many people there, although you never know, I might meet a few other lost souls crawling hopelessly through the rabbit warren of tunnels. It's happened before (don't ask, long story!). Pulling the grate off the wall, I climb into it and carefully replace it. I now have a choice, forwards or backwards. Well you never get anywhere in reverse so I head off down the tunnel and through the maze.

Soon I come across another grate. By come across, I mean, almost fall through it while daydreaming and then falling down a sudden drop in the tunnel. So back to the present, I find myself almost falling through the grate. While balancing precariously over the drop, I notice that I have happened to fall over a conference room.

And there is a conference in it. And it seems to be made up of my fan club: Sir, cat lady, cat, Sir's assistant, and various other people who look like they hate my guts. Nice! A few words float up to me: Girl ( probably me), Situation, Information, Kensington's, and Burn. None of these words make sense but the last one panics me. What do they want me to do?!

Straining to hear more, I fall off balance.

Onto the grate.

Through the grate.

And right onto the table they are all sitting around.

I freeze, hoping they haven't noticed me. They are all staring at me. The cat grins at me.

" Clavicha! What are you doing out of your room?" Sir barks at me after a moment of stunned silence. Sugar! They noticed!

"Just escaping Sir, you know, like cat burglers do!" I say. The room goes into panic. I notice Ace standing at the side of the room staring at me in shock. I stop for a second and then get roughly pulled out of my thoughts by Cat lady who dives at me from the edge of the table. I jump at and grab onto the light fitting.

It can't take my weight for long so I swing and leap, landing on the top of the filing cabinet. Sir charges towards me so I duck and roll under his arm. I have so wanted to do that but I haven't been in a duck and roll situation before. Running at the table, I grab the bag at the side (could be useful evidence), leap onto the table, take a run up, and successfully somersault onto the window sill. I look back, my eyes scanning the chaos for another set, a dark blue set. Ace sees me and runs towards me. I put out a hand.

"Come with me, Ace. I can get you out of this dump!" He looks back terrified and then with admirable determination grabs my hand and together we jump. I am so glad we were on the ground floor because otherwise it could have gone so wrong. Running together we look back to where Sir is literally hanging out the window screaming at us.

"Isaac! Isaac come back here! That is an order Isaac! Isaac!"

Ace/ Isaac yells back, "Sorry Dad!"

And then we run.