Season Solvings- Winter Wipeout

Chapter 10

We had just moved to Aurora Fiver Hotel. Everything that was brown in Nightingale Fiver which was blue in Pacific Fiver was now green. But the most important thing was that we were at the robber's next target. He was striking in only six hours. I fiddled absent-mindedly with a pen.

"Hey, Elly! JC! Lainey! " Olive announced proudly. "Check it out! The Secret agent team!" It was then I noticed a disturbing feature on top of their matching black outfits...

"You have black undies as masks?" Liney shrieked in bouts of laughter.

Scarlet glared. " They're not undies! They're masks!"

"Fine, fine calm down S.A.U.S." Lainey shouted.

"S.A.U.S.! We're not called that!" Scarlet shrieked, almost turning the exact shade of bright red that her name suggested.

"Oh yes you are. Secret Agency of the Undie society!"Lainey teased.

Olive and Scarlet (or was it Scarlet and Olive?) harrumphed and dragged the team down stairs. "We'll prove we're a real agency!" She shouted back at us.

...

Night came quickly for us intrepid trio of detectives. We waited again for the rest of our family to go to sleep, then we snuck out of our room, like a couple of very naughty kids who were in time- out, but had escaped. We sat under the dining table.

We waited.

And we waited.

We waited some more.

Man, this case was full of waiting. The room was eerily quiet. We held each other by the arm. Suddenly a hoarse whisper came from my right. It was JC. She had whispered "I'm thirsty". What an epic action scene! It's just like in the movies!

"Me too." Lainey perked up from my left. "All this waiting has made me thirsty." I was actually parched too, but didn't dare admit it after I had scolded them for ruining the epic scene. I shooed them off to the kitchen tap and waited there by myself. Somehow everything seemed so much scarier without my friends.

I slowly turned around, looking for any sign of movement. There it was! A shadow that looked exactly like me! I moved. It followed. Was it the robber? I looked down at my watch, but it was too dark to read the clock

face. The shadow looked down too. It copied my every move. Was it the robber? It looked so familiar, it was creepy.

Wait a second. It was me. Sorry. But wait a moment again. Don't you need light to create a shadow? When I had looked around before, there had been no source of light, except for the little blinking light on the TV, but it wasn't strong enough to make a shadow- or was it?

That's when I noticed that the front door was slightly ajar, when it hadn't been before. Oh no. Had the robbers gotten in without me hearing? It was probably during that short period when I wasn't looking at the door because I was checking other possible entrance routes with my eyes. Oh no, oh no no no no no! It wasn't possible! I felt like screaming but my stupid voice wouldn't co-operate.

Suddenly my head was jerked back and something that smelled of freshly burnt cigarettes was stuffed in my mouth. It immediately made my mouth so much more dry, so it must have been some sort of cloth. It felt more silky than a normal cloth so probably the handkerchief of a smoker. At that moment, I wished for nothing else but for there not to be any snot on the handkerchief. However, I quickly came to my senses.

I glanced willingly at the bathroom in which my comrades drank. I struggled with all my might, but he had bound my hands and legs. I lashed out kicking with both my legs, trying to kick something, anything. I was thrust to the ground, but it was more like I was lowered to the ground instead. Probably because they didn't want to be heard. They were, sorry are, thieves, after all.

I poked my head up to see what was going on. I was facing the green curtains in the living room. The giant royal green curtains suddenly looked terrifyingly like the burial blanket at our neighbour's funeral last year. I prayed that that wasn't my fate, just yet.

A menacing figure stood in front of the parted curtains, and for a brief moment when the moon wasn't blocked by clouds he looked like one of those villains in movies at the really epic scenes. His shape looked so familiar. So he was the 'Bad guy 1' at the cafe. So then the other dude, who was now standing in front of the front door blocking the only route out must be 'Bad guy 2'.

I considered my options:

A) Jump out of the window behind me

B) Wait till someone came

C) Knock out two big baddies then hop away

Not very good options to have. Option A will mean I get hurt, and Option C... if only I took JC's karate class last month. Option B seemed the only one-

A rough voice interrupted my mental melancholy monologue. The voice was exactly like the one we had heard through the recorder! A menacing figure towered over me, and even though he was short he radiated power, if that's even possible.

"Well if it isn't that little snoop you were talking about, Ryan. Spying on me!" He spat. So 'Bad guy 2's name was Ryan. But where had I seen 'Bad guy 1' before? I racked away at my brain, trying to remember.

Then my superb ears picked out the sound of a stifled giggle. I know who that belonged to! My head swivelled towards the sound, like a tank looking for one target. The sound had come from behind the curtain that 'Bad guy 1' was standing in front.

Two grinning girls stepped out from behind the curtains, stared 'Bad guy 1' in the eye, and triumphantly paused for effect before slowly reaching up. You know all those movies where the bad guy is defeated with a fat POW or a giant SLAM? Sometimes a small click is all it takes.

Lainey and JC unleashed the frosty window on him and within seconds he was buried.

They rushed to my side and started undoing the gag around my mouth, and the ropes around my arms and legs, all the while asking if I was alright.

"Water... " was all I managed to croak before JC zoomed to the kitchen and got me a cup of water, while spilling basically the whole cup on the trip back. The combined dryness of the handkerchief and my original thirst had made me one big water sucking machine. I stood up and took a glance at the big snow pile on the floor. Uncle Fred would probably be mad at us for ruining the carpet, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it.

Right now the problem was to catch the robber in the snow.

I was just about to ask how we were going to do that when we suddenly heard a loud grunt from the direction of the doorway. Whoops... we had forgotten all about Rob. We had no time to hide and his bulky figure was already making his way towards us.

But this time I had an almost fool-proof plan. "Ok guys.... " I whisper screamed "We charge at him at full speed in 3,2,1 GO!"

Rob the bandit fell like a tenpin struck at full force by a thousand kilo bowling ball at full speed. He crashed out of the door like a bulky meteor and promptly crashed to the ground.

We high-fived. "Yeah.....GO!"

I was startled by a thumping from the stairs and I turned around. It was our parents!

"WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU KIDS DOING AT THIS UNEARTHLY HOUR? AND WHO ARE IS THAT STRANGER ON THE GROUND? AND WHY ARE YOU-" Lainey's mum screamed, and would have continued ranting until daylight if her dad hadn't calmed her down.

In the time of a few minutes, all was explained, and the police were contacted. They tied up Rob and asked us a few questions. "Were there any others?" a tough looking constable asked us. JC nodded and pointed at the pile, where we all headed. But he wasn't there!

"Oh no....." my mum moaned, but a stifled sneeze came from the direction of the piano. The constable rushed there and examined the piano, but to no avail. We inspected every corner of the piano. I absent-mindedly played the opening of 'Fur Elise', my grandfather's favourite piano piece. I had just pressed 'C' when there was a swooshing of a door underneath the piano revealing a shocked robber in it!