“How you doing?” she asked, ignoring Kerry’s exasperated glare.
“I was doing fine, until you ran in and ruined the bed that took me forever to make!” Kerry said.
“Mom needs help in the kitchen,” Jana said. “She said to tell you.”
Kerry rolled her eyes as she left the room. “You ruined my bed to tell me that?”
“Kerry Abigail Nicholas!” came their mother’s voice.
“Coming!” Kerry called back.
From another part of the house, her father called, “You causing trouble, Ker?”
“DAD!” Kerry yelled over her shoulder. “That’s not funny!”
Justin, her older brother, appeared at the bottom of the stairs and put a fist to his mouth in an attempt to speak through an imaginary microphone. “She can be headstrong, she can be proud, she can be independent, but she never causes trouble. I give you Kerry Abigail Nicholas!”
“Justin Daniel Nicholas!” boomed their father’s voice. “Stop teasing your sister and bring me that toolbox!”
Justin grinned at Kerry as he shot past her up the stairs.
Kerry rolled her eyes again as she went down a few steps, then hopped on the banister and slid the rest of the way.
“Mom! Kerry slid down the banister again!” yelled her little brother, Jeremy.
“Kerry, don’t do that!” scolded Macie, her older sister, as she went past the stairs. “It’s dangerous.”
Kerry hurried to the kitchen. “You needed me, Mom?”
Serena Nicholas turned from the stove, where she was stirring a pot of food. “I need you to unpack the silverware and set the table. I can’t do everything, especially when I’m dragging a lump everywhere. She turned back rto the stove, a hand resting on her huge stomach.
Kerry smiled as she went to do her mother’s bidding.
An hour later, Kerry was sitting at the dining room table, trying to think of a way to escape from the crowded, noisy house.
“Dad?” she called up the table.
Dan Nicholas looked at her as he tried to eat chili and plan their afternoon with his wife. “Yes, Kerry?”
“Could I hike in the woods for a while?” Kerry asked.
He looked at Serena, who shrugged.
“A little while wouldn’t hurt her,” she said. “She hates being cooped up this for so long.”
Dan looked back at Kerry. “You may for twenty minutes, after you clean up the kitchen.”
Kerry sighed with relief as she ran out the back door half an hour later.
“Freedom!” she cheered. “I haven’t felt this way in ages! Moving to a new home that’s four states away doesn’t help any!”
She ran across the backyard into the woods before slowing to a walk.
Kerry walked in a straight direction for about five minutes before breaking out of the woods onto the sidewalk of another street. She glanced on way, then the other, then sat on a rock to rest.
She had not been down long when a woman came along. Kerry immediately knew that something was different. While most people just strolled casually along, this woman strode purposefully down the street. She turned and looked at Kerry.
Under the piercing of the sharp blue eyes, Kerry felt very uncomfortable. She turned her eyes elsewhere.
Kerry thought about the woman who had gone by on her way home. She was deep in thought when something slapped her in the face. She jerked and instinctively ducked.
A brown bandana snagged at a branch at her head level was waving in the gentle breeze when she looked.
Kerry took it off the branch and tucked it into her pocket. Then she continued home.
She peeked in the back door, and then tiptoed in. Her family seemed to be busy in the living room area. Kerry quietly went past them into the kitchen, to the laundry room, where she took the stairs two at a time to the second level. She hurried into the girls’ room.
After straightening up her bed, Kerry sat and took out her new detective kit. Crime and detection had always held some level of interest for Kerry, most likely due to the fact that her father was a police officer.
She spread out the contents of the kit around her and studied the bandana. She had seen many bandanas in her life, but this one was struck her as different. The swirls, which were almost always on the border, were centered on an unusual symbol. Kerry could not make out what it was. She grabbed a piece of blank paper and a pencil from her bedside table and drew a quick sketch of the bandana design.
After folding the sketch and tucking it under her pillow and throwing the bandana on the widow seat right next to her bed, Kerry went downstairs.
After working for the rest of the afternoon, Kerry helped make and eat a quick dinner. Then she hurried upstairs to unpack the rest of her things. She folded, hung, and put away clothes, arranged things neatly on two shelves right above her bed, and organized her writing supplies in a box under her bed. Then she arranged a journal and some photo frames on the bedside table.
Kerry grabbed a leather case from the window seat and unzipped it, then withdrawing a laptop. She opened, it, scanned her face, and waited for it to load. When it finally did, she opened her novel account on Microsoft Word.
“I think tonight I’ll edit the first and second chapters,” she decided. “I’ve already typed out a lot.”
Though she had become quite familiar with the story, Kerry loved to read all that she had written, from beginning to end, It gave her an enormous amount of satisfaction.
Abigail awoke with a start as David, her brother, ran into her room.
“They’ve arrived, Abby!” he gasped out. “The killers that have been on the loose...they’re here!”
“When Mom and Dad are gone too,” Abigail muttered to herself as she jumped out of bed and threw on her bathrobe. “Where’s Andrew?”
“In the secret room already. Come on!” David ran out of the room.
Abigail grabbed a strand of pearls-herm most prized possession-and followed.
They charged up to the third floor and into their parents’ room. David located the hidden set of buttons, punched in a code, and ran through the door that opened, Abigail close on his heels.
They could hear the many feet pounding up the stairs. The three children held their breaths as best they could, which was almost impossible due to their pounding hearts.
They heard the voice of a man say, “You said they were at home, Jackie.”
“They are,” the woman named Jackie insisted. “They really are, Jack! They’re probably hiding.”
“We outnumber them, and if we all divide up, we could find them quickly,” a quiet male voice suggested.
Abigail listened carefully as the criminals split up into three or four groups and went off.
“We’d better wait,” David whispered. “They will come back.”
But the criminals did not return; the house soon fell into silence, and Abigail and David debated as to what they would do next.
“We should wait awhile longer,” Abigail said.
“It’s quiet. We can go out,” David argued.
“It’s too quiet,” Abigail shot back. “They’re probably hiding.”
“I’ll peek out, then,” David decided quickly. He punched in the code, and the door slid open. Cautiously, David poked his head out. He pulled it back in a moment later.
“I smell smoke!” he exclaimed.
“Oh no!” Abigail wailed. “They set the house on fire!”
David looked at her, then at Andrew. He was the most coolheaded of the trio, and he soon came up with a plan. “Tie those sheets together,” he told them. “Make the knots firm and secure.”
Abigail caught on to his idea, and in less than a minute, she and Andrew had tied four sheets firmly together.
David grabbed his pocketknife and stuck it in his pocket. They went out of the secret room and ran to the window facing the back of the house.
Abigail took one end of the rope and tied it to a bedpost. “Who’ll go down first?”
David could hear the crackling fire as it roared through the house. He thought fast. “You go down first, Abby, then Andrew will go, and then me.”
Abigail did not question his decision. She grabbed the rope and started down. She clung to the sheets and squeezed her eyes shut as she carefully slid toward the ground. She sighed with relief as her bare feet touched solid ground. “Hurry, Andrew!” she called as her younger brother began his descent. “You can do it! Come on!”
Soon, Andrew was safely on the ground.
David grabbed the sheets, scrambled out the window and was trying to get a good grip when it happened.
The rope could not take the strain.
It tore right at the top.
“David!” Abigail screamed. “Noooooo!” She began to run toward the plummeting boy.
David hit the ground and his head landed on a sharp rock with a sickening CRUNCH!
Abigail was immediately at his side. “David, please tell me you’re all right! You will be okay, right?”
David’s head flopped toward her. His deep blue eyes with the light fast leaving them stared blankly at her. Then he spoke.
“No.”
His head rolled away from her face. He spoke again, his voice cracked, fading.
“Take care of Andrew for me.”
“David!” Abigail screamed. “No! You can’t die! You can’t! Please don’t die, David, please don’t die!”
Her pleas were useless. Thirty seconds after escaping from the abandoned house, David Stewart, Abigail’s fifteen year old brother, died.
Abigail bent her head and wept. Andrew sat quietly beside her.
Suddenly, a twig snapped behind them. Andrew whipped his head around to see nine people charging at them.
“Abigail! They’re coming!”
No sooner had the warning been issued then their heads were given severe blows. They immediately lost consciousness.
..................................................................................................................................................................................
Kerry had read through the first two chapters and done as much editing as she could when Jana burst into the room.
“Time to get ready for bed,” she announced.
Kerry looked at the clock on her laptop. “Eight-thirty!? I’ve been on here for two and a half hours?!” she said incredulously!”
It took ten minutes to pack up her laptop, put on pajamas, and put away her day clothes. Then she brushed her hair, straightened her bed once more, and climbed in.
In minutes, she was fast asleep.
When she awoke after a restful night, Kerry immediately remembered the bandana she had found and glanced toward the windowseat.
The bandana was gone!