“Really?” she asked, sarcasm dripping off the syllables in great big glops. “Wish I’d thought of that.”
“Then it’s time to catch up. Take a look over there.” And before she could make a snide comment about not knowing where “there” was, I added, “In the corner closest to your head, someone nailed up a bunch of old license plates.” I felt her twist around to see.
“Yeah, what about them?”
“Take a close look. What do you see?”
“A bunch of old license plates.”
Patience, I told myself. You must maintain patience. “How are the license plates hanging on the wall?”
“Nails?” She paused. “I guess?”
“Don’t guess,” I said. “Look harder.”
“It’s dark in here. I can’t see.”
Patience. “Then let’s move closer.”
“We’re tied together,” she reminded me, because obviously I must have forgotten. “We can’t move, right?”
“Courtney and Luke assume we can’t move. But I think we can.” At least I hoped we could. Because if we couldn’t, there wasn’t a chance we’d get out of this alive. “No, I know we can. All we have to do is figure out a way.”
“How?” she asked sarcastically. “Wriggle like a couple of worms?”
“If that works, sure.”
“Seriously, Aunt Minnie?”
That’s when I heard the despair lurking underneath her question. She was scared, and it was my fault. Which meant I had to fix this. “Yes,” I said. “Let’s be a couple of worms. Come on.”
So we wriggled. And rolled. And grunting with the effort, squirmed. I used every muscle with which I was familiar and many whose names I hadn’t thought about since high school physiology class. Our body parts bumped against each other in awkward and occasionally painful ways, and it wasn’t long before sweat was dripping down my face.
This, I found, was amazingly annoying when you couldn’t wipe it off, and I added it to the long mental tally I was making of Reasons to Imprison Courtney and Luke, but we kept going, heaving and wheezing with the effort. And an eternity later, we weren’t any closer to our goal than when we’d started.
“This. Isn’t. Working,” I gasped out and stopped.
“No, I think it is.” Kate continued to move, playing inchworm to the slug I’d suddenly become. “Honest, Aunt Minnie. I’m super sure we’ve moved.”
I didn’t think she was right, but since I’d always been spatially challenged, I was willing to believe her. Plus, what was the alternative?
“Okay, then.” I summoned a breath. “Let’s keep at it.”
And we did. And after a few more heaves and ho’s, I realized we were actually moving. Not very fast or very far, but moving. “Kate,” I said, “you’re right. When we do this”—I leaned my shoulder and feet into the floor—“we move a teensy bit.” Only a fraction of an inch, because we were tied together so tight I wasn’t sure our circulation systems would ever be the same, but still. “See? Feet and shoulder, then slide.”
“Yeah, I get it. And if we did it at the same time?”
“Great idea. On three, then. One, two . . . oof! One, two . . . oof!”
The hamstrung Hamiltons slowly, oh so slowly, made their way across the packed dirt floor, getting closer and closer to their goal. “Need. A. Rest,” I panted out. “Can you . . . see?”
Kate slumped, catching her breath. “Give me a sec.” I felt the weight of her as she rested and I did my best to communicate courage and strength by laying my forehead against her knees.
After a moment, she pulled in a breath. “Okay,” she said, picking up her head. “We’re like five feet closer than when we started. Let’s see. That lowest license plate isn’t that far away now and . . . Yes! It’s hanging off a couple of nails! And they look wobbly, I bet I can work them free. One for you and one for me!”
She immediately started the shoulder-feet shuffle again, and I hurried to catch up to her. A few more one, two, oofs later, Kate said, “Hold it, I think we’re close enough. I just have to . . .” She grunted and oofed and I found myself pulled around by her strength. Yet another advantage of being compact in size; the ability to be hauled around by your niece when tied together in a dark shed.
“Okay.” She twisted around. “Now I reach up and pull out the nails, right? Then we’ll use the points to start cutting these strings. It’ll take a while, but I think this will really work!”
“Go slow,” I cautioned. “We don’t want to—”
A tiny Thud! noise was followed by a howl from my niece. “I dropped it!” she sobbed.
“We’re fine,” I said soothingly. “Don’t worry. Can you see it?”
Kate sniffed, and I felt her head twist around. “No . . . hang on, yes.” She sniffed again. “But it’s rolled under the edge of the wall. It’s outside and I can’t reach it.”
“That’s okay. There’s another nail, remember?”
Sniff. “Yeah. There is. But with two nails we could both have been working at cutting us apart.”
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “Work on the other one.”
“Okay.” She sniffed again and shifted a bit. “Um, there’s something I should tell you. That guy my parents kept telling you I was messed up over? I got over him months ago. I don’t know why Mom and Dad think I’m still thinking about him.”
“Um,” I said. “That’s . . . good. I mean, that’s great. That you’re over him.”
“And there’s another thing.” Her shoulders shifted as she reached for the nail. “My tablet? What I’m doing on it mostly is Moon Time.”
I frowned. “Um . . .”
She sighed. “It’s a video game for little kids. It’s embarrassing to be caught playing it. My friends make fun of me.”
“I read middle grade books,” I told her. “And not for work, but because I like to.”
“Yeah? But I have to tell you one other thing. I don’t really get sick at the smell of food cooking in a restaurant.”
Such a surprise. “No?”
“No.” She sighed. “I was just nervous about working in one. A restaurant, I mean. All those people on TV, they really know what they’re doing, and I don’t know how to do anything. I’m not sure I even like to cook,” she said, sounding ashamed. “I mean, I can, but . . .”
So she was my flesh and blood after all. “Not sure if you’ve noticed,” I said, “but I’m not overly fond of cooking, myself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. I just thought you were too busy. I thought all grown-ups liked to cook.”
As if.
“Okay,” she said. “I can feel the nail, only—” She stopped. “This one’s in deep,” she whispered. “I can’t get it out. Not without a hammer or something.”
“Next plan,” I said calmly, as I tried to think of one. “That license plate. Can you get it down?”
“Um, maybe. Let’s see . . .” She lifted her head. “What was that noise?” Kate asked.
I went still. “What noise?” Because if Courtney and Luke were back early, our chances to escape had dwindled to basically none. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Shh!”
And then I heard it. A rustle of leaves that wasn’t the wind. An approaching rustle. I couldn’t hear any footsteps, but someone—something—was making that noise. I flexed my hands, trying once again to break the twine, and again didn’t get anywhere.
The rustle came closer. And closer. And then:
“Mrr.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Eddie, what are you doing here?”
“Mrr!”
Kate laughed. Actually laughed. “He missed us. Well, you, anyway. Maybe me a little.”
“But his cage was latched!”
“Yeah, about that.”
“Mrr!”
Eddie’s well-being had been at the back of my mind since Courtney and Luke had appeared on the trail, but now I had to face this new reality. And I didn’t like any of the possibilities of what might happen to my fuzzy little friend any more than I liked what might happen to Kate. Or me.