“Right,” I said. “Back to the license plate. Its edges will be relatively sharp. The sooner we can cut ourselves free, the sooner we’ll get out of here and not have to listen to him anymore.”
Because Eddie was whining. And scratching at the shed’s siding. And giving the occasional howl.
Kate shifted some more, tightening the twine around my body. “Okay, I can feel the corner . . . got the corner . . . the edge . . . got the whole thing!” she called triumphantly.
“Great,” I said, blowing out a breath. “Now see if you can use that to—”
“I know what to do.” Kate contorted herself and started sawing at the twine binding us together. “I’m not stupid, you know.”
I swallowed my initial response. “If you want me to move so you can get a better angle, just let me know.”
She grunted and I waited, hoping and praying that the strands would part under the plate’s rusty metal edge like the proverbial knife through butter. I looked up at the window. While it had always been dark in the shed, the faint light coming in seemed even fainter. Dimmer. Which either meant a cloud was passing overhead, or that we’d been in here for hours and it was getting dark.
I stared at the window. The forecast had been for clear skies and no clouds had been in sight the entire day. Hurry, I silently said to my niece. Please hurry hurry hurry—
“MRRR!!!”
This time the howl came so close to my head that I wished for earplugs. “Eddie, geez Louise! Could you lighten up already? And what are you scratching at?” Not that I cared if he damaged the shed—have at it, pal—but the noises his paws were making weren’t of the scratching variety.
And then I caught on.
“Kate,” I said. “I bet Eddie thinks your nail is a cat toy. Is there any way you could entice him to push it our way?”
“The nail? Why would he think that’s a toy?”
“Because he’s a cat. Now if you could—”
“Don’t need to,” she said. “He’s already pushed it back this way.”
No wonder he was howling. He wanted his toy back. “Hang on to the license plate, and we’ll move around so I can get the nail.”
“Or,” Kate said, “I pass the plate over to you and I start using the nail. The plate’s bigger, so even if we drop it, we could find it again.”
It was a good plan, and we carried it out immediately to the accompaniment of an occasional quiet “Mrr” from Eddie. It was hard work, far harder than I’d expected, and it took some time to saw ourselves loose from each other.
When the last piece of twine parted, we rolled away from each other, and lay there, breathing deep and free. “Is this what the parting of conjoined twins feels like?” Kate asked.
I smiled. “Next time I run into some, I’ll ask. Can you stand?”
Standing with your hands tied behind your back is a trick, but with the support of each other, and the shed’s walls, we managed to get upright. “Okay,” I said. “I’m holding the license plate. You turn around and rub the twine on your hands against it.”
Kate, for once, did as I said without putting up a fuss. I held the plate as tight as I could, bracing its sharp edges with my fingers, but it took way longer than I could have liked for the twine to break apart.
“Free!” Kate shouted, throwing her arms high in a victory salute. I wanted to shush her, but since I also didn’t want to worry her about the possible imminent return of Courtney and Luke, I quietly said, “Nicely done.”
She whirled around and took the plate out of my hands. “You know,” she said, sawing away, “this thing isn’t nearly as sharp as I thought it was. If I’d known how dull it really is, I might never have tried.”
“Well, sometimes it’s better not to know.”
“Ignorance is bliss, right?” she asked.
I wondered if anyone ever quoted Thomas Gray accurately. “Well, that’s not—” I stopped as my wrists came apart. “That didn’t take long.”
“You’d already picked half of it away.” Kate came around to my front and studied my hands. “Aunt Minnie, you’re bleeding. We should put something on it.”
“Later. We need to break out of here.” I eyed the shed’s interior. “That piece of plywood looks pretty weak.” And it was the side most out of view of the trail. “Shall we?”
The two of us kicked and shoved and heaved and hip-checked, and it didn’t take long for us to loosen a corner that looked Kate-size. “Go,” I said, and she went out ahead of me. Then she held the corner of the plywood up, and I crawled out . . . and realized that the light was gone out of the day. Dusk was here and darkness fast approaching.
“Let’s go,” I said, scooping Eddie into my arms. “Quietly.”
“Wait.” Kate scurried to a nearby tree, shuffled around in the carpet of last year’s leaves, then crouched. “Got it!” she said triumphantly, holding up her cell phone.
“What . . . how?”
She grinned. “Just before I jumped at that Courtney, I tossed it over here.”
I gave her a quick hug. “Do you want to call nine-one-one, or shall I?”
“Aunt Minnie!” Kate whispered. “Up ahead!”
But I’d already seen the bobbing lights. It had to be Courtney and Luke, coming back to finish their list of chores.
“Follow me.” I took a hard right off the trail. This deep in the woods, there was no understory to hide us and no handy shrubs to hide behind. What we needed was a big rock, or anything big. But what out here was big enough? And then I saw it.
“Here.” I pushed her down behind a fallen tree and dropped to my knees next to her, with Eddie in my arms. As I moved to flatten myself, Eddie squirmed out of my arms and took off.
I wanted to call him, but I couldn’t. Courtney and Luke were only a few yards away and any noise now would give away our position. All we needed was for the two of them to get past, then the three of us could scurry off. But now one of us was gone.
Eddie! I shouted silently. You get back here right now!
He didn’t, of course.
“That’s weird,” Luke said. He stopped where we’d taken the turn off the path and danced his flashlight around. “I don’t remember seeing this before.”
Courtney’s flashlight joined Luke’s. “I don’t see anything.”
“Because you’re not a deer hunter. Those leaves there? They’ve been turned up in the last few hours. You don’t think—”
“Mrr!!” Eddie streaked into and through their fields of light, disappearing into the dark on the other side.
Courtney jumped. “Geez, he scared me!”
“Just a stupid cat,” Luke said. “Want me to shoot it?”
My heart froze.
“Nah.” Courtney turned away and started walking. “Let’s get going. If we want to watch that movie tonight, we need to get this done.”
When they were around the bend, I tugged on Kate’s hand. “Time to go,” I whispered.
“But what about Eddie?”
“He’ll catch up.” At least I hoped he would. If he didn’t, I’d be out here at first light. “Don’t worry about him.”
I trotted off, measuring in my head the time it would take Courtney and Luke to find the shed empty of Hamiltons. Five minutes? Maybe less. As soon as we left the trail and hit the two-track, I increased my speed and was soon running flat out, with Kate at my shoulder.
Eddie galloped up behind us as we burst out of the narrow part of the road and onto the gravel proper.
“Where did he come from?” Kate gasped.
The better question was, where had he been, but I didn’t have the wind to say it out loud.
“Hey!” Luke called. “Stop! Stop or I’ll shoot you in the back!”
“Just do it, Luke,” Courtney shouted. “They’re getting away.”