"What'd she do then?" John said.
"Well, I guess she made a noise and really grabbed my hand, and I sort of jumped on her.
She kept pushing the rag away, and I kept getting it back, and then she just sort of gave
up and quit shoving at me."
"You were on top of her?" John said.
"Sort of like halfway, like wrestling," Bobby said.
"Boy, she's strong for a girl, even when she's asleep."
"So what then?"
"Well, anyhow, I held it over her face a little bit longer, and then put it back in the bag
again. I was
16
scared she might wake up, and I was scared I might give her too much. Then after that,
I got the rope from my room and tied her hands and feet, and then the rest was easy."
"Weren't you scared?" Paul was still deeply excited.
"Yeah, man. If she'd sneezed when I was creeping up on her, I'd have run right across
the river."
"But you haven't seen her yet," Cindy said.
"Come on!" She ran up the steps and opened the kitchen door. "Come on!"
Bobby, host in his own house, captor of the baby-sitter, hero of Freedom Five for the
moment, followed proudly. There was a barely perceptible hesitation in the other three.
It was as if they dare not see what they were going to see, but then John gruffly nod ded
his head and led the way behind Bobby.
When they emerged from the woods, John, Paul and Dianne had been carrying bathing
suits rolled up in towels. Now, in the coolness of the Adams kitchen, they dropped these
on the counter and muddled their way into the living room, their feet impelling them
forward, their caution holding them back. Cindy, however, was already down the hall-
had, in fact, been in and out of Barbara's room in her impatience.
"Well, come on," she said. "Are you scared or something? Bobby and me aren't."
She, of course, led the way. Bobby followed, succeeded by John, Paul, and Dianne. In
that order, they entered the bedroom and came to the foot of the bed. Silence followed.
Given that Bobby and Cindy had three to four hours' advantage, the fact was that until
today none of them had ever seen an adult human made helpless chained, pinioned,
bound, gagged, brought down beneath adult level. The sight itself was a fundamental
experience that, while it affected each differently, carried some common meaning for
them all.
Each person expects to grow up. Ascension to power is a given part of existence.
Usually, however, it 17
lies distantly ahead-we shall have power when we have the years, the means and
experience, for powerand meanwhile, we shall coast along being simply what we are and
no more. Now, of course, all of this was capsized. They had done the unbelievable thing,
they had captured a grown-up.
The baby-sitter was theirs, the Adams property was theirs, the next seven days-give them
luck!-were theirs, life for these hours they held it was theirs. It was like a dream, a wish, an
indolent fantasy, come all too suddenly true, for beyond the boldness, beyond the im-
petuosity, the success, lay inevitable tomorrow. Now they had done it, now it was fun, now
the adventure had begun, now they were really in for it. What now?
After some moments the trance was broken; the not-believable sight was believed. They
moved a foot, an arm-Paul scratched his nose---and they stirred from their frozen positions.
They looked; they moved around the bed; they breathed again.
"Y'see?" Bobby said.
"Her hands are all blue and purple," Paul said. "That's the ropes. Maybe they're too tight,"
Cindy
said.
Bobby sighed. "Aw~w-w, if they were looser, she
could get away."
"She has pretty feet," Paul said.
"You always say that." Cindy giggled.
"Cindy, get away from her," Bobby said. "If she grabs you, you'll know it."
John Randall, who alone had not moved from the foot of the bed, said, "I guess we better
have a meeting about this."
"A meeting, a meeting!" Cindy sang.
"No. You stay and watch her," Bobby said. "I don't want to. She isn't doing anything." "OK,
I'll watch, and you go to the meeting."
Now, Cindy was surprised. Under fang-and-claw rule, Bobby was in command here and
entitled to step on her, and he hadn't. She didn't even remember hav- · ing been nice to
him: she only knew that this was nice. 18
"Whatever you want," she said. Bobby looked at her, and they made an uncertain pact.
John Randall looked from one to the other. "It's OK," he said. "We can all come to the
meeting. We'll have it in the house, and then we can hear if she starts getting away."
Victorious through diplomacy (a rare act), Cindy smiled and skipped out first. Paul and the
rest followed.
Although the Adams living room had furniture, none of it seemed to suit the children. John,
who most needed big chairs, slumped instead on the coffee table, legs apart, elbows on
knees.
"OK, let's get going," he said. "We've got a lot to talk about."
Paul sat down before him, cross-legged on the rug; Bobby lounged against the edge of the
old captain's desk; and only Dianne sat in a chair, an overstuffed chair with rather regal
lines. Cindy flung herself full length along the 'back of the couch as if she were riding it
bareback; then she slowly let herself slide down the front side onto the cushions where she
rolled over once and lay staring up at the ceiling.
"Cindy, stop that," Bobby said. "You know you're not allowed to play on the furniture."
"We can do anything we want now," she said defiantly. "There's no one to stop us, and
you're not my father."
"No, we can't," John said. "That's why we're having a meeting. We've got to make a lot of
new rules about this thing."
"Like what?" Cindy was obviously against rules of any kind. Nonetheless, she sat up.
"Like, for one thing, we have to stand watch over her. Take turns," John said. "If she ever
gets loose .... "
"She can't get loose," Bobby said quickly. "I put the knots where she couldn't get them."
· "What if she found something sharp and cut the rope or reached over and knocked the
telephone over?" Cindy said.
19
"Aw, that's only like you see on television. Where could she get hold of anything sharp
enough to cut rope?"
"Just the same, we ought to watch her," John said stubbornly. "Take turns, one at a time."
"We ought to write this down like the other rules we used to have," Paul said. "Hey, Dianne,
get some paper .... "
"That's a good idea," John said.
"Where's something to write with?" Dianne, who at seventeen was slightly the oldest, got
up and went searching. There was an opening and slamming of drawers before she found a
telephone pad and a ballpoint pen. "OK," she said, "Number One: watch her."
"Right. Now, since Red Fox Patrol will have to watch her all night, Blue Fox Patrol will watch
her while we're here. OK?"
"Blue Fox, Roger," Paul said. "OK?" John looked at Dianne.
Dianne did not say Roger. In no way did she condescend to say it. "Certainly," she said
coolly.
"OK, and another thing," Bobby said. "We can't keep her tied in one place all the time.
How're we going to move her around?"
"Why move her?" Cindy said.
"She has to get some circulation sometime, and she has to go to the bathroom like
everybody else."
There was general giggling.
"Yeah, but she's strong," Bobby said. "You should have seen her this morning. Man, I
thought she · was going to tear the bed apart."
"Really?"
"We'd better all be here when we do have to move her," John said thoughtfully. The idea
didn't appear to cheer him. "There're five of us-we ought to be able to do it."