## 24) 1977 Becca & Doug: Junior Detectives

Post by canuck100 » Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:57 pm

Becca & Doug: Junior Detectives
By Doug R
When I was twelve years old in the summer of 1977, I spent three weeks at my Aunt Jean's house, where I played tie up games with my cousins Donna (13), Shirley (11) and George (7; who mainly watched), the neighboring kids Karen (13), along with Becca (14), and her brother Jim (12).
On the Friday of my first week there, I had been hanging out by myself on the rear patio steps. My Aunt Jean took Donna, Shirley and George food shopping with her. I would have gone with them, but I had overslept. After eating a breakfast of cold cereal while watching my oldest cousin Keith (16) snuggle with his girlfriend Lori (also 16) with mild interest, I changed into a bathing suit and sat for a spell on the patio before going for a swim in the pool. (I always heeded my mother's advice to wait a half an hour after eating before going swimming).
I saw Becca by herself in her backyard a few doors down. When she saw me, we waved to each other. She stared thoughtfully at me for a moment, then abruptly got up from her lounge chair and went inside her house. I didn't think anything more about this until several minutes later, when Becca strolled up to me on the patio steps and, with a broad grin, said, "You feel like getting tied up today?"
Barefoot, she was still clad in her two-piece bathing suit. And her long blond hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. After the events of yesterday (See my previous post for details), I figured we would have taken a break before resuming the bondage games. But Becca explained to me that since neither of us was doing anything right now, we might as well continue yesterday's game. She had called Karen before seeing me, and Karen was more than happy to carry on with the game. "No need to change," Becca added. "We can go over as we are."
Of course, Becca didn't have to ask me twice; I got off of the deck and joined her on a little walk to Karen's house. When we arrived at Karen's front door, Becca gave me a sardonic, "Here we go again!" look before she knocked on the door. There was no answer. When she knocked again, and then for a third time, we heard Karen's annoyed voice call from inside: "It's unlocked! COME IN ALREADY!"
Becca opened the door, then turned to me and jokingly said, "Well, lookie here, Doug! The gosh-darn door is open! What say we go inside and get tied up?"
In spite of my best attempts to treat this seriously, I burst into giggles as Becca and I entered the house. It was warm inside, making me grateful that I didn't bother to wear a shirt. We stood in the hallway of the darkened abode; Karen must have drawn every shade and shut every curtain in her best effort to make this place as dark and spooky looking as possible. Unfortunately, this meant that none of the windows were open. But that was ok, because the bad guy's lair was supposed to be hot and stuffy, right?
Becca took my hand in hers and, in a loud voice, said: "You better stick with me, Doug. I wouldn't want you to get lost in this really scary house!"
Hand in hand, we warily started walking down the hallway, our bare feet silent against the carpeting. I stared at every shadow and cringed as we passed through every doorway, fully expecting Karen to leap out at us. She finally did when we entered the laundry room. Karen leapt out with a water pistol in her hands and screamed: "HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"
Becca's mock response to this was to jump into my arms and hug me tightly-and this was not an unpleasant sensation, let me tell you. I simply played along with her hugged Becca right back. For her part, Karen regarded our embrace with a mortified expression on her face that I can still remember clearly to this day. In retrospect, she had undoubtedly been taken aback. "Stop that!" Karen blurted out, as she waved her pistol at us. "Get on your knees. Now!"
Becca and I broke our embrace and knelt down on the floor as we were ordered. While Karen got a pair of toy handcuffs ready, Becca clasped her hands behind her head, and I did the same. When Karen turned around with the first pair of cuffs, she paused to give Becca an exasperated look, to which Becca replied with a small smile. Of course, I had no idea then what this was all about, and chalked it up to another one of those annoying "girl moments", when they appeared to communicate unspoken thoughts without saying a word.
Karen cuffed my wrists together behind my back to a thin support column in the laundry room. I sat down on the floor and watched as she cuffed Becca's wrists behind her back and then escorted her out of the laundry room. I tried to peer through the doorway, even going as far as standing up and leaning out as far as my bound wrists would allow, but I still was not able to see out the door.
After a while, Karen came back into the laundry room with a roll of duct tape and a handkerchief. Barefoot, she was clad in a t-shirt and shorts, with her long black hair flowing past her shoulders. She un-cuffed me from the support beam, then re-cuffed my hands behind my back. I was gagged with the tape and then blindfolded with the handkerchief.
I felt her grab my arm and lead me through the house. I could feel the flooring beneath my bare feet change from the linoleum of the laundry room and kitchen to the carpeting of the rest of the house. I had a pretty good hunch where she was taking me: the guest bedroom. After we made a left turn, I could hear Becca making muffled groaning sounds.
I kept walking until my legs bumped into the side of the bed, and then Karen helped me to lie face down on the mattress. My ankles were tied together with rope, and bound a second time with another bond that ran vertically over the original. I felt tension on my legs, and heard Karen grunting slightly, and figured she must have tied my bound ankles to the foot of the bed. When she was finished, I tried pulling my legs up ever so slightly and found out for sure that my ankles were indeed bound to the foot of the bed.
There was silence for a time. Even Becca had stopped struggling, perhaps figuring that our captor was still in the room, watching us. However, she soon starting fighting once again against her bonds, with her struggling and writhing shaking the bed. She also let out various muffled groans and grunts from under her gag.
While we played the game yesterday, I quickly devised a fantasy where Becca and me, as a couple of junior detectives, had been kidnapped and tied up by the bad guys. I had even made up a little story where the bad guys had stolen money from the poor orphans. Needless to say, the blindfold went a long way in solidifying my fantasy that bad guys had abducted us. It was very easy to pretend that Becca and I were now helpless captives of a band of ruthless criminals, one of which, Karen, had tied us up until her co-conspirators could return.
Despite all of this, it would have been nice to at least see Becca all bound and gagged and struggling. Since I laid face down, I had an idea. I rubbed my face against the mattress ever so slightly until the blindfold rolled up my face. I must have looked silly with the blindfold across my forehead, like some sort of headband. But, as I learned a long time ago, your pride is the first thing to go when you're a captive.
Once the blindfold was gone, I realized that my ankles were actually bound to the headboard of the bed. Becca laid next to me, facing in the opposite direction. She lay on her side, with her back facing me. I couldn't see her gag, but she was blindfolded; Becca's ponytail was pinned to the back of her head by the handkerchief that was used to blindfold her. Her wrists were bound together with rope behind her back and further hog-tied to her ankles. As she struggled, Becca's bound bare feet wiggled at me.
I noticed that if Karen was still watching us, she didn't seem to mind Becca struggling and straining as much as she did. So I decided to roll over on my side and gaze around the room. Karen wasn't there, and the door was left open. I decided it was time to try and make an escape attempt. Since it was hard for Becca to move closer to me, I had to get closer to her. Although my feet were tied to the headboard, there was enough slack on the rope to allow me to move around somewhat. As best as I can describe it, I moved closer to Becca by writhing and squirming and rolling around. Between Becca's struggling and my own, the bed sheets were a mess!
Becca's bound hands and feet were tantalizingly close to my own, cuffed hands. But when I started to roll closer to her, the rope that bound my ankles to the headboard finally pulled taunt. I had no choice but to reach out as far as I could with my cuffed hands until I touched the bare soles of Becca's feet.
Becca's entire body froze up as she let out this hysterically funny squeal under her gag. I didn't mean to tickle her, but since I couldn't apologize because I was still gagged, I decided to plunge ahead with my escape plan.
I grabbed the first knot I found and started working on it. Becca, finally understanding what was happening, ceased her struggles and laid still. When the knot came loose, I realized it was for her hog-tie. She exhaled with relief once her wrists were no longer bound to her ankles. I wasted no time in grabbing her tied wrists and began tugging at the knot that bound them.
When her hands were free, Becca pulled them from behind her back and removed her blindfold and gag. She then sat up and went to untie my hands--until she realized that I was handcuffed, and the key was nowhere to be seen. Letting out a curse, Becca bent over and untied her ankles, promising me that I would be freed ASAP.
But I instantly knew that was not to be once Karen appeared in the doorway. She had exchanged her t-shirt and shorts for an extra large tank top, which fit her like a mini-skirt dress. Still barefoot, Karen strode silently across the room, and managed to stick a water pistol right into Becca's face just as the latter glanced up at her.
Becca muttered bitterly about having just gotten free, only to be re-captured again. However, I was re-captured without ever being freed at all! And I couldn't even tell her this because I was still gagged. And Becca thought she had it rough!
Karen left me on the bed and forced Becca to go with her. I took advantage of the fact that I was alone to try and free my feet. I squirmed and wiggled around on the bed (you should have seen the shape the sheets were in by then!) until I was close enough to the headboard to try and pull at the knot, which bound my ankles to one of the spindles.
But no sooner did I get the knot slightly loose than Karen stormed back into the room. I ceased my struggles just as she climbed on the bed and made a playful move of smacking me. I should make it clear that her hands never touched me; it was just a mock smacking in the empty air above me. When I shook my head back and forth as if in recoil to her blows, it made Karen giggle.
Then she pulled my blindfold back over my eyes. I felt the ropes binding my feet grow slack, and then Karen helped me off of the bed. We left the guest bedroom and walked down the hall. However, we stopped short of entering the kitchen. I could tell this because there was still carpeting beneath my bare feet.
Karen steered me to the right and then carefully guided me down a flight of wooden steps. I felt the cool concrete floor of the basement underneath my feet as Karen led me over to something. I realized it was a chair once she made me sit down in it. I sat there for a few minutes while I heard and felt rope being secured to the chair. Karen removed the handcuffs from my wrists, and then she tied each of my wrists separately to the back of the chair. I felt another strand of rope being placed across my bare chest, securing my upper torso to the chair's back. Then my ankles were tied together and pulled under the seat, where they were secured via a strand of rope to some part of the chair.
Then something interesting happened. Karen placed both of her hands on my bare shoulders and kept them there for a long time. When I squirmed in my seat, she rubbed my shoulders real hard and whispered into my ear: "You can't escape. You're mine!" She let out a maniacal little laugh and released her grip on my shoulders.
I felt a thousand tingling fingers of excitement run through me just then. The Junior Detectives were truly in a bind, this time! Karen was right about not being able to escape. My bonds made me sit up very rigidly in the chair; my bare feet were pulled so tautly back that only my toes touched the hard floor. The previous school year I had a teacher who constantly commanded us to sit up straight; she probably would have approved of the way I sat right then (although she certainly would not have condoned the method used to make me sit that way).
I didn't struggle much, because I figured Karen was still there, watching me. After a very long time, I was surprised when I abruptly felt somebody tugging at the knot that bound my right wrist. Apparently Karen did leave, and Becca managed to get herself free and was now liberating me, as well.
However, she only untied my right wrist. Then I felt a sudden rush of air to my side. With my right hand free, I reached up and pulled down the blindfold. I felt a chill run up my spine when I saw that nobody stood next to me, and then I saw something even scarier.
As I had suspected, we were in the basement, and Becca sat on the floor with her back up against one of the support beams. Blindfolded and gagged, Becca's hands were bound behind her back to the beam. Her legs were bound at the ankles and knees. There was even an extra length of rope that secured her waist to the beam. Becca was as tightly tied as she could be. So if she didn't untie my hand, who--or what--did?
Obviously it had to be Karen, but why? As the captor, she would be the last person who would help us to escape. I pulled the gag from my mouth and removed the rope from around my chest. After freeing my left wrist, I went to work in freeing my ankles. But that turned out to be a major effort. As I mentioned, my feet were actually pulled under the chair, so I had to get on my hands and knees (with my feet still bound) and then roll over slightly to my side so I could lean forward and untie my ankles while sitting on the floor.
Karen's basement was largely used for storage space. The only light presently came from narrow windows near the ceiling. It was a spooky place to be tied up in, and a large curtain, which partitioned off a section of the basement made things even spookier. As I untied my feet, I could swear there was someone--or something--behind the curtain. The curtain, which actually looked like an old bed sheet, moved too much for my comfort, and I kept seeing flickering light along the edges.
As creeped out as I was getting, I forced myself to stay focused on untying my feet. Once they were free, I went over to Becca and pulled down her blindfold. She gazed at me with wide, relieved eyes as I removed her gag. "Where did she tie you?"
I pointed at the chair as I moved behind the beam to untie her wrists. "I think she's watching us from behind the curtains," I whispered into Becca's ear.
Just as I untied her wrists, I saw movement in the corner of my eye, but not from the curtain...it was from behind me!
Karen was not behind the curtain after all. She was hiding in the darkened corner directly behind where Becca sat bound. She came up from behind me and tackled me to the floor. I managed to brace myself before I landed with her on top of me.
"Booga booga booga boo!" Karen said right into my face.
Straddling me, Karen grabbed my wrists and held them together in front of me. When Becca proceeded to further untie herself from the beam, Karen said, "Hey, you're still my captives!"
"I know," Becca said. "But I would like to get off this floor, if you don't mind."
I certainly didn't mind that we were still playing this game. I was having a ball. Karen waited until Becca got herself completely free before she finally got off of me. However, once we stood up, we heard a door slam upstairs, and the singsong voice of Karen's caretaker called her name.
However, instead of calling a break like she usually did whenever her caretaker interrupted us, Karen grabbed two pairs of handcuffs and shoved both Becca and me into a closet, which was near the basement storm door. The closet was a narrow space with sliding doors and was packed with boxes on one side. The other side, which Karen shoved us into, was empty. There was a wooden rod, which horizontally spanned the length of the closet; this was obviously meant for hanging clothes, although none hung from it now. I knew right away that we would be hanging from it. Karen cuffed each of our wrists to the rod, so that Becca and I stood back to back with our arms bound above our heads.
I heard Becca quietly say, "Guess we'll be skipping lunch, today," just before Karen gagged her with a fresh strip of tape. Then Karen gagged me with another strip. Karen looked around for something, until she stared at the roll of tape in her hand. With a shrug, she used the tape to bind my ankles together, and then bound Becca's ankles in the same manner.
Karen gave us a satisfied nod, as she looked us over. Her smile faded when we heard the old woman call Karen's name from atop of the basement steps.
"Karen?" she called. "Are you down there?"
Behind me, I heard Becca make a frightened little screech under her gag. Karen, whose eyes were as wide as saucers, jumped into the closet with us and slid the door close. And so we stood there in total darkness, listening helplessly as Karen's caretaker slowly descended the steps.
But nothing happened. Karen peeked out through the slit and told us later that her caretaker had only come about halfway down the steps before turning around and going back upstairs. We all let out a big, collective sigh of relief.
Karen waited with us in the closet for a few minutes before she quietly slipped out. Since we were also both gagged with tape, a conversation was out of the question. I was tied up in a similar situation like this last summer, when Becca was the captor (oddly enough, Karen was my fellow captive, then). After she tied my hands to the clothes rack in a closet, I managed to get out by removing the rack itself and sliding my bound hands off. But that idea would not work here; for, in addition to being twice as long as the one in Becca's closet, the clothes rack in this closet was also securely mounted. I gripped it as best I could with my bound hands and discovered that it was not moving at all. At least Becca and I were reasonably comfortable by being able to stand flat-footed.
After a while, I began to feel something lightly slapping against my neck and bare shoulders. When I turned, I saw it was Becca. She had started to shake her head back and forth, and the result was that her ponytail slapped against my neck. Only now, as I craned my head to look over my shoulder, her hair was whipping me in the face.
"Stop that," I said under my gag, which reduced it to muffled grunts, but Becca could still understand it enough to stop shaking her head. When she turned slightly around (at least as far as her bound wrists would allow) I could finally see why she was shaking her head: her tape gag had come loose and was now hanging from one end of her mouth. She had been trying to make it fall off.
"It's getting hot," Becca quietly told me. And she was right. Despite the fact that both of us were appropriately dressed for the heat by being barely dressed at all, it was still getting very warm and stuffy (of course, standing in a closet in the middle of 90 degree weather wasn't a very smart thing to do, either!). Unable to respond verbally, I simply nodded the best I could.
Karen returned and slid open the closet door all the way. She assured us that her caretaker had left and that the coast was clear.
"We deserve a break," Becca said.
Karen, still thinking Becca was gagged, was momentarily startled to hear her voice so clearly. Although she appeared reluctant, Karen agreed to give Becca and me a break from the game. She freed my ankles of the tape which bound them, then un-cuffed one of my wrists long enough for me to gratefully pull my hands down from the clothes rack.
When I held out my remaining cuffed wrist for her to free, Karen instead re-cuffed my wrists together in front of me. I was still able to pull the gag from my mouth as Karen freed Becca from the clothes rack. The first thing she did was removing the piece of tape that hung from her mouth. Becca then let out an annoyed sigh as Karen re-cuffed her wrists together in front of her, as well. "This wasn't what I meant, Karen!"
"You two are still my captives," Karen said, as she wagged a finger at us.
"We know that!" Becca said, as she clasped her bound hands into fists. "But this is an official break, a time out. We're not going to run away!"
"All right, all right," Karen muttered as she freed Becca of the handcuffs completely. Once Karen freed my wrists, Becca screamed, "C'mon, Doug!" She grabbed my left hand and pulled me towards the steps.
But Karen, letting out an indignant bark (at least that was what it sounded like to me), grabbed my other hand and thus began a tug of war with yours truly literally in the middle.
After a few tugs, Becca let go of my arm and said, "You want him? Fine, he's yours!"
Then she shot up the stairs like a bat out of hell. In her wake, Becca made a "Wooooo-wooooo!" sound that echoed throughout the house.
Karen stared after her with this funny, incredulous look on her face. She even rolled her eyes in disbelief at me as she handcuffed my wrists together behind my back.
"I guess break time is over, huh?" I sarcastically asked.
"I may have lost Becca, but you're not going anywhere!" Karen told me in an overly melodramatic fashion, which made me chuckle. Then we both flinched when we heard a noise upstairs. "C'mon," Karen said as she grabbed my arm and led me upstairs. We found Becca in the kitchen, raiding the fridge. This was not the kind of behavior I expected from a fellow Junior Detective!
"What are you doing?!" Karen cried.
"What does it look like?" Becca shouted back, although she was smiling broadly. "Don't you believe in feeding your guests in this place?!"
"You're not guests," Karen explained sweetly, "you're captives."
Despite her tough talk, Karen still gave us a time out period by making a lunch consisting of cold cut sandwiches. Becca helped her. Oddly enough, my hands were still left cuffed behind my back while the food was being prepared.
When I asked if somebody could free me, Karen casually said, "No." Shrugging my bare shoulders, I took a seat with my hands still cuffed. If nothing else, I was excused from having to help out. Karen finally freed me just after she served lunch.
"Aw," Becca muttered sadly as she sat down. "I wanted to see him try to eat like that...."
Karen's caretaker came over while we were eating (I often wondered if the woman had some kind of kid-radar which tipped her off to our presence). When she saw we were in the middle of lunch, she instantly turned around and went back over to her house to get us cookies she'd baked (which was something else that amazed me about her to this day: the fact that she still baked cookies in the oppressive summer heat).
Becca leaned over to me and asked if I thought the old woman could be involved in our kidnapping. Becca figured that the old lady used Karen to guard us because Karen was just a kid and would not get into any trouble if caught. I had to admit that her little bondage fantasy sounded even better than my own. When Karen overheard this, she gave Becca a puzzled stare.
We had a great lunch, followed by the cookies. At one point, when the sweet old lady was out of earshot, Becca grabbed my arm and said, "See how she was looking at us? She has to be in on it!"
Once the caretaker left us, Karen, with a broad smile, picked up a piece of rope and said, "Round two."
"What if Doug and I swear to never tell anybody about what we saw?" Becca pleaded in her best damsel impression. "Would you let us go?!"
"Nope," Karen replied, as she handcuffed Becca's hands behind her back again while Becca still sat at the kitchen table.
"What exactly did we see, again?" I asked Becca. But Karen gagged her with tape before she could reply.
Karen also cuffed my hands behind my back and tape gagged me at the table. Then she bent down and bound my ankles together. Becca sat staring at her with a puzzled look, since Karen never tied her ankles. Once I was securely bound hand and foot, Karen made Becca stand up and go out to the back porch. I sat in the kitchen for several minutes, mulling over whether I should do anything heroic. The handcuffs really put a damper on whatever escape plans I had. However, nothing stopped me from untying my ankles and running away with my hands still tied. Well, one thing did stop me: the fact that I didnâ€™t want this game to end!
Before I could decide on what to do, Karen raced past me, heading for her bedroom. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Becca out on the back porch. Karen had re-cuffed Beccaâ€™s hands behind her back around a support beam on the edge of the porch. Beccaâ€™s feet were free, and she stood struggling furiously against her bonds. She even went so far to bend one leg at the knee and place a bare foot against the support beam in a vain effort to somehow push her body away.
Karen emerged from her room with a lot of rope. Iâ€™ll never forget the exasperated look on Becca face when she saw Karen coming at her with all that rope. I watched as Karen bound Beccaâ€™s ankles together. Then she tied Beccaâ€™s knees together. And, as if that werenâ€™t enough, Karen then secured Beccaâ€™s entire body to the beam at the waist, thighs, and calves with yet more rope. By the time Karen was finished, Becca was actually laughing under her gag and shaking her head at the absurd amount of rope that had been used to bind her with.
Once Becca was plastered to the beam for her liking, Karen then turned her attention to me. She knelt down beside me and untied my ankles. When my feet were free, I was made to walk out onto the porch. There, Becca glared at us and let out what sounded like a muffled growl from her gag.
Karen made me take a seat in a reclining chair. This was one of those Adirondack-style chairs, which was made of a wood frame with cushions. When I saw that a length of rope had already been tied to the wooden frame atop of the chair, I knew what was in store for me. After Karen un-cuffed my hands, and tied them together with rope at the wrists, I was made to sit back with my arms pulled above my head. My already-bound wrists were secured to the wood frame that jutted above the back cushion.
Karen knelt down before me and stared thoughtfully at my legs, as if deciding how she was going to bind them. With my arms pulled all the way up, my feet dangled slightly off the floor. Then she started tying rope to the chairâ€™s right front arm post. My ankles were crossed over the other, and then bound together with more rope. Karen had me sit with my legs bent to the right, where she secured my ankles to the right arm post. Karen stood back and examined me like an artist checking a recent brushstroke.
Once she was satisfied that we were securely bound, Karen left us alone on the porch. Compared to the basement, the porch was a bright and cheerful place, with the sun streaming in all around us. It was also cooler. However, this didn't mean that it was any easier on us. Our bondage was much more elaborate, and proved to be more than adequate. I watched Becca's body squirm as she gave her bonds a try, and a frown spread across her face as she let out frustrated muffled grunts from under her gag.
I tested my own bonds, and came to the same conclusion. As the old saying goes, we weren't going anywhere. My bondage was not as uncomfortable as I might have made it sound. The chair offered solid support, and I had a nice view of the back yard.
Karen came back out with a magazine and took a seat on one of the lounge chairs, where she made a big show of lying back and reading right in the middle of her two writhing and grunting captives. Karen even removed her extra-large tank top, revealing her own two-piece bathing suit underneath. I sat facing Karen, who would peek at me every now and then from over the top of her magazine.
After staying like this for a good twenty minutes, if not longer, we received visitors. My cousins Donna, Shirley and George came over. George stared in wide-eyed fascination at Becca and me while Donna chatted with Karen. Shirley had a board smile on her face as she came over to us and gleefully asked, "Are you guys ticklish?"
Becca let out a weary groan under her gag as Shirley tickled her stomach and sides. Then it was my turn to groan, and flinch, as Shirley directed her ticklish assault on me. My feet were tied in such as way that they practically begged to be tickled, and Shirley showed me no mercy.
After several minutes of listening to Shirley insanely scream "Coochie coochie coo!" at the top of her lungs, both Donna and Karen shouted for her to knock it off.
"I should really untie them, anyway," Karen said thoughtfully. "But I won't!"
She then invited my cousins inside for a cool drink. The girls even made sure George went with them, so he couldn't come to our rescue like he normally does for captives in need of freedom. The fiends!
Becca and I struggled for several more minutes while we listened to the girlsâ€™ casual conversation inside. Then, lo and behold, George managed to sneak back onto the porch. Becca made muffled growling noises at him, as if she wanted to be untied first, but he walked past her and made a beeline towards me. George gave me a devilish smile as he picked at the knot that bound my wrists above my head. This little guy was the wild card in our tie up games. He mainly liked to watch us play, but was not above jumping in and helping either the captives or captor-whenever the mood struck him. I could feel the ropes loosening, and then I was able to pull my bound wrists free from the top of the chair. George immediately ran back inside, leaving me to finish the job myself. I ripped off the gag and untied the knot binding my wrists together by pulling at it with my teeth. Then I untied my ankles.
I got out of the chair and ran over to Becca, who started frantically shaking her head as she stared fearfully at something inside the house. I stopped short of the doorway when it occurred to me: just as I could see Becca from where I sat in the kitchen earlier, so could our captors. Becca was bound in front of the doorway, which offered a clear line of view past the laundry room and straight into Karenâ€™s kitchen. There was another problem: although Karen had bound Beccaâ€™s legs and body to the support beam with a copious amount of rope, her wrists were secured around the back of the beam with handcuffs. And I didnâ€™t have the key.
George came out by himself just as I was trying to decide what to do. When he saw me standing there, George's eyes grew wide and his mouth opened, as if he was going to say something. So I reached out and grabbed him. I wrapped one arm around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, and hand gagged him with my other hand. He assured me later that he never intended to warn the others about our escape attempt, but I couldnâ€™t take that chance. I whispered into his ear: "Are we gonna behave ourselves?"
George quickly nodded, and I released him. But, I held his hand, just to be sure. His eyes were so wide I thought they were going to fall out of their sockets. It wasn't so much that he was afraid, just very excited.
I picked up the water pistol that Karen foolishly left behind. Then I had the pleasure of storming into the kitchen, right in the middle of Karen's gab session with Donna and Shirley. Karen's eyes were almost as wide as George's when she saw me. Shirley shook her head and said something to the effect that George was in a lot of trouble.
"Actually, youâ€™re the ones who are in trouble," I smugly replied.
My brief moment of glory ended when I heard Becca behind me letting out a barrage of curses under her gag. The bunch of us paused to stare at Becca as she angrily writhed and squirmed against the support beam. She was cursing up such a blue streak that Iâ€™m surprised the tape gag didnâ€™t melt off her mouth.
Karen surrendered the handcuff key, and I finally freed poor Becca. As soon as she ripped off her gag and started swearing vengeance against everybody, I began to wonder if releasing her was such a good idea. And thus ended (finally!) the captivity of the Junior Detectives. Next up, the unholy alliance between Becca and Doug extracts its horrifying vengeance (or something to that effect). As always, thanks for reading.