It was late on a cold and dark December night.
Deep in the woods, all the lights were on in the old timber framed cottage, and a fire was merrily crackling away in the fire-place. In front of it were two high-backed wooden chairs placed facing each other about a foot apart, and in the chairs two kids, eleven and thirteen years old, sat. They were brother and sister, both dressed in red and pink footy one-piece pyjamas, with white lambs. They already had their mouths stuffed with handkerchiefs, which were securely held in place by silk ties. Beside them a man stood, with some long coils of soft rope in his hands.
“OK, kids,” he said, “Best of three, OK?”
The kids, Emma, thirteen and John, eleven nodded vigorously, their eyes gleaming with anticipation. What they had, in secret, been waiting for so long, was finally happening!
“All right, then! John; put your hands through the bars of the chair and cross your wrists behind your back, please. Emma; you do the same, when I tell you to. OK?” she nodded and waited as the man busied himself with tying John securely to the chair.
It had been an intense couple of hours, since their eighteen year old cousin Richard had turned up. John and Emma’s parents had gone out to a lengthy dinner with their friends, followed by a two-hour play at the local theatre.
The siblings had already changed into their pyjamas, and were watching a movie about two people that were kidnapped and tied up, much the same way Emma and John were now. When Richard came into the room, just as John said:” I wonder what it would be like to be tied up like that?” He pointed at the TV-screen, where a man was busy gagging and tying a girl to a chair.
Richard studied the screen, and said:” I could show you, if you want to.”
The kids turned around and looked at him, wide-eyed and with gaping mouth.
“You can?” Emma asked. “Is it difficult?” John asked.
“Course I can, it’s not all that difficult. It’s kidnapping we’re talking about here, not rocket-science, after all.”
“Could you show us now?”
“Sure,” Richard replied. “If you don’t want to see how the film ends, that is?”
“Nah, we’ve seen it before!” Emma said. “What do you need?”
“O, K, then!” Richard surrendered. “We need lots of rope, preferably soft, two handkerchiefs, and something to hold them in your mouths.”
“Right!” John said. “The best place to find lots of soft rope I think is our parents’ bed-room, and we can use some of dad’s old ties to hold the handkerchiefs in our mouths.”
Richard looked carefully at the eleven-year-old boy, wondering how the hell he knew his parents stored rope in their bed-room. “Let’s not go there!” he decided, shaking his head.
The handkerchiefs and ties were the easiest to find as they were stored in a cupboard, and Emma suggested Richard would gag them, before they continued the search. He did, and not long after, they found all the rope they would need, hidden in a cardboard box at the back of another cupboard.
He took the box under one arm, and scooted the kids in front of him with the other, back into the living-room. He turned the TV off, he and Emma took two chairs from the dining table and instead placed them in front of the fireplace, and Richard told them to sit in the chairs.
John moaned softly as his wrists were tied together, followed by a muted “Umph”, when Richard wound a rope a couple of times around his waist, trapping his hands against the back of the chair, and tying it off quite snugly. Lastly, John’s legs were tied together, from the knees down to his ankles.
Then Richard walked over to Emma and repeated the process. He rummaged around in a drawer and found a stop-watch. He held it up, and said: “Three attempts each; the one with the fastest over-all time wins; I don’t know what! Oh, now I know! The winner will forever know that he, or she, is better than the other at getting him or herself out of difficult situations, at least until such time when you decide to do it again; how’s that?”
The kids nodded, and Richard announced that John would have his three tries first. When Emma let out a frustrated snort, he explained that because John was younger, he should always have priority.
It took John just over one hour to complete his three tries, the first try alone lasting about half that time.
Then it was Emma’s turn. She could feel him tying the rope both horizontally and vertically, but still she had no problem finding the knot the first two times. She had completed two of her three tries in the time it had taken her brother to complete one!
Then came the third time; she could feel there was something very different about how the rope was tied around her wrists, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Then she realized what the difference was.
The first two times, she had had no problems reaching and undoing the knot; in fact, that had actually been one of the easier tasks. This time, the knot had been placed much higher up, between her wrists. She could of course still reach it, but only with her finger-tips.
It felt like an eternity, but in the end, she did get a grip on it and managed to undo it, from then on, she was as fast as the other two times in getting out of the chair.
Despite that, she won the challenge by one minute. John immediately demanded a rematch, but as it was getting close to the time their parents said they would come home, Richard said he would have to wait till next time. John, grumpily, agreed and they set about putting everything back, finishing just as their parents opened the door!
Richard told the kids: “Good night! See you next time!” and left.