This summer I went to live with my cousin Dick. He and his family lives in his fathers’ parents house, an old farm way out in the countryside, miles from anyone or anything remotely resembling civilisation.
One day, Dick and I went exploring. In the loft of an old barn, quite close to the house, we found a door. When we tried to open it, we found it was locked, but the lock was so old it broke when we shoved a bit harder. Inside, the walls were covered with shelves stacked high with chains and ropes, and the stone-walls had rings embedded in them. From the rings, more chains hung. Some kind of wide bracelets were attached to all the chains. Some bracelets were wide, some narrow. There were even some, which were huge, and looked more like something you could wear around the neck. In a drawer, we found lots of locks and keys. When we tried them, they worked surprisingly well, considering their apparent age. In fact, everything seemed to be very well maintained, as if someone were up there on a regular basis.
“What a strange room filled with strange things!” Dick said as he picked through all the stuff. ”I wonder if dad even knows it’s here? Let’s ask him.”
When we did, he denied any knowledge of it. He claimed to have been over every inch of the farm many times as a boy, and had never come across such a room as we described; not ever. We showed it to him, and asked if we could use it as our hang-out, when the weather was bad. He said we could.
One such day, we went up there again. We had originally planned to go swimming in a pond on the property, but were surprised by a sudden rainstorm. We were therefore dressed in our bathing clothes; well, I was dressed in a proper bathing-suit, white, with pale blue, vertical stripes and pink flowers; he was dressed in a pair of old track-and-field shorts, which he now used as bathing-trunks.
“Everything in here,” he said, pointing at the chains on the wall, “almost looks like things you would normally find in a medieval dungeon. Hey, that gives me an idea! How about we play a “damsel in distress”-game, where you’re for obvious reasons the damsel, and I’m the bad guy?”
“That sounds great!” I agreed. “But, aren’t you forgetting something; if you’re playing the bad guy, and I’m the damsel; who is going to play the good guy?”
“Ah, well, um: I don’t know!” he admitted, looking rather foolish.
They were startled when they heard a voice behind them. “How about me? I could be the best ‘good guy’ you’ve ever seen!”
When they turned around, they saw Dick’s father Patrick, who had followed them inside. “Are you sure?” Dick asked.
“Course I’m sure!” Patrick boasted. “You chain Emilia” that’s me, “to the wall, and I’ll try to rescue her.” He started walking down the ladder again. “Give me a shout, when you’re done!” were his fare-well words.
Dick grabbed my arm and led me to the wall, and locked two of the rings around my wrists. When I tried to yank my wrists free, I found the rings were just wide enough to hold them without being painful, but not so wide, I could get my hands out. I was now trapped against the wall, with my arms raised high above my head.
“OK!” Dick said triumphantly. “Let’s see if anyone can set you free!” He went away, presumably to get his father, leaving me all alone.
As I stood there, I could hear mice rustling in the straw.
“PLEASE, get me out of here, soon!” I thought. “I don’t like mice!”
It must have stopped raining while I stood there, because a faint ray of sunlight appeared on the floor in front of me. The ray moved slowly across the floor, and still no one appeared to rescue me. When it had finally reached the corner, I could hear someone coming up the ladder. The door swung open and an unknown man stood there, watching me.
“Who are you?”he asked.
“I’m Emilia.” I introduced myself. “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”
“Who I am, and what I’m doing here, are two things that are none of your business, Emilia!”
He seemed to be very familiar with the place, because he went straight for the drawer with the keys and took some out. But instead of unlocking me from the cuffs, he took another pair and put them around my ankles. Only then did he unlock my wrist-cuffs.
“Start climbing!” he ordered. Hard as it was, naturally I did as he said, and when we were safely down on the ground, he took out a pair of hand-cuffs and locked my wrists behind my back. In a swift move, he grabbed me around the waist, threw me over his shoulder, and walked out of the barn. He carried me to a car, threw me into the back-seat, slammed the door shut, and drove off.
Now, I was indeed a “Damsel-in-distress”!