It was night. Fiona, the cat-burglar dressed in a black body stocking, black ski mask, black soft shoes, and black gloves silently crept through an open window on the ground floor of the posh-looking house. She paused for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the relative darkness inside, before silently starting to open drawers and cupboards, in the hunt for valuables.
Finding nothing of value in the first room, she silently opened a door and walked into another, bigger, room.
‘This must be the dining room,’ she thought. ‘I guess there must be silverware around here, somewhere. Let’s start by looking in the counter.’
Carefully, so not to make any sound, she opened the first drawer and immediately hit the Jackpot. The drawer was filled with forks, spoons and knives, all made of what looked like sterling silver! She picked them up, one by one, and looked at them. What she saw almost overwhelmed her.
‘If these are what they appear to be, I’m going to be filthy rich, once I’ve sold them!’ She took a table-cloth and put the entire cutlery on it. Then she opened a cabinet in the corner, and found yet more valuable objects inside, most of which she also put on the small pile.
Suddenly a hand was clamped over her mouth, and a strong arm was put around her waist, trapping her arms to her sides.
“Oh, my, my, my; what do we have here?” a male voice whispered in her ear. “You want my silverware, do you? I suppose you were going to try to find my jewellery-box next; weren’t you? Well, I’ll give you some bracelets to keep, at least till the cops get here.”
The man pushed her, face first, down on the floor, grabbed her wrists, brought them together behind her back and put handcuffs on her. Then he dragged her on her feet, and pulled off the ski mask, revealing the face of quite a young girl, with brown hair tucked inside the body stocking, and big, deer-like, brown eyes.
“Right,” he said, as he pushed her into a wooden chair and tied her feet together. “I don’t have to be a rocket-scientist to know what you are; but WHO are you, how old are you, and what are you doing in my house? Except stealing my silver-ware, that is. And by the way: how did you get in?”
Fiona tried, in vain, to get at least her feet free, so she could run away. She soon noticed however, that he had tied them too well.
“I’m Fiona, I’m fourteen, and I’m in your house doing exactly what it looks like; I’m relieving you of as much silver as I possibly can. Or at least I was, until I got caught. As for how I got in; you really shouldn’t leave a ground-floor window open at night.” Suddenly, she noticed he had tears in his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.”Why are you crying?”
“Well, Fiona, I’m Bruce, and I’m crying because I would have had a daughter just about your age, had fate not intervened. You see, my daughter, who incidentally also was called Fiona, and her mother were killed in a car accident a couple of years ago. A drunk-driver crashed into their car from the side, flipping it over, and killing them both more or less instantly.”
”I’m sorry to hear that,” Fiona said. “Both my parents died when I was a little girl, and I lived with my fathers’ parents, until they kicked me out last year. They thought I simply was too much trouble.
As I didn’t want the social services to take care of me I took to the streets, and became, with the help of some new-found friends, a cat-burglar. I’ve become quite a good one too, even if I have to say so myself. This is actually the first time someone’s caught me. But, to tell you the truth; I think I was careless, as I’m fed up with a life on the streets. It seemed glamorous at first, but the glamour wore off pretty quickly, if you see what I mean.”
He gave her a long, thoughtful, look. “So, you’re looking for a place to stay, are you? As far as I see it, you have three choices. You either contact the social services, or let the police take you into custody, or let me take care of you. If you take the last choice, I can start the adoption-process tomorrow. You can stay the night here.”
She really only had one realistic choice, so she made up her mind quickly. Contacting the police or social services was out of the question from the beginning, so she told him she’d stay. “OK, good; smart choice.” Bruce said. He untied her feet, helped her off the chair, and led her up the stairs and into a room whose former occupant clearly had been a girl.
“This was my Fiona’s room, and now it will be yours.” He opened a huge wardrobe, occupying almost an entire wall, from floor to ceiling. It was filled with clothes; everything from under-wear to dresses and skirts. ”And these, will be your clothes from now on. You look to be about the same size as her, so it shouldn’t be any problems for you to wear them.” That last thing wasn’t so much a question, as a statement.
He opened a drawer in the wardrobe, and took out a pink onesie pyjama. He told her to turn around so he could take the cuffs off. When he had, he gave her the pyjama, pointed to a door, and told her to go in there to change.
“And by the way,” he added, “there’s no use you trying to escape out the window. First of all; it’s too small even for someone your size, second of all; my daughter was a sleep-walker and constantly tried to climb out, so we had to change it to a real small one, so she wouldn’t get hurt.”
Fiona went into the bathroom, and sure enough, the window was nothing more than an aperture. She changed clothes, and found to her surprise the pyjama really was her size. She finished what she was doing in there and went back out to Bruce.
“OK, let’s get you to bed. It’s late and you have a lot to take in and do tomorrow, if you’re going to be my daughter.”
When she got close to the bed, she saw it had low railings all around it.
“What are those for?” she asked.
“We used to strap our daughter to the bed every night,” Bruce explained, “as I will do with you.”
“Handcuffs and bed-straps on a little girl, what kind of parents were you? No, don’t answer that; just treat me the way you treated her, and let’s get it over with. Within reason of course.”
“Oh,” Bruce replied,” I intend to, don’t you worry!”