A Close Encounter

• Chelsie Mccormack, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2014

“Catch her, don’t let her get away!” yelled a guy with a crooked yellow bow tie.
“She has the directions for the gold mine!”
I ran up to a hole I had dug earlier, before the men started chasing me, and buried the directions. I was not going to let those men get the plans that had been passed down to me from my great-grandmother.
The two guys came around the corner yelling.
I made an ‘x’ on a piece of dirt that was away from the directions so that they would look there; they didn’t even notice it.
I jumped up and sprinted, but as I looked back, I tripped on a tree trunk and fell. I felt the men grip me as they threw me into a car.
My heart raced as the car turned into a corner, into what seemed like a black hole. As the car stopped, the two men jumped out of the car. One of the men jumped and ran somewhere; the other one yanked me out of the car.
“Ouch!” I screamed as he kicked me into moving.
“Shut up and keep moving Missy.” He said in a voice which sounded to me like a dying bear.
He pushed me through bushes and stingy nettles to a house that was at least three stories tall.
“Get in there.”
Obediently, I walked into a strange room that had spider webs everywhere and material on the furniture and reeked like moth balls and dead rotting animals.
“I have just contacted Agent Biddings and he said that he has got the key. He just wants to know where the box where the directions are. He said the girl knows where they are.
“Spill it,” said the guy with the yellow bow tie.
“Spill what?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know the directions to the gold mine.”
“I’ll never tell!”
Suddenly the guy with the bear voice strangled me.
“Tell me!”
“Never!” I tried to run away but the guy with the bow tie caught me.
“Better luck next time Missy,” he joked.
I kicked and screamed but he was too strong.
“STOP right there!” yelled a burley policeman.
I was FREE.