Park Perils

• Alex Macnamara, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

It was a bright, frosty morning. The pavement glistened like a carpet of crushed diamonds. Untrimmed grass was wet from dew. Cheerfully, birds greeted the morning from treetops. That’s what I saw when I looked at my wall. The painting reminded me of the park on an early August morning. I looked lazily at the bedside table. The alarm clock showed 4:32. Bored in bed, I tiptoed to my closet.
After changing from my pony pyjamas, I crept silently out the door, racing the rising sun to the park on my purple scooter. The streets were deserted, apart from a few random cars avoiding rush hour.
With my scooter by the park gates, I started jogging laps around the designated running track. The park was empty. No parents were letting their children out this early. Then he grabbed one. A figure in dark clothing reaching his big, filthy hands for my hands and mouth. I was scared. I had nothing valuable. Suddenly, he started shoving me towards a small van, hidden in an alleyway. After he opened the bolted doors, he pushed me violently into the blackness. Sharply, my head hit a crate throwing me into unconsciousness.
I woke to a lit van and the same stranger sitting on a wooden box, witling, with his head bowed.
Eventually, he stood and said, “Welcome, prisoner.”
Quickly, I realised my arms and legs were tied. I didn’t speak. There were too many puzzling questions roaming around in my head.
“Miss your family? Well, they’re not coming. No one is,” he whispered, pacing around his prey.
He disappeared behind me and returned with a remote. Pressing a button, a TV lit up on a news channel.
“Thirteen-year old, Olivia Sinner, disappeared at what Detectives believe was Sydney’s Memorial park, early this morning. Parents, Chris and Donna, are worried if their eldest daughter will return.”
Smiling, the mysterious man left me overnight.
Realising my parents were worried about me kept me up at night, concerned about my future. The ropes were like iron bars, imprisoning both me and my thoughts. I sat weeping for a couple of hours, when I shifted from being stiff. The ropes almost immediately fell away. Standing up, I located an emergency escape route above my head, the source of the room’s dim light. Piling boxes and anything in the room, I pushed the trapdoor aside and lifted myself up.
Thankful for freedom, I ran along the streets, hearing the kidnapper’s shrill shrieks behind me.